What's your story?

Question

If you feel comfortable sharing, drop your story below. Ive always enjoyed reading everyone journeys. Such unique and beautiful stories. I say it all the time: it's the shittiest club to be in, but it's got the best (and strongest) members. ❤ You all are some amazing and bad ass women. 
How long have you been TTC? 
What led you to IVF? 
Did you try anything else prior to? 
How are your SOs in all of this? 
Feel free to elaborate past these questions.

Answer

Hi everyone. I am 27, and me and my husband have been TTC over 3 years now. We always knew it would be tricky, he had an undescended teste as a kid that wasn't operated on til late, so knew it would have an effect. Theoretically there's nothing wrong with me that they've found (altho I never had hysteroscopy or anything as they knew we'd need IVF)
Sperm count showed almost zero sperm, like 10 or 12 (individual not million!) We tried a few sperm freezes to see if they could get enough to use but nothing survived freeze and thaw. He then had 2 surgical sperm retrievals (PESA and TESE) but neither of those got any living sperm, so we ended up having to choose a sperm donor, which was pretty tough.
Did our first IVF round this Feb with donor sperm, and I also donated half of my eggs from that cycle to a stranger (paying it forward as we used donor sperm). 🙂 We got 15 eggs, half were donated, only ended up with 1 very early blast which failed on a fresh transfer, so back to square 1. Starting another IVF cycle shortly and keeping all the eggs this time, so hoping we stand a better chance!! 🤞🤞🤞🤞

Answer

Hi everyone! My name is Rocio and I’m 36 years old. We started our TTC journey on 2015. I have PCOS so we are doing IVF to help us bring home baby. We have done 3 egg retrievals and 8 transfers. We have gotten pregnant 5 times but have miscarried 6 babies (a set of twins), our last miscarriage happened in March 18, 2019. We delivered our sleeping daughter at 20 weeks. Our last IVF cycle was a failed cycle since we didn’t get any normal embryos. 
We are doing a fresh new IVF cycle, and we are scheduled to start medication on July 17th, with a tentative egg retrieval of August 31st. We are doing PGS testing so we are scheduled for a FET. 
Our journey has been a long one but we are hopeful that this will be our time! 🙏🏽

Answer

Thanks for starting this thread! I like reading others stories too. I tried to keep mine short...but...failed lol
I am 18 natural cycles, 1 ti (cancelled iui), 3 medicated iuis in since April 2018. 
I had wanted my husband to have an sa done before we started trying bc he's on about a dozen medications from a double transplant and was on antibiotics for a full year following his transplants (done in Feb 2017). But he didn't want to. We tried 2 cycles then decided to take a break to work on getting healthy...i wanted to lose weight and reduce caffeine intake. We started up again dec 2018.
In may/June 2019, he finally agreed to an sa. It showed low/borderline counts so they said we could do iui. Then came the hsg test in july 2019.
They sent me to a radiology center and the tech couldn't insert the catheter and said i had cervical stenosis. They did a hysteroscopy with dialation and endo biopsy a few weeks later. All was normal. 2 days later I go back to the radiology center and this time he could insert the catheter but couldn't get the dye in. It was devasting. So my drs decided they would do the hsg instead but they would have to borrow another space to do it which took timing...so everything kept getting delayed. They offered to do an iui in August while we wait but they ended up missing my ovulation.
At the same time, I got a new job starting Sept 3rd which changed my insurance and where I could go. So I had to go to a new clinic the end of October. My new dr looked over the history I provided and said there was no way I had stenosis since they were able to do a hysteroscopy. He offered to prove it and I took him up on it and he successfully inserted an iui catheter with no problem.
So then I finally had my hsg test done by my new dr few weeks later and he had to clamp my cervix, but he was able to do it. They did 3 iuis and 1 times intercourse when the iui had to be cancelled. We knew ivf would be the next step. We had to wait until july 1 for my insurance to cover it. We almost paid out of pocket in April but then covid happened and even tho my clinic stayed open, we decided to wait.
So here we are! Im on birth control waiting for my insurance to approve the pre auth. Hoping for sometime next week to start and retrieval late july/early August.

Answer

I’ll try to keep my story short.  I have 
Pcos and difficulty getting my uterine lining thick enough to naturally support a pregnancy, he has low sperm count.  May/June 2018 we did an egg retrieval, 14 eggs, 7 mature, 5 fertilized normally, 3 made it to blast and were frozen.  We didn’t pgs test.  From june-September 2018 we tried to get my lining thick enough for a transfer with estrogen protocol but couldn’t.  Scrapped that and in September 2018 did a natural FET with ovulation induced with femera.  We transferred 1 embryo in September 2018 and our daughter was born May 2019.  She is now 13 months old and we would like to give her a sibling, so our plan is to do another natural FET in August or September.

Answer

Hey everyone! I see some familiar people in here and some that I don't recognize so its nice to meet/see you all! 
We've been ttc for about 4 years now, at the 2 year mark we went to an RE - all the testing came back normal except FSH slightly elevated for my age (30)- other than that everything seemed textbook. Went into medicated IUIs - we were planning on 3 - 3rd "kind of worked" with a chemical/ early miscarriage so we did 3 more all failed. Went on to do IVF with a new doctor in May- my body didn't seem to be responding too well to the meds- 17 follicles at baseline only 7 were responding to meds. 14 retrieved 7 mature, 5 fertilized with ICSI and nothing made it to blast. So doctors guess it could be endometriosis inflammation causing bad egg quality - he said we could try one more but ultimately recommended donor eggs. I have a lot of symptoms of endo but never got diagnosed. I switched doctors back to my old fav RE. She is putting me on a pretty aggressive protocol hopefully get more eggs to respond, add HGH hopefully help with quality & lupron to supress endo for 2 months prior if that is the cause. Lupron depot shot started last night and lasts 4 weeks, then transition into BC that will keep suppressing any endo inflammation and then transition into HGH and then stims. Just PRAYING we get some good results this round. This round is hardly covered by insurance so it is literally the biggest gamble of our lives so far. 🤞🏻 
Can't wait to follow along with everyones journeys. I hope we ALL get the BFPs we are praying for!

