*Sensitive* Our IVF Journey is complete - what I’ve learned along the way

[Missl73]

First, I have to say a huge thank you to all the wonderful people on this forum who have offered me so much help, advice and much needed support over the last 4 years. I couldn’t have done it without you.

My second son has arrived safely and is utterly perfect, I now have a newborn and a 2.5 year old boy after fearing at the start of our journey that I would never get to be a mum. We have overcome severe male factor infertility, 3 egg collection cycles and 5 transfers and one missed miscarriage to get here. (If anyone has questions on this side on specifics of our cycles what worked and what didn’t please feel free to DM me.)

If I could go back in time and tell myself what I know now at the very beginning here is what I would say:

1. Get all the information you can as early as you can. Invest in tests up front and get to know your body. Keep a detailed diary for each cycle because you will be the best advocate for yourself and it helps to know how you respond to different drugs, how long it took for your body to respond etc. Every body is different and trust yourself and know how YOUR body responds so you can be involved in decisions about what to try next. Always know what your plan is next it will help you feel in control.

2. More haste = less speed. It can be tempting to keep pushing ahead with the next cycle, it’s not in your nature to sit still you need to feel like you are doing but actually, sometimes you need to let your body recover so that your next cycle will work better. You will lose more time in the long run by pushing too fast. Learn to be patient and trust your body it’s working hard for you.

3. You can’t control the outcome so you might as well be positive. If the worst happens (which it did when you lost your first baby) it won’t be any less painful because you were expecting it and obsessing over every last detail. You might as well be positive and believe it’s going to work because time spent constantly googling and peeing on sticks isn’t going to change the outcome it’s only going to add to any time you feel miserable if something does go wrong. Once you get your BFP is the time where less information is better for your mental health - let nature do its thing and trust that your body will do what it is supposed to.

4. The most important factor is the genetics of the embryo. Live life as normal after transfer, there is no evidence that things you do are going to influence the result so continue to do things that make you feel good - exercise, sex, eating some delicious chocolate - if the embryo is healthy it will implant even if you do go to that yoga class or a run in your 2ww! It’s a long road and too long to restrict your life, you still need to live it!

5. Invest in your relationship with your partner. You are going to be tested like you’ve never been tested before. And once your babies arrive it’s even harder to stay connected. Couples therapy is a wonderful thing, you must communicate effectively if you are going to survive. Spend time on it before things get really bad, you’ll be glad that you did when you are in the depths of it all.

6. It will be hard but it will be worth it, you can do this.

[AuroraXen]

Huge congratulations 🎊! And very wise words 👍💕 Wishing you lots of happiness with your now-complete family xx

[Hidden]

Massive congrats! xx

[McQueeny]

so many congrats, thrilled for you all 🥰🍾💐

[Solly-44]

And isn’t that the truth!

Huge congratulations lovely, so glad you’re little ones arrived safely ❤️ xx

[BECIO]

that’s so lovely! Congratulations and thanks!x

[Minniemouse88]

Thank you. Just about to start my first cycle due to severe Male Factor Infertility so this has been super to read. Congratulations on your lovely family and thank you for sharing your wisdom x

[Missl73 in reply to Minniemouse88]

Wishing you all the very best, I hope this has given you reason to believe it can be the same for you. If you want to talk at all about things we did to improve sperm feel free to message. My husband had a count of <1 million and DNA fragmentation of over 60% at the start and yet here we are with our two beautiful boys. We managed to make quite a significant difference to that with the right interventions xx

[HedgehogMad]

Congratulations! I'm so glad you managed to achieve your beautiful family 🥰 and such wise words. This gives me hope and encouragement that it might work in the end - we are doing ICSI for MFI too and have had 5 embryos transferred so far with no luck. Hoping next time might be our lucky one! 🤞

[Missl73 in reply to HedgehogMad]

Good luck lovely. We had more success when we swapped to IMSI, we got only 1 blastocyst from our ICSI cycle but 4 from our IMSI cycle from the same number of fertilised eggs and most of them high quality too.

[HedgehogMad in reply to Missl73]

Thankyou ♥️ we had several good quality blastocysts which was amazing but our problem seems to be they aren't sticking 😔 so now wondering if there is something wrong with me too! Will ask about IMSI though for the next EC, maybe they are stopping developing after 5 days...

[Missl73 in reply to HedgehogMad]

I’m sorry that sounds stressful 💔 yes different problem then for us, we struggled to get good blastocysts but had good implantation when we did. Maybe next step is to discuss ERA/ALICE testing to see if you need a different window?

[ruth1988 in reply to Missl73]

Can I please ask, what's ISMI? And can you please advise how you improved sperm? Congrats on your happy ending!x

[Missl73 in reply to ruth1988]

It’s the same as ICSI but they use a much higher resolution microscope and each individual sperm they pick gets graded for quality. My husband had an operation to have a varicocele removed, he also gave up alcohol, caffeine, we saw a fertility nutritionist, he would ice his balls for 30 minutes a day and he was on a much shortened ejaculation protocol for providing samples. We got the DNA fragmentation down to the 30% range doing this. Count was never great but that’s because he had undescended testicles as a child but the quality improvements really helped.

[ruth1988 in reply to Missl73]

Thanks for this. Do they only do ISMI at certain clinics? X

[Missl73 in reply to ruth1988]

I think so. It’s an add on that doesn’t yet have the green light from HFEA but the male infertility specialist we saw recommended it and said the research that has been done is promising so we decided it was worth a try and for us the results were very noticeably different.

[Twiglet2]

congratulations 🤗 lovely age gap for 2 brothers 💜 enjoy your wonderful family xx

[MAPB]

Wise words. I’ve just given birth to my son after 3 years of believing it was never going to happen while my husband kept telling me that it was going to work. I was going to put a similar post on here now it is all over but you have done a great job and there is no point repeating it. A strong embryo will survive, I was under a huge amount of strain unrelated to my IVF journey when I had the successful implantation. No amount of anxiety will change the future. Easier said than done, so plan things to distract yourself, go out with your friends and do things that you love. Also I suggest when you do get pregnant to stop looking at this page for a while. Looking at stories of other people’s tragedies is not going to help you. Congratulations x

[Missl73 in reply to MAPB]

congratulations!! I couldn’t agree more - it’s easy to panic yourself because although an absolute godsend forums have way more stories of tough times because that’s when people need the most support it’s easy to forget there are lots of positive stories happening too. Enjoy your newborn snuggles xxx

[MAPB in reply to Missl73]

I will 😊😊

[-noodles-]

What a beautiful post - thank you for taking time to share & think of all our fellow warriors 💜

Huge congrats on your new arrival - and of course your first little man. Enjoy the best Christmas ever 🥰

[K8dferXdder]

congratulations and thanks for the useful tips! You also gave me very useful tips before for male factor which we are following now and slowly getting there Enjoy your complete family now, sending you love 💗

[Missl73 in reply to K8dferXdder]

I’m so glad they’ve been helpful. Sending you all the very best luck on your journey xxx

[Eternalwarrior]

Congratulations and enjoy your lovely family!! 😘❤️😘❤️