Looking for some advice?

[Yellowrosex]

I am all very new to this .

myself and my partner found out we had fertility issues about 4 years ago. He is older than me and has children from a previous relationship. at the time we found out this information I was still young and didn’t feel I was ready to go forward with the treatment options that had been put forward to us . I am a more emotional person that my partner and don’t feel I have any friends that can really understand as they have been able to conceive naturally.

I would really appreciate having some more information/understand of ivf . X

[McQueeny]

Hi yellowrose. I’m sorry you have issues - it’s really tough. My husband also has children from a previous relationship, and somehow it makes it worse because then you feel even more alone as he can’t quite share the experience of not having children.... what is it you want to know?

IVF is a tough process - emotionally more than physically (physically it’s not fun, but bearable....). It depends on your reason for infertility, in our case it was unexplained as all our tests came back fine and it just wasn’t working for us. We ended up being recommended a simple, short IVF protocol - which goes ahead over a single cycle (you start hormones when your period starts and collect the eggs within a couple of weeks) - first time didn’t work for us but the third did. We now have a little boy and trying for a sibling...

let us know what your questions are and we’ll answer as best we can ☺️

[Yellowrosex in reply to McQueeny]

Thank you for this message , yes it is really hard as I feel like he isn’t to bothered as he won’t be missing out on that part of life if we don’t go forward with treatment as he has children. We both have some problems yet mine was never really made to clear but due to the nhs not funding anyone where there is already children I can’t even get a clear answer as to why I can’t which I think I found that the hardest.

I have never been a massive Maternal person but feel I have come to this crossroads of do we go forward or not I don’t want to wake up in years to come and regret not doing it but I also have seen people close to my family go trough ivf treatment and saw how hard it was , Tbf I wouldn’t even know where to start with question.

we recently found out that his ex is expecting and this hit me really hard which I was shocked by I found it hard to be excited for the kids when it was something she never planned and just seemed it was so easy for everyone else and I’m left sat here with a million unanswered questions . I am currently looking for a counsellor but again don’t know where to start or look ? .

[McQueeny in reply to Yellowrosex]

Oh I’m so sorry.... totally understand you’re struggling to be happy for them. I burst into tears every time a friend told me she was pregnant.... it’s not fair. It really sucks. It’s also horrible that NHS won’t fun because he has kids. We didn’t go with NHS either, we paid for private treatment. I think your first decision is whether you want to go forward exploring. You’ll need to find a private clinic and find the way to pay.... (there’s help out there for loads etc if you need it). Most clinics will also offer you counselling or refer you to counsellors, so you can ask them about it?

You can try an IUI first, which isn’t IVF - IUI is simpler and cheaper, you can try it first and then if it doesn’t work go for IVF - but your clinic will explain this all when you pick one, worth going for an initial consult to get all your answers, then decide what you do or don’t want to go ahead with x

[Yellowrosex in reply to McQueeny]

Yeah I didn’t expect to feel this way when people around me are getting pregnant. Yeah it’s wrong but I guess how the NHS funding works . We did go to a few open evening at a few fertility clinics but that was a few years back when we first found out I was only 22/23 and felt I was taken seriously as I was still young so it really put me off going .

Thanks for mentioning they provide counselling or can direct you in the right way as I think I want to go and understand the feelings I’m having right now before making any rash decisions. X

[McQueeny in reply to Yellowrosex]

Fertility trouble is really tough - it’s also a very closed club, and if you haven’t been through it you’ll never understand.... as for age, it’s not right that you weren’t taken seriously. Fertility trouble can happen at any age, even though it’s obviously more common when older. The good thing though is that it means you’ve got more time .... There are forums out there you can search out - the website ‘fertility friends’, for instance, has an under-25s board I think... worth having a google.

Good luck over the next steps while you figure out what you want x

[Leanne1230]

Hi, I am sorry to see that you are going through this. I found myself in the same kind of position, all my friends conceived naturally apart from two who had IVF and it worked first time for them both.I have just had my first round of IVF and I'm not going to lie it was hard going. I found I could cope with the injections, the scans, the blood tests etc but when it came to the waiting for phone calls for updates it was horrendous. Unfortunately my first cycle failed and we are waiting for a consultation appointment at the end of the month. If you do decide to go ahead with IVF be sure to ask all the questions you can and ensure that you are being heard.

I hope everything works out for you.

Take care

Leanne

[Yellowrosex in reply to Leanne1230]

Hi Leanne, thank you for this message . I’mReally sorry to hear your first round didn’t work . Which type of ivf did you have ? We did speak with a clinic a few years back the informed us if we did go forward with treatment we would have to have IUI ivf (I don’t know if this is normal way of ivf ).

What is also the true cost of treatment , like I have been looking on the web but my god it’s like a world of information I really don’t know what’s true or not as you get such mixed messages .

X

[Leanne1230 in reply to Yellowrosex]

I was put on the short protocol. I was put on Norethisterone tablets first of all, then I was doing Gonal F injections with Fyremadel injections. Ovitrelle was my trigger shot and then pesseries.

The doctor told us that IUI wouldn't have been option for us as we had been trying over 2 years. I guess it is different for different couples and issues.

We are going through the NHS at the moment. Where we are in Sussex we get two fresh and two frozen cycles. They just do the standard but you can ask for extras which you are then charged separately for like for an example an embryoscope which instead of taking the embryos in and out to monitor them they are videoed so they can see the development that way.

I've found from googling things it gives me such anxiety. I have found a lot of useful information on the Zita West website. They look at things much more holistically which I like the look of. However if paying privately it is likely going to be rather expensive.