Hi all. Tough old day today for us all I’m guessing. Sending lots of love.
My question is - I’ve had 2 failed IVF cycles. One fresh and one frozen. I’m planning my new fresh cycle for the end of March when AF arrived. The meds are in the fridge, ready and waiting.
I’m just trying to mentally prepare myself - what if IVF doesn’t work for us. Where do we go next? Is it our only hope of having a baby?!
I’m 34 and my wonderful husband is 41 this week.
Is just so hard feeling totally out of control and our fate is completely out of our hands.
Any words of wisdom or anyone with further plans, I’d welcome your thoughts
Xxx
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Hope752
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One of my family members went through fertility issues for 8 years and lost 3 babies! Which is heartbreaking. Her perfect little boy arrived early this year, she adopted a 4 day old baby early this year he is absolutely perfect in every way and the whole family has fallen in love with him ❤️Wishing you lots of baby dust.
He is so so loved! I wish you all the best in your journey. She couldn’t see a light at the end Of the tunnel but now she’s found the light 💡 and he’s perfect ❤️❤️❤️
Im sorry you’re having such a hard time with these feelings hun, IVF is an incredibly tough journey and like every journey it has its bumps in the road, or learning stops as I prefer to call them. I know you may not see the end of the tunnel now, but after a failed cycle there’s always some learning to apply to the next one and make it a successful one. And if it doesn’t work, try again. With the learning you’ll take a different road and hopefully be successful.
You are 34 and there is still plenty of time (as in medical terms) to realise your dream ❤️💪🏻Don’t give up ❤️💪🏻We’re all in this together! Xx
Thank you for this. This is a very positive way of looking at things and very rational 🥰
Each cycle was different and the third will be too. But I do feel that the clinic is just guessing on what to do next as in ‘let’s try ‘this’ this time’ rather than any medical reasons. Is this normal - more of a trail and error approach if you know what I mean?!
Yes I totally understand what you mean, I had that feeling too at my clinic (which I then left). Unfortunately with ‘practice’ I learnt that IVF is not such a controlled process as I thought it was at the beginning, but very much of a ‘try this, then that’ approach. Which I hate because I’m such an organised person lol Yes exactly, trial and error approach as you say.
You’ve had 2 failed cycles so at this point they should be able to identify what has gone wrong and have a plan for the next one.
In my case, I have issues with eggs quality (I’m 40 and started IVF at 36), producing a few eggs, a few embryos which all had genetic issues (when tested). According my clinic was just a matter of finding the ‘golden egg’ (of course, keep giving them money lol) but I’ve decided to move onto egg donation (clinic abroad) and I’m now 19 weeks pregnant ❤️
I’m glad my feelings are not totally off the mark then. Just got to keep hoping and praying and doing what we’re doing (the hardest part is laying off the Prosecco 😩) ☺️ xx
Thank you! ❤️Aaaah forget the Prosecco try some good virgin cocktails instead xx it’s all temporary anyway (lack of Prosecco included) You’ll get there hun stay strong and anytime you need to vent we’re here 😉💪🏻❤️Xxx
I think (and hope) you are premature with your question and hope it’s third time lucky for you.
I am a LOT older than you but I’ve had six fresh rounds of IVF and also been pregnant six times but always chemical or miscarriage (not all ivf some natural) so I have reached that what’s next question
I think obvious things are:
- a second opinion/different clinic
- donor eggs or donor sperm
- adoption
- a life without children
It’s taken me about six months to get my head around even thinking about these things but these days they are all getting easier to deal with. There are so many ‘miracle’ stories on here and I hope you are one but just to reassure you there are some of us who don’t get that miracle for whatever reason and we do have options and can go on to have a happy and fulfilled life
I am confident it will be third time lucky for you xx
I know there’s no answer for this - but when do you know it’s time to give up and start thinking about other options?! I wish I just knew if it will work, as I’m sure we all do 😩
For me we had been going for a couple of years and our results were getting worse not better. We had a really open conversation with our consultant and he said give up on your own eggs and go donor or don’t have children. I think by round six I was realistic that something wasn’t quite right but ironically I did get pregnant on round 6 but it was a chemical pregnancy. We then arranged to speak to another clinic actually about donor but they went through my background and he also said give up on your own eggs they are too old.. and that’s when I knew I didn’t have any fight left in me
It all depends though, there is an element of luck and if you are getting to day 5 and transfer etc it could just be a matter of time. I lived in hope and all those miracle stories for at least a couple of years. For me when I hit 43 I realised that for whatever reason I was clearly the ‘chosen one’ that won’t have that miracle but as I say I am a LOT older than you and my eggs haven’t kept up with my youthful outlook on life.
Have you spoken to your consultant what have they said? you never know this could be the round - it takes on average 3 ivf rounds to have a baby xx
So here’s what worked for us, for what it’s worth and I know from scouring these pages before I was desperate for anything.
We undertook 4 rounds of fresh ICSI. Each time had to be fresh, as we had nothing to freeze due to ‘alleged’ egg quality 😬.
We had one chemical, one MMC and one round with a BFN.
I’m very, very happy to say we are now 25 weeks pregnant and due in June.
here is a list of the things we changed and it worked for us.
1 Started taking Clexane, still on it now.
2 Ten month break before our successful round. Let my body/hormones rest.
3 Changed sperm - went with donor.
4 Read It Started with an egg.
I was nearly suicidal when going through all of this, so I hope that any of my information posted today can help, even a little.
Good luck and keep strong
I felt exactly like this after my second round. I did 3 fresh rounds and during the 3rd I was preparing for the worst, and thinking of the reality of it never working.
