Natural or medicated FET

[Navy88]

Apologies for the long message but I am looking for advice regarding moving forward with next FET.My history is before starting IVF my previous history, I have lost 5 pregnancys.. 2 to ectopic pregnancies and 3 by miscarriage .. 1 was whilst I was carrying my youngest daughter (she was a twin) I lost the 2nd baby.

I have carried 2 daughter's to term, conceived naturally and no intervention needed throughout pregnancy. My last pregnancy ending in my last ectopic leaving me with no fallopian tubes and our only option IVF.

I have had 4 failed transfers so far, the embryos from all cycles have all developed well and high grade, my lining thickens and it's supposed to, I ovulate and have regular periods every month.

My question is we have 2 frozen embryo's left in storage, my last cycle they upped my meds to have prognova tablets, prontogest injections plus pessaries 3 X a day.. this cycle still failed.

I am now considering whether a fully natural cycle may be better? Whether I'm just fighting my natural body and all the intervention with meds is actually doing more harm than good?

Obviously I want this last cycle to work but given we have now had 4 fail and had a lot of meds I feel like maybe we should change course?

Has anyone gone down this route and found a natural FET cycle more beneficial than a medicated one?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated

[DianeArnold Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Hi Navy. You’ve certainly been through far too much, bless you. I can fully understand your need for change. I suppose you won’t know until you try, but I do hope one of your remaining two little ones will be staying. Some of the others will share their experiences I’m sure. Good luck. Diane

[Navy88 in reply to DianeArnold]

Thank you for your reply, I just feel a bit like nothing seems to be working right now and might be worth a try? Who knows x

[McQueeny]

personally a natural cycle was far better for me - always struggled to get my lining thick on a medicated cycle, on a natural cycle it was great. You say your lining was good anyway so I don’t know - but might be worth a try

[Navy88 in reply to McQueeny]

Yea my lining was fine naturally and I've always ovulated and had regular periods so in theory it should be fine. I just wonder sometimes if they throw meds at you because they feel it's procedure rather than what you individually need? I think I will discuss it with my clinic on our next visit. Thank you for you reply.Did your natural cycle work?

[McQueeny in reply to Navy88]

I do think they use meds sometimes out of habit, and also because it’s easier for them - that way they can control your cycle and pick the dates, rather than on a natural cycle when they have to check for ovulation and then the dates are dictated for them.

Yes it did, so far, 18 weeks 🤞🤞

[Navy88 in reply to McQueeny]

Congratulations on your pregnancy. I think I'll certainly open up a discussion with them about it and see what they say. Thank you 😊

[McQueeny in reply to Navy88]

thank you x

[LSandJ]

I tried to get them to allow me to do a natural cycle too! But it's definitely easier for them not to. (I don't have very regular cycles so thats why I havent done one yet), but even if you do they have to scan you a to try to catch ovulation. Often they miss it and you might need to wait for another month. (They can miss it even with scanning every other day). You will be asked to do OPKs from around day 5 of your cycle. When you show the start of a surge they will scan you, maybe every other day, maybe every day depending on your clinic and body. Of you get clear OPK signals and time to go for scans I think it's a great idea personally!

[Navy88 in reply to LSandJ]

Thank you for the info, certainly something to think about 🙂

[Shelly085]

Have you ever tried doing acupuncture I had a fresh cycle in Jan which unfortunately failed (didn’t do acupuncture, but just done a long medicated cycle(frozen) along side acupuncture.

I done a session once a week for the two weeks before transfer, then I had one pre a post transfer, an one during the two week wait, an I’ve just got my positive test. I don’t know if the acupuncture helped or not but it might be worth a try. Xx

[Navy88 in reply to Shelly085]

Tbh no, I've never looked into anything like that before. The cycle you've just had with acupuncture was that a natural or medicated cycle alongside the acupuncture?

[Shelly085 in reply to Navy88]

Yeh It was medicated I’ve had a long cycle due to me having endometriosis an PCOS

[Navy88 in reply to Shelly085]

Oh I see, yea might be worth looking into then. Congratulations on your pregnancy

[Shelly085 in reply to Navy88]

Thankyou. I would honestly give it a try

[Ggg555]

Hello. So sorry to hear about your losses 💗

I have had 3 IVF cycles in total, 1st one was a fresh transfer, (BFN) second was FET in medicated cycle (also BFN) I then decided to do ERA and move forward with native cycle and I got pregnant in that cycle. I am currently 5 weeks pregnant.

Native cycle worked better for me and I also felt so much better than in fully medicated one as I had lots of side effects with with Estrofem

Wishing you all the best.