35 and pregnant for the first time after IVF

[clareym]

Hi ladies!

I was wondering if anyone else out there is pregnant for the first time after a round of IVF? I've been looking for forums for women who have experienced what we have to get pregnant and I'd be keen to find out how everyone feels about their pregnancy.

I'm just 6 weeks pregnant with one (a second embryo did implant but didn't make it) and I'm absolutely terrified it is going to go away!!

As interesting as it is to read stories in the 1st trimester forum, so many posters on there are either much younger and/or got pregnant naturally. My experiences and concerns differ from theirs so I'm finding it hard to participate.

If anyone has a similar experience I would love to hear about it!

 

[ariel01]

Hi clareym!

First off congrats!! I know what a difficult journey IVF is and how excited you must be right now!! There are a few ladies on these forums that are pregnant now for the first time thanks to IVF including me at 36.

I do think our concerns are somewhat different than those who didn't do IVF or are much younger. I was hoping that the struggles we had getting pregnant would lead to an easy pregnancy but our journey continues to be rocky mostly as we are expecting identical twin girls which we're so happy about but puts us high risk.

Anyway would love to help however I can just know you definitely are not alone!!

 

[gingmg]

Me too! Would love some buddies.

 

[ariel01]

Congrats gingmg!! Would love to hear your story. Hope everyone is doing well!!

 

[gingmg]

Arie- congrats on the twin girls! How exciting!
Our story is somewhat straight forward. I married a woman so our whole TTC journey was IUIs through a clinic. After a reasonable amount of time of that not working we did clomid, then injectables, and lastly IVF. It was a draining year and a half and looking back I wish we had done ivf sooner, but it was so invasive and we wanted to follow the timeline of what people were doing at home to make sure we needed it. I guess I was convinced IUIs would work, but they didn't. After we had success, of coarse I was so happy, but I did struggle with the emotional aspect of "my baby was created in a dish". I had a hard time and felt like I was a broken woman. I didn't really talk about my TTC journey with anyone except this website and I've been paranoid about my little secret getting out. I don't know why I have shame surrounding IVF, but I do. The further along I get, its starting to go away. Now I'm just excited and the journey is slowly fading and becoming a memory. Not that I will ever forget the process but the pain isn't as fresh and has been replaced by pure joy.

Clare- I hope you are OK.

 

[clareym]

Congratulations everyone and sorry for the radio silence for the last week or so! I've had an interesting time this week. After only seeing an empty gestational sac at the first ultrasound appointment we had a rather tense 2 week wait to see if anything was growing. We finally had the second us yesterday and saw (and heard) a perfect heartbeat of 148!! Yay! We were so relieved! The doc was really quiet though and when we finally asked him whether everything was ok, he replied that he was trying to work out if we have one or two!! We have a second heartbeat of 124 that we could clearly see on the screen!! We couldn't see two distinct baby-like shapes though so he is guessing that one is hiding behind the other but he is seeing us again on Saturday to try to get some different angles and try to get a better picture. So it looks like we might be having identical twins too, all being well and if everything proceeds as it should. I can't believe it given the second embryo didn't make it so we had discounted the idea of twins completely! Mad! What's it been like for you ariel01? Tense I imagine!

 

[ariel01]

Gingmg - I'm sorry to hear the IUIs didn't work for you. I know how frustrating that can be. I hope you are doing ok now? Feeling better about IVF? I think we all go through some sort of process, dealing with the "white lab clinical-ness of IVF". How far along are you now?

Clareym - OMG about twins! Have you been able to confirm? Much like you, we had discounted that both embryos had made is since we only saw one sac. By week 7 though it was very clear that the one embie had split and we had to wrap our heads around twins again! Heck, even now at 28 weeks we're still pinching ourselves! How are you doing?

Love hearing updates from you gals!

 

[gingmg]

Clare- twins! Double congrats! How exciting!

Arie yes thank you, I am feeling better about our ivf journey. How are you?

 

[ariel01]

Gingmg - so glad to hear you're feeling better. Looks like you're about 14 weeks now? How is everything going?

For me, I'm just so grateful to have made it to 29 weeks. I had pre-term labor start at 20 weeks and have been in the hospital three times. A month ago even the doctors didn't think the twins would stay in, but they have and each day they do we're so thankful! I think us gals who did IVF to get to this stage treasure our pregnancy even more so and will do anything we can to get our babes here!

 

[gingmg]

Arie-What a scary time but am so glad the twins are staying put for now. You are right, every day they stay with you is a good day. Soon enough it will be safest even if they decide to come early. Great job!

 

[ariel01]

Thanks gingmg! Stalking your journal now so we can stay in touch. I wish all the best for you!

Clareym - hope you're doing well!!

 

[gingmg]

Hey thanks for reading, not sure its all that interesting, but its nice to have company. I will read through your journal when I can stay logged on longer. Hope you and babies are well.

 

[cooch]

I was 34 at the ivf and I'm about to turn 35 next week. Delighted to say my first ivf worked. I had low AMH and ended up with 12 great eggs. However, only 1 fertilised and he'll be here within the next few weeks. The way it looked for us was that there may have been a sperm issue. As we were advised any further attempts would need to be icsi.

 

[linda1]