Just got off the phone to one of my best friends and a few of her comments have got me thinking...again! She said (in a kind way) maybe I need to slow down a bit, I'm a Reception teacher so have a very full on job, I play in two bands so rehearse three nights a week and I run at least twice a week. Can anyone shed any info or just put my mind at rest that this isn't the reason why myself and my husband are experiencing fertility issues! I have always been a busy person and always on the go, however I do know when I need to slow down, (been sat on the sofa watching TV since 6pm tonight after a very chilled weekend).
Another comment 'have you thought about going private rather than through the NHS' we are currently waiting for a first appointment with the fertility clinic (phone call consultation). Can anyone shed any light on this, am I wasting time waiting for the NHS appointments that seem to take forever?
Just need some help to stop my over thinking brain!
Thanks
H x
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Haylz33
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Presumably she doesn’t have any knowledge of infertility? Firstly, ignore her comments. She doesn’t know what to say so will just try to say something helpful and guaranteed, it won’t be. She doesn’t mean it;she just doesn’t know. Secondly, let me ask you a question. Are you able to think about infertility when you are working or at band practice? If the answer is no. Then think about this one. Do you think about infertility when you’re not doing those things? You can probably see where you I am going with this. When I was at school (I teach infants), I felt better because I was so busy I couldn’t think about our problems. This was relief for me for part of the day. Also, say you strip back your life, but are still not successful with ivf. Your life will be less full than when you started. We’ve not been successful but I am grateful that I didn’t go part time. What would I do now? At least I have my work. About private or nhs; ivf is very expensive. If you can get some treatment with the NHS, why wouldn’t you? Whilst we weren’t successful, I was well cared for and we walked away with no debt. I really hope your treatment is successful and you are able to make the decisions that are right for you. xxx
I would also say, if you can wait to see about NHS funding and rounds then take it...we had 2 fresh and 1 frozen nhs rounds (2 miscarriages), paid for another fresh round privately at the same clinic.
We most recently paid privately for donor egg cycles at a different clinic. I’m not sure financially how much more we could have afforded on ivf as there is always something else that gets put on hold...
We started our first ivf injection on 25/12/14, but did have some time out before the donor cycles x
It's nothing to do with what you do or don't do as most likely infertility is caused by a medical condition which is there regardless of what you do or don't do.
The just relax advice I think is silly as no amount of relaxing helps if there's an underlying condition causing the problems.
I totally understand that you are very sensitive to your friends comments as I’m the same and this is normal when going through infertility. I think your friend tried to help. She probably can see how busy you are and thinks this might be a reason, unfortunately the reason is usually more complex.im sure you enjoy being in a band a lot and it would be silly to deprive yourself from this pleasure!
In terms of the other comment about the NHS, I wished I went private straight away but it’s only because our NHS clinic turned out to be very disappointing. I think it also depends on other factors like: your age, finances so it’s hard for me to advise. I know for sure that I need more help to get pregnant than any NHS is able to offer but a lot of people successfully get pregnant with NHS so this is quite individual decision.
Good luck xx
I wholeheartedly agree with the above replies.
I think it’s great you are still living your life to the fullest. Personally I think if you were sat there thinking about fertility & babies 24/7 that would be unhealthy.
Lots of busy career women fall pregnant & that busy life style doesn’t prevent them from conceiving.
Sadly there will always be the unlucky 1-6 who have difficulties conceiving & may need additional help to fall be it medication, surgery or IVF.
I would stick with the NHS as fertility investigations & treatment can be very expensive. At least get a diagnosis from them before considering private treatment.
I am glad I had the NHS help; mine is a very long story for which I won’t bore you with. But without the NHS funding 3 surgeries to treat my endometriosis ( last one by an endo surgeon) I wouldn’t be having my baby girl in June. Although the NHS is far from perfect I am grateful for our NHS fertility doctor who made our dream possible😍 ( after a long 7 year struggle & an early miscarriage)
People who haven’t been through infertility will never truly understand the struggle we face. And are full of what they perceive as “helpful” advice. It’s not their fault.
Our fertility doctor encouraged us to keep living our lives & to enjoy being together . He did it in a much more tactful manner without making us feel guilty.
If you are genuinely concerned you are over doing it talk to your fertility specialist ( I don’t think you are) & get their advice.
