frozen ivf cycle

[Nerthus]

Has anyone else conceived with one of these? Rather to my surprise I just have, and am slightly taken aback that I have to keep on with oestrogen patches and vile progesterone pessaries till I am 12 weeks! Surely once one's pregnant one's own hormones should do the job? I'm wondering how necessary all this artificial stuff really is! I know I should have asked the doctors about it, and I will do when I go for a scan in a couple of weeks, but wondered in the mean time if anyone else had experience with this particular regime. Is all this paraphernalia what everyone has to do?

Never had to take the oestrogen patches, but the progesterone pessaries aren't uncommon for the first 12 weeks, though how much extra good they actually do is hard to say. The theory seems that once the placenta is fully functioning (8-10 weeks or so) then this takes over, but until then the mothers hormones play a big part of maintaining the pregnancy (or at least convincing the rest of your body that you are pregnant). As you haven't conceived "naturally" the doctors wish to minimise the risk that your natural hormone levels (which have beenn presumably supressed for a month or so) don't suddenly shoot back and upset the pregnancy. There is a higher than usual early miscarriage rate with IVF pgs hence the extra precautions.

For my first IVF pg I took the progesterone religiously until 12 weeks (along with baby aspirin). For my second I took it until 7 or 8 weeks daily and then every other day through to 12 weeks.

Congratulations on your frosty by the way. Good luck with the scan.

Message withdrawn

Congratulations Nerthus! It's amazing isn't it? I was also thrilled to conceive this way - it still blows my mind big style even though I'm fast approaching term! I didn't have patches but did have to use the lurverly pesseries for 12 weeks and also tablets 3 times a day. Maybe the tablets were the equivalent of patches - think I would have preferred tablets as a few times had to rush out of meetings to take pills!

The info I got was that pessaries are a bit of a belt and braces approach to helping the pregnancy. I had a bit of a panic when I realised - after a few weeks - that the pharmacy had given me the wrong (lesser) strength prescription for cycolgest . Was reassured by consultant that they don't actually know how much hormone is absorbed. Luckily all was OK.

Good luck Pruni - here's two of us to show it can work!

I am awaiting some surgery then am beginning IVF.

Just thought I would say its great to hear some positive comments regarding IVF

Is it too personal to ask where you were both treated??

Congratulations, Nerthus. I seem to remember your name from earlier IVF threads. I'm so pleased that you are pregnant. I, too, stuck religiously with the pessaries until 12 weeks. My attitude was better-safe-than-sorry. At least when you come off them, you can enjoy the wonderful feeling of being just a normal, pregnant woman.

Dyzzidi, I was at the Lister Hospital, Chelsea.

Thank you everyone for your kind and helpful comments. I've been treated at the Hammersmith, and they seem very good. Best of luck to everyone who is doing ivf!

I've had one 'fresh' ivf cycle and one frozen, this one. Must say I wasn't expecting this one to work, I'd kind of given up on the whole thing, which is why I haven't been looking at this site for months. My problem doesn't seem to be conception so much as everything staying put. I'm really not convinced this one's going to stay either, so I'm not going to allow myself to get excited till I feel more sure it's really going to happen.