Answer

So glad to have found these groups!  I started in the June/July group so hi again those that were there, and hi to the new ladies.
Background:
TTC #1 since 2018, I’m 37, he’s 47
Tried naturally, chemical first (and I think second) month trying, went to gyn for help.  All bfn since then.  Long but regular cycle for me, sperm lowish motility but got it to normal naturally in a few months.
3 medicated/monitored cycles, then 2 more with IUI
Started at fertility clinic #1, clear hsg, they wanted to go straight to ivf, I demanded implantation failure blood panel first, found high positive ANA, ruled out known auto-immune disorders with rheumatologist, clinic didn’t buy into reproductive immunology, switched clinics
Started at fertility clinic #2.  Hysteroscopy found septate uterus (and a polyp), fixed w surgery.  Didn’t respond to letrozole anymore so two more iui with gonal.  One last gonal iui round (w 5 ready follicles!) switched to ti on trigger day thanks to covid.  Added auto-immune protocol after ovulation (steroids, blood thinners, etc) but bfn.  Next stop ivf (after covid delays).  Everything out of pocket.
IVF now:
Baseline May 1st
Egg Retrieval June 4th
20 retrieved, 16 mature, 9 fertilized, 4 blasts, 3 pgs normal
Saline sonogram found little polyp
In mock cycle now- will do era and receptiva in two weeks (implantation failure is still working theory)
Will do hysteroscopy for retrieval the next month
Hopefully fet after that!!!! Will still do autoimmune protocol.

Answer

Hi all, 
My story so far...I found out I had PCOS at about 20yrs old, when I queried the doctor about being able to fall pregnant she said “don’t worry we will just pump you full of hormones”.
Well 12 years later here we are and the hormones didn’t work.
AF has been all over the shop for years- there were a number of years it never came. I started doing accupuncture and AF returned.
My husband and I are both 32 now, we started trying in 2018. About 6 months later with no pregnancies we found our specialist and started taking Metformin. We did 5 cycles of ovulation induction with no pregnancies.
This year we started IVF, I’ve had 1 retrieval, 12 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilised, 5 made it to blast. 
1 fresh transfer (unsuccessful) 
Tested 4 remaining embryos
2 came back normal 
We did one frozen transfer (unsuccessful).
I now have 1 remaining tested embryo. 
I have had a full recurrent implantation/miscarriage blood work done- 20 vials of blood taken later!! All came back normal.
Our next step will be doing another retrieval before doing an endometrial biopsy to check for Natural killer cells.
Looking like our next transfer will be this September 🤞🏼 Praying it’s our turn soon 💕

Answer

We have 1 son who was born in 2017. I had Preeclampsia and an emergency c-section so I was told to wait a year before ttc again. We waited 10 months before we started trying, and we tried for 1 year before going to a fertility specialist. My husband has good sperm (and lots of them), but my HSG showed some concerning lines around my uterus. We thought nothing of it, so we tried 5 rounds of Letrozole + timed intercourse and 1 IUI before moving to IVF. We retrieved 16 eggs from my egg retrieval in March, and we now have 4 embryos on ice, 2 girls and 2 boys. My Receptiva test after my retrieval showed endometriosis, so I was put on 2 months of Lupron to suppress it before my FET. My hysteroscopy was done in June and several polyps were removed to prepare for my FET. I’m hoping to start my estrogen on the 14th and FET in August 5🙏

Answer

My husband and I did three IUIs in Feb, Mar and Apr 2018 after 2 years of trying. In Jun 2018 we did IVF with ICSI and I got pregnant with my son, Tobias, who was born Mar 2019. We are ready to add a sibling and since my cycle started back up in Jun 2020 (and our clinic is on summer closure from Jul 18-Aug 8), we hope to do a FET in Aug or Sep 2020. At my intake scan in Jun 2020, I had a small polyp in my uterus. If this hasn‘t been passed in my Jul or Aug cycle, I will need a D&C in Aug, so we would have to wait until Sep to do the FET. We have 7 frozen embryos.

Answer

Hi everyone. My DH and I started to TTC in October 2018 and we have never been pregnant. In January 2020 I found out I had PCOS from my obgyn I had no idea. Then in February I did an HSG which came back normal. We then tried four cycles with TI and Letrozole but again nothing happened. Then my DH did an SA which came back normal. So now we are starting IVF for the first time. I start birth control tonight for 12 days before the stimulation injections. 
I am hopeful but also trying to be casual about this journey so that I won't get crushed if we don't get the results we are hoping for. This community has helped me enormously because I really struggle to get support from people in my life. I had a particularly awful night last night because I found out a close friend of mine is pregnant and I think it happened very quickly for her but I also had no idea she was trying. I'm happy for her of course but it's hard. The issue isn't just that she is pregnant it's also that now her life will be mostly about her kid and all that talk is really triggering for me. At this point I am trying to spend most of my time with people who don't have kids.

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