I gave up work as a teacher to get on with this journey just because we were told our issue was ‘unexplained’ and I didn’t have any other answers as what the issue could be- so it had to be stress- wrong! Nothing changed when I gave up work.
Where I am lucky is that my husband an I have our own business anyway, so although I was giving up my teaching job I’ve taken on a lot of the work instead of paying other people to do things for our business so it makes sense for me from that point of view anyway.
If your doing something that keeps your mind occupied that’s great! It’s a long, tough journey and the time goes a lot faster when your not thinking about it.
And I also know what it’s like when you’re having a rubbish day and you go in to your classroom and one of those children do or say something it lifts your heart and you remember why you do the job you do!!
As far as NHS goes what we did was had an initial consultation in a private clinic and payed for all the tests while we waited on the NHS waiting list. This saved us a lot of time because you have to wait a while at every stage with the NHS, you don’t with private.
We had our initial consultation with the NHS at the beginning of September last year- I was able to give them all the tests they needed so we could move straight on to treatment. After that they said we’d have to wait for a letter for the next appointment that could take up to a year!! but 6-8 weeks later we had our appointment to write our treatment plan and ready to start!
The waiting lists in every area is different of course but I was pleasantly surprised how fast it moved when we finally got there.
Teachers, runners and people in bands get pregnancy all the time. If these were reasons for not getting pregnant then they would be contraception options.
People say stupid stuff when it confess to infertility. Just let it go in one ear and out the other. I found it best not to tell anyone. However after giving birth to my daughter I've told all the mum's that's she's ivf and been surprised at how many ivf babies are out there. I think we've bumped into about 20. Lots of people go through this journey.
Have you had the initial fertility hospital appointment and waiting for the funding/ clinic? I got so bored i phoned them up and asked how long the wait was
I am also a teacher, and ivf or not it’s so important to have a work life balance, sounds like you have that sussed!
My advice would be to build in time to relax in whatever way is best with you. IVF is a very intrusive process and can completely take over your life, trying to maintain some sense of normality throughout the process is invaluable. When you feel you need a little down time don’t be afraid to admit it and do something about it.
I had 2 unsuccessful rounds on nhs and am currently 22 weeks pregnant from our 3rd nhs cycle. Paying privately would have caused extra stress I didn’t need and I’m pretty sure would not have changed the outcome as we actually were seen at a private clinic through nhs funding so would have us access to the same meds, docs and facilities 🤷♀️
A lotta luck, persistence and a tonne of trust and patience is required but more often than not people do get to hold their baby in their arms at the end of it all ❤️
I’m afraid to say that person who didn’t touch infertility world, even if try to understand, will not be able to know the place you are in now. I’ve always treated these people even if close to me with a blink eye. I tend even not to discuss much with them... likely I had a friend at that time who suffered the same problems as I so we spent lots of times moaning and discussing issues of ours. I know not everyone has chance to discuss openly about own issues as such, and ‘normal’ people might not fully follow us...
I would say that if you have chance to use nhs do so, I did, I’m greatful to queen ive been given my son😁I had to pay for FETs but stayed with the same clinic and it’s not bad and perhaps cheaper then going privately elsewhere. But of course if you can afford do it whatever you heart is saying!
Oh how little the fertile know! It's frustrating when people offer their opinions but I'm sure it's coming from a good place.
We had nhs funded ivf and it was a very quick process. We were referred in the Jan and I had my first transfer by the end of the March. I know that won't be the same for everyone. Unfortunately it didn't result in a pregnancy but I did have a successful transfer later that year and I now have my beautiful son.
As for your active lifestyle, it's so hard to know why you can't get pregnant (if it's unexplained fertility). I was also very active. I worked hard, played hard and did a lot of exercise. I used to run 5 miles a day but decided to give it up during ivf as I was just so unhappy at all the months of not getting pregnant and I was willing to just try anything, though I continued everything else (when I think back to how physical I was at work I'm amazed my baby was ok, I also work with little children and it's busy work). No idea if giving up running had any impact. I think it's the fight or flight instinct they say can negatively affect pregnancy... but who knows.
I don't think you should feel bad for being busy. You know how to unwind. But I guess taking things a bit slower wouldn't hurt?
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