However, like others have said lots of learning is done after each cycle and I am pleased to say I am now almost 17 weeks with twins from that 3rd round that I had written off. I am 37. I would also add that age can be a big factor and thats on your side at 34.Only you know what's best for you moving forward but you will see lots of us on here that needed a few goes before we got there. I'm glad i pushed on despite the negative thoughts I had following the first 2 failed rounds.
Yes, I had a good one for transfer and a 2nd that was a little behind which they said they will watch and freeze. I just said could I have both as this is my 3rd go. The consultant agreed but wasn't promoting it. I just felt like I needed an extra bit of hope. We were gobsmacked it worked but absolutely thrilled.I was told that for the 3rd go they do consider double transfers but it was an absolute no chance on the previous 2 rounds xx
That sounds good. All 3 were fresh rounds with stims. This was the only round we had anything to freeze too, which we didn't in the end as we had them both transferred. If you have some already frozen then thats brill xx
Hi Hope. Your name on here says it all. You have hope so hold onto that hope and keep hoping and never give up hope! I always knew I’d be a mum one day but didn’t know when it even how, I just knew I had to get my head down and keep going. My plan was ivf, followed by donor eggs abroad, followed by adoption. I had 3 fresh cycles, 8 embryos transferred, one miscarriage, but then finally got my baby who is now a year old. Don’t give up on your dream of being a mum. If you want to be a mum and can imagine yourself being a mum, then you’re already halfway there - you’re a mum just waiting to meet your baby. There’s always options and you’ll know what to decide and when as you keep going on this journey. I believe it takes most people a few goes of ivf before it works so keep going xxx
It was a long hard ivf journey but I did get there in the end and it was totally worth it and I would do it all over again...and will be! Have 3 frozen embryos left x
Then being young as you both are I would not give up easily. Get second opinion and change clinic/doctors if needed. Most cases like yours have a fix. Happy to give you a recommendation for second opinion of desired. Keep hope!
It is very heartbreaking and stressful. I hope it works this time but if it doesn't, look into adopting an embryo, or using a donor. I have heard people say they are very happy with these options. It's a much faster route to success.
I have given up after only one round and chose a donor. I didn't have the strength to keep going when the donor option was so much easier. I'm just too old.
Is there a reason for doing fresh over frozen? I have read that frozen has higher rates of success because there's something about doing egg retrieval and implantation the same cycle that lowers the likelihood of success. Probably all the hormones. However a fresh donor cycle is even more successful than your own frozen.
I totally agree ours were all fresh and I believe still that doing egg retrieval and then attempting implantation is difficult. All those hormones and enlarged ovaries etc. We weren’t fortunate enough to ever be able to do frozen round. So this is why I say, although you want to push on round after round, back to back has lower success rates. The body, ovaries, hormones i believe need a break.
I completely understand after our second failed round of IVF me and my husband made plans to go private and event went to go and see a consultant as to what our options were (I was shocked to see there were so many) In the meantime we decided to treat ourselves to a holiday! Where we would drink as much and eat as much of whatever we wanted without worrying about ivf and egg quality etc.
We had an amazing time and on our return were ready to start our first private round. Anyway I never needed to start the private round as rather unexpectedly I never got my period and discovered that I was pregnant with our now one year old daughter!
I completely get that at the moment you feel there are no options but there are!!
When we were away me and husband had a really honest and positive conversation about all our options and what we were up for together as a couple and what had become a sad holiday turnt into a real positive.
We were so lucky 🍀 and I understand that (also in my previous round I had the scratch and I imagine I still had a lot of drugs in my system)
I also think just having a pressure free holiday really made the difference for us both.
I know everything Is closed up at the moment but hopefully everything will begin to open up soon and you could maybe even have a staycation.
If there's one thing I've learnt in the 3 years we were trying (2 miscarriages, 3 failed ivf rounds and 3 chemicals) its that the one good thing about ivf-if it doesn't work for you- is it can sometimes lead you down a path where you find the answers you're looking for. For us, we discovered- after another chemical- that I had aggressive nk cells that attacked the embryos at implantation stage. This led me to take steroids and intralipids which then resulted in a natural pregnancy. Ivf is great for a lot of people. But it wasn't the reason I got pregnant; It was something I did to find the real cause of my infertility. We learnt so much from the rounds we did- we knew I had good egg reserves, we knew my partner had good sperm with good fertilisation rates, we knew our genetics were normal (we did Karyotype testing, which I do feel was a waste of money but at least it ruled this out). So my advice for you is to learn as much as you can from your cycles and investigate anything that seems off.
Hi Hope, I've had this conversation with my husband (and myself) a lot! I'm the kind of person who doesn't do well without a plan a/b/c so for us we decided we would give IVF a shot - a really decent shot (we've done 3 egg collections and 5 transfers plus a hysteroscopy, tube clipping and an ERA). We don't seem to have issues with eggs or sperm or even getting good blastos, they just don't seem to implant. So for me, I am determined to find out why. I think we'll keep going until we're just mentally exhausted. If this transfer (number 5) doesn't work then we'll probably do another cycle and PGT-A test our embryos, and also do an immunology test - as these are the last 2 options really (for us). But essentially we would like a family, so if IVF doesn't work, we'd look in to adoption.
I'm 38 so a bit older than you, and I do feel the time pressure - but I try to not see it as a race to get to the end, rather a journey to experience. You're still young ❤️ so I would definitely try another cycle if I were your age! But I also completely understand how draining it all is.
Ultimately I always feel like if someone could tell me that it WILL work, then I wouldn't mind how long it takes - but of course they can't do that - you have to find that inner strength. xx
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