Any Aussie ladies starting IVF?

[Take2]

6 is a great number chook, remember it only takes 1.

Maddy- not sure why my bub behaved for the Doppler, must not be ticklish lol. Maybe you are having a girl, isn't there an old wives tale about carrying weight on your thighs with girls? Gotta love the old wives tales

 

[Kirs_t]

Chook that is great that you have 6! I agree it only takes one i only had 5 fertilise after my ec... Will you transfer one or two back? Hope you're feeling ok. I bet you're looking forward to having those embies back on board x

Can't wait for your gender scans maddy and take! Maddy- yep we've got most of the big baby things we need. It's still pretty surreal to walk past the room and see a cot in there! Have you girls bought much?

How are the new mummy's going? How's everyone coping with sleeping/feeding? Xxx

 

[Maddy40]

Chook that is great that you have 6! I agree it only takes one i only had 5 fertilise after my ec...

Me too 6 retrieved, 5 fertilised and only one made it to Day 5. But it really did only take one!

 

[Chook]

Thanks guys! 6 is great. Last time we had 7 it was just that my partner had a awesome count this time when the others have been quite poor so we got our hopes up. I'm having two transferred back tomoz!!! Can't wait to be PUPO again. Thanks for the support it means a lot to me xox

 

[MollyNorwood]

Hi ladies I just have a quick question. How much roughly does it cost for IUI in Australia? I am in Melbourne and will probably (if I have to go down that path) will get it done at the Monash Hospital but I have no idea on cost. A few women have mentioned price on other forums but none I've seen have lived here. Thanks, and baby dust to you all

 

[Maddy40]

Hi Molly...welcome I just happen to have our folder of medical stuff in front of me as I'm preparing our tax papers for the accountant! We did 3 rounds of IUI in Canberra last financial year and the costs were:

Cycle 1 $1808.95 ($657.20 refunded from Medicare)
Cycle 2 $1808.95 ($669.70 refunded from Medicare)
Cycle 3 $1808.95 ($658.80 refunded from Medicare)

Those costs were all inclusive: medications, monitoring, scans & bloodtests. The only additional costs I had were progesterone tablets after Cycles 2 and 3 (2 packs per cycle at $75 per pack).

Do visit here, even if you are at IUI and not IVF stage yet

 

[Chook]

I'm officially PUPO with two lovely 8 cell A grade embies!!! We still had another two 8 cells and one 7 cell they are going to try and push through to day 5. It seems my previous terrible embryo quality is caused by either there is a genetic issue not letting them get to blast and grow properly or our embies don't grow well in the culture after day 3. I'm sooo happy with today's outcome though.

 

[Kirs_t]

Welcome Molly! I'm not sure about iui as we went straight to ivf... But looks like maddy has some good info. When do you think you'll start?

Chook- hooray for being pupo!! Fingers crossed for some frosties too keep checking in and venting during your tww. It is the longest and most torturous days of our lives I reckon!!

All is well for me... I'm trying not to be so hard on myself for being such a hopeless preggo person. I figure my body has been through alot in 12 months, surgeries, 3 rounds of ivf, a miscarriage and now up the duff! It's sure to take its toll physically. I can't wait to finish work! I'm sure things will be better when I'm not having to be on my A game for 30, 10 year olds! Even if it is just for a few weeks before baby pops out

24 weeks next week- V day is fast approaching!!

 

[Take2]

Molly- I had one IUI at albury reproductive, I can't remember exactly but I'm sure our out of pocket was only around $900ish
Chook- good luck. Crossing my fingers for you, its your turn love x
Kirsty- don't know how you deal with all those 10 year olds, I find one hard enough lol. I'm feeling this pregnancy already too, lower back pain is a bitch, don't remember it so early with Keyara.

 

[Maddy40]

Chook - congrats on being PUPO

Take - I'm starting to feel it in my back too, despite all those gym exercises to keep my back strong

Kirst - eek 30 x 10yo sounds like my worst nightmare. I used to volunteer at my son's orphanage (38 children all aged roughly 4-6yo) and after a half-day would come home drenched in sweat and unable to speak properly


AFM - Today it's my birthday and we have MOVEMENT There's definate bumps'n'tickles going on in there!

 

[Kirs_t]

What a great birthday present maddy!! That is so exciting!
Feeling those kicks and watching your bump wriggle is the best part of pregnancy x

 

[Juniperjules]

Hi girls, I'd love to join u here! So many success stories it's heartwarming to read about all the bubs on their way.

A little about me, as in my siggie, am 38 (39 in dec), OH is 45 in oct. started off with a couple of appts at mercy hosp (Melb), & then got a referral to private IVF. Had bloods, AFC & HSG done at mercy- all good. And OH's SA came back good too. The bew FS is also doing some chromosomal testing on me due to ny Mums history- difficulty getting pregnant & then 4 m/c between me & my sister.

We've been ttc approx 12 mths 'properly'. I saw new FS a week ago, & although I went in thinking we'd try IUI maybe, I waked out having agreed to IVF! I didn't take much convincing of course- I have quite a few friends who have had successful IVF so it's not a huge leap mentally at this stage.

