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Infertility
sarah0125
member
New here- first round IVF w ICSI (warning- failed IUI mentioned)
sarah0125
member
in Infertility
Hello everyone- my name is Sarah and I’m new here. Ive never been pregnant and have no children. My husband and I have been trying to conceive for 18 months. We have “unexplained infertility” and male
Infertility factors (low sperm count). We did 2 unsuccessful IUIs. We will be doing IVF w ICSI this month. I am looking for any support, tips, and tricks that people are willing to give. Sending lots of love and support and baby vibes everyone’s way ❤️
Infertility factors (low sperm count). We did 2 unsuccessful IUIs. We will be doing IVF w ICSI this month. I am looking for any support, tips, and tricks that people are willing to give. Sending lots of love and support and baby vibes everyone’s way ❤️
Re: New here- first round IVF w ICSI (warning- failed IUI mentioned)
I'm in a similar boat for my first round of IVF with ICSI this month. We had 4 failed IUIs.
I'm on birth control now. Starting stims on April 22nd with a retrieval early May. I'm anxious about it all but also ready to get started. Would love to support you however I can as we go through this together!
I am crossing my fingers and sending good wishes your way. :)
We started a stim a month ago and had to cancel half way through because of two dominant follicles. I was not mentally prepared for this as a possibility so I took it really hard. I’m sure all of the hormones in my system did not help. Stay optimistic and hopeful but ask questions so you understand what the docs are looking for and observing. I am now on birth control waiting to try again.
I agree with laying down for the shots. I found that was easiest and luckily I have my husband to help administer them. I have done Gonal F and micro HCG and those really didn’t hurt much. It was more the anxiety in my head. I did have a bit of discomfort from bloating, so get some comfy pants or dresses. :)
In my experience friends and family can have a hard time understanding what I am going through, so I recommend having a therapist in your back pocket if you are open to that. It’s just nice to know you have someone who can help you get through all of the ups and downs. I’ve found it helpful to have a judgement free space to say what I’m thinking and learn how to process it so that I can stay motivated to try again. This community seems like a great place to start though!
Wishing you well and the best of luck to you all!
I stopped the BCP on Friday and have my scan tomorrow morning and will be starting meds as long as I get the all clear. I believe I’ll be starting w follistem than adding menopur a few days late.
My trigger shot is an IM hcg- definitely something I cannot give myself. My husband is nervous but said he can do it (fingers crossed!!) I’ll definitely take the advice of lying down for that butt shot! I heard icing in advance can help too.
I was not given progesterone shots but vaginal suppositories instead- I’m relieved to be done w the injections but I heard the suppository can get quite messy
Please keep me posted of your journeys ahead! I agree- I have very supportive friends and family but it’s hard for them to really know what this is like. Sending good vibes to everyone ❤️
One thing I've been doing is saving some fun activities until I started this cycle so that I had a few things to look forward to. I have a Lego project, some other graphic design projects that I haven't had time to get to, etc. My sister also just bought me this coloring book. It's so funny! Highly recommend.
For the sub-dermal injections I would lay down and pinch the skin while he swabbed with alcohol and gave the injection. I put on a tv show or podcast to distract me a little. I plan to try icing the area next time because I read that helps numb it, but it’s not necessary because these ones are a small little pinch if you feel them at all. I did notice as I got more bloated it was harder to pinch the skin and my skin was bouncier so took my husband just a little more pressure to insert the needles, but they really just slide into the skin. You don’t need a dart throwing action for these ones! We injected everything slowly and I could not feel it.
I have not done intramuscular yet. I have read to keep that area warm so the muscle is relaxed, insert the needle quickly and inject slowly, taking breaks while injecting if you need to let the medicine disperse and make room for more. They also say to massage the area after for a few minutes and do some light activity to keep your glutes moving to prevent knots and help with soreness.
I hope this helps and please do share any tips you come up with during your experience!
I hope you’re husband has a very mild case and that you are able to stay healthy. COVID on its own is stressful enough. Take care of yourselves and I hope you can start your cycle again soon.
I actually was supposed to start my stim meds today so I never got that far (positive test yesterday).
Is your plan to proceed w another cycle next month? That’s our plan- I’m worried about what will happen to my cycle after taking birth control for 9 days, I know I need to be patient but it’s getting harder and harder. I hope we both have successful results next month!! No more cancelled cycles!
I hope that not starting your meds and instead being on the birth control for a little longer actually helps you get back on track sooner. I'm usually a very patient person, but infertility has definitely tested that and I really dread waiting and delaying now.
Yes, I hope our next stims are successful and we can then look forward to transfer! Are you planning to do fresh transfer or FET? We are doing FET because we need to do some genetic testing first. Keep posting updates!
Keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers for a successful start very soon!
@enaids thanks for your kind words! Hoping for a very happy may
How are you doing with your stims? That’s pretty cool that we started on the same day
We have 13 follicles right now which I'm a bit disappointed about, but trying to focus on the positive. This is our first round so didn't exactly know what we could expect with how many so we'll see how many they retrieve!!
Sending all the positive vibes your way for your retrieval and the waiting afterwards to hear how they progress! Keep me posted!
13 eggs retrieved
11 mature
8 fertilized
We're hopeful that a lot of these make it to Day 5 blasts!! How did yours go? How are you feeling? Are you planning to send yours out for genetic testing?
Unfortunately, we learned that I may have an egg quality issue (I’m only 32!) on top of everything else because we only had 2 mature eggs out of 12. One of those fertilized yesterday and we will find out about the other one today to see if it will fertilize after another day. 3 more matured in the lab after 24 hours so they did ICSI on those yesterday. We will find out today if any additional fertilized. So we are watching 5 right now and hoping for the best.
If any make it to the blast stage we will be sending them out for PGT testing.
I'm feeling sad and bummed, but trying to stay hopeful for the five we have. We will see what the embryologist says today.
How are your embryos doing? I hope you were able to biopsy several blasts!
@clwilkes thank you for your post, it has really been helping to remind me that there’s still hope that our 1 embryo will be healthy and we can move forward with the FET.
We ended up with 4 sent for testing. At each step I keep saying anything greater than 0 is enough. I'm worried for the test results because we've had one chemical pregnancy and then nothing for a year and a half now. So not sure if that had been a genetic thing or not 🤷♀️
What are you doing the next couple weeks to keep busy? I'm already feeling anxious to hear the results.
Luckily work is picking up a little bit so I can focus (or try to) on that during the day. I don’t really have a game plan right now for distracting myself but I’ve been trying to complete some projects around the house. We may start a mock cycle for ERA while we wait for results, but not sure yet.
How about you?
We just got our results back and we have 3 genetically normal embryos out of 4. We're so excited. We may have to wait an extra cycle to do a transfer though because my clinic basically shuts down the first two weeks of July. Right now depending on when my next cycle starts we may be able to do a transfer around the last couple days if June, but if my cycle starts a day or two late then we may have to wait another cycle which is disappointing. I'm debating going back to acupuncture to see if there's anything they can do to shorten my cycle. I guess we'll see though. 🤷♀️