Sensitive post-natural pregnancy after ivf baby

[CC2018]

Hi, I haven't posted for a while but this forum was a great support for me when we were struggling to conceive and whilst we went through the ivf process. I hope this story doesn't offend but I wanted to give some positivity of the view of a natural pregnancy after ivf. It took 3 years and many tests for us to be diagnosed with unexplained infertility before we were allowed to have an ivf cycle on the nhs. We were fairly young, being just 29 and 33. We had 8 eggs collected, 5 fertilise and 3 make it to day 5 but on transfer day they said only one was good enough to transfer and despite the other 2 doing so well they didn't believe they would survive the freeze and thaw process. From that one egg we were lucky enough to conceive for the first time and now have our beautiful daughter who is nearly 20 months. During all this time, I had tracked my cycle and continued to do so after my daughter was born. We had decided not to use any hormonal contraception due to all the drugs i'd had during my ivf cycle and that during all our initial tests there had been a couple of anomalies with some of my hormones, though I was told none of them were significant enough to cause infertility. When at the hospital after having my first daughter, many of the midwives commented how they'd known or heard of people in our situation going on to conceive naturally straight afterwards and that we should be careful. I didn't take much notice of it since we had never been able to conceive at all in the time we had tried and we'd come across a few so called medical professionals that made the throw away comments anyone struggling to conceive dreads to hear, "just relax, it'll happen", "don't worry, we'll soon help you get pregnant and when they're older you'll wonder why you wanted one" (coming from a GP who already had 4 children herself). Fast forward to this year and I realised my period was later than usual. I didn't think anything of it as before my daughter I'd had cycles ranging between 24 days to 35. After having her they were more average from 27-30. I decided to take a test and expected the usual negative I had experienced so many times before only for my period to show up a day later. However this time it didn't. It was positive. My husband and I were in shock and also absolutely thrilled at the same time. It had happened, we had conceived naturally without trying and even whilst making some efforts to avoid it, since i'd had an emergency section and was advised to allow my body time to heal before having another baby. Now after a very straightforward pregnancy, we have another beautiful daughter who is now 8 weeks old. There is just less than 18 months between my 2 girls, something I could never have imagined 3 years ago. We feel incredibly grateful and I hope that our experience gives hope to others. Good luck on your journeys and baby dust to you all x

[Lots8788]

Lovely news! congrats and thanks for sharing xx

[AllWeNeedIsluv]

Lovely post. Huge huge congratulations my love. Sooooo pleased for you 😘💗

[Ranchu90]

All the best. A very inspiring story. Thank you for sending so much positivity 💝 and congratulations for your beautiful girls.

[Chantysal]

that's amazing. congratulations !!

[Cinderella5]

Congratulations!! Chuffed to bits for you.xx

[Rainbowbaby92]

Amazing story! Congratulations to you 🥰 xxx

[Hidden]

Wow❤️❤️ congratulations and thanks for sharing

[Helto200]

Just amazing. Thank you for sharing. You are right, it is nice to get some positive pregnancy stories too. Congratulations on your wee family. Xx

[Hidden]

Sometimes once your body has achieved pregnancy it just knows what to do naturally again. congratulation for both of your pregnancies/children x

[destiny121]

Absolutely amazing news....congratulations and wishing you and your family all the best 😘😘😘

[Cazzab2020]

Thank you for sharing your story.... I’m very similar except I’m 41! I’m in the 2ww - have a 5aa on board and all results are as good as it seems you can get at the moment..... I can’t find a reason other than my age and chromosome issues for it to not work but...! I have 5 days left to go....

[Baggit]

That’s a beautiful story! 💕

[Cassie_56]

Hi, I know this post is old but congrats on your baby! I have a 9 week old LB from a second round of IVF. We didn’t have any embryos to freeze so if we want to try again then we will need to do a full round. Everyone keeps talking to me about contraception and it just feels stupid after all the years trying! I also kind of want to make the most of this supposedly fertile time postpartum but don’t want to get pregnant too soon as had an EMC and been advised not to. Anyway, I just wondered if you used any contraception at all and how long was it before you fell pregnant? Thank you x

[CC2018 in reply to Cassie_56]

Hi Cassie_56 ! Firstly, congratulations on your baby boy. Secondly, I know exactly where you are coming from with the whole "you should really use contraception" despite having struggled to conceive in the first place feelings 🙄 It seemed silly to me too, we'd had 3 years of trying with absolutely nothing and in my head at times I was thinking why bother, I had to have help getting pregnant and will probably need to do ivf again in the future. However, the sensible and overly dramatic part of my brain began thinking, yes but if I get pregnant too soon my c section scar will rip open and that would be horrific! So yes, whilst tracking my cycle, we also used condoms to avoid pregnancy. I'd been on cerazette for 6 years prior ttc and with the ivf hormones too, I really wanted my body to have a break, and see if my cycle would go back to normal. I hadn't had a period for nearly 6 years whilst on cerazette because it can stop you bleeding completely, so the bizarre range of cycle lengths I was having after stopping it were rather annoying. We had talked about having a gap of about 18 months to 2 years before trying for a 2nd baby, the earlier end at 18 months was for me to focus on getting healthy, tracking my cycle in as much detail as possible, and then decide how and who we wanted to have another ivf cycle with. My cycle after having my daughter seemed fairly regular between 27-30 days and I had been tracking my ovulation too and knew it happened anywhere from between day 10-14 of my cycle. Anyway, when my dd1 was nearly 9 months old, it was coming up to Christmas and after a slightly stressful start into motherhood (massive guilt about being unable to bf and using formula combined with ivf and an ec, I was thinking I wasn't a very good woman or mother as I hadn't done anything naturally). I had finally found my happy place and we were enjoying life as young family and over the festive period we indulged in good food and I even had a drink which I hadn't done for 3 years whilst ttc. My husband and I had talked about trying for a 2nd baby but still wanted to wait. However, maybe we were feeling too relaxed (for the first time in nearly 4 years) and despite carefully tracking my fairly average length cycles, my body decided to throw us a curve ball. Most of the time we used contraception during my fertile window (and silly I know, but times where I felt like I really might get pregnant) and the one time we didn't use it was straight after my period where normally I had about 10 days before I was fertile. Now the cycle of this period I had noticed had been shorter than the others at 25 days but I hadn't thought anything of it and believed it was safe because from what I'd tracked and recorded, I still wouldn't have been fertile. Plus, with our history, there was no way in my mind we would get pregnant from a one off where I wasn't at my fertile time anyway. How silly was I! So, although we had initially had a plan of when we would start trying for a sibling, we were given a lovely surprise and despite the shock of getting pregnant when I already had a 9 month old baby, it's worked out really well. I won't lie, the small age gap is difficult at times and I commend anyone who has children with much smaller age gaps between them but there is just less than 18 months between our girls and they really love each other. Sorry for the ramble but hopefully that has answered your questions. Good luck with your lb and baby dust for no. 2, fingers crossed you won't need ivf again x