The cost is freaking me out a little though..approx $10k altogether with about $4k back from Medicare. The FS basically said iui had 10% success rate & IVF 35%. She said I shouldn't waste time or money with iui bcos my chances are better with IVF. And that at this age my chances really are good, but the closer I get to 40, the numbers start plummeting. The FS has an amazing reputation so I am putting a lot of weight on her opinion.

Can I ask u ladies, in ur experience am I better just going straight to IVF?? The FS said lots of girls want to try iui, but often it's bcos mentally they aren't ready to go there with IVF yet. Im nervous of the huge cost, & possibly getting to egg collection (after handing over the first $5k).... only to be told 'sorry, u had no decent eggs' or something to that effect????

I'd love u girls to weigh in & give me ur thoughts. Sorry if its all been asked before?

 

[Take2]

Hi juniper and welcome nice to see some new faces on here.
Where are you going through? Your out of pocket seems high? I'm sure we were only out about $4000ish after Medicare.
We tried IUI once, we though everything deserved at least one shot, we did one month of clomid too. I was prepared for IVF mentally, just had hoped we'd avoid the cost, IUI was a lot cheaper. It didn't work for us but afterwards I felt the method they used for predicting ovulation was not accurate and I wondered if this had been done differently we may have been successful. As it happens we ended up conceiving naturally so I guess everything happened the way it did and that's that really. Obviously we didn't expect a natural BFP but yet here we are .
Egg collection is a gamble. Some respond well and others don't we were lucky and got 13 eggs but only 7 fertilised and neither of my transfers were successful.
Good luck, it's a tough journey but worth it in the end and there is plenty of advice here from all of us

 

[Juniperjules]

Hi Take2! Thanks for the welcome! The breakdown of the costs are the following,

$8,335 cycle cost
$3,577 out of pocket (after Medicare rebate)

$700 bed fee (don't have private insurance)
$300 docs fee (I think that's wot it was??)

$????? Anaesthetist fees unknown which will b billed & come in the mail.

So in total about $4500 out of pocket plus anaesthetist fees.

A little part of me is wondering if we should try IUI first? But the doc didn't seem keen- not that she was pushy at all, i was very impressed with her. but I asked her opinion & that was her opinion- dont waste ur time or money on iui.

Do u know, do they give u the same kind of drugs for iui as with IVF?? I've started wondering is it smarter to try the iui bcos it's cheaper, purely to see how my body responds to them? Then at least u know for when u do the IVF? Does that make sense?? I'm worried about spending so much & getting a dud response.. It would make trying a second time harder financially. Whereas a failed IUI wouldn't be such a big deal financially?

Obviously I'm gonna have to talk to them about it. We have our counselling session tomoro so Ill ask then.

Massive congrats in ur natural bfp!! That's wonderful. If only we were that lucky!

 

[Take2]

Every clinic is slightly different and it can be trial and error finding the right drugs that your body responds to. In my case we just took Clomid for the IUI because I responded well to it, I didn't use injectables until we got to IVF, that's when you start a pile of meds. IUI is quite natural compared to IVF, its not very invasive at all. But I have read some women who have used injectables for IUI, perhaps their body doesn't respond well to Clomid.

 

[Kirs_t]

Welcome juniper! It's is a huge decision and pretty overwhelming when starting treatment- but pretty exciting too!! We didn't get offered the chance to try iui and went straight to ivf because of our diagnosis... But it might be worth a shot if you are ovulating ok and Dh has good sperm count! I guess it is a financial decision too- iui is alot cheaper but has lower success rates, so you might need quite a few cycles, which adds up in cost. Ivf is defn more invasive and I would say harder on the body... But you have a much higher chance of getting pregnant the drugs they use are different as far as I know- as in ivf, they want to over stimulate your ovaries to produce lots of eggs to collect, where as in iui they only want you to release your one or two eggs produced normally each month. The other good thing is- if you can get some embryos to freeze after ivf, it's alot cheaper and quite an easy process to do a frozen transfer. This has been a blessing for us as we will now have the chance to try for another baby in the future!

Keep us updated with what you decide and how you are going. I believe this is a lucky thread- so stick around xxx

 

[Juniperjules]

Thanks girls!
Congrats to u too Kirst on ur bub!

I've spoken to my mum today who always makes me see sense. I've calmed down & am back to thinking that IVF is the way to go. I 'may' have a right blocked Fallopian tube (HSG was a painful disaster & we couldn't b sure if R tube was clear). So IUI could present problems there...

Thank you for ur opinions & info ladies! Really helps loads!

 

[Shazzamattaz]

Hi Ladies, I hope you don't mind me joining as well. I have been lurking on this thread for quite sometime now. I just didn't know when to actually share my journey. A bit about myself, I'm 33 and DH is 34 and we're from Victoria. We've been married for more than 9 yrs. Both DH and I love kids but we weren't ready to have our own until last year. Since I was a little girl, I always thought I'll be a Mum one day. My Mum and my eldest sister never had a problem getting pregnant so I thought I'd be the same. Boy, was I wrong!
Early last year, my bestfriend urged me to see her fertility specialist. My FS said I have polycystic ovaries and he had me take Clomid and had timed DTD which didn't work. I personally think Clomid made me quite crazy at times and I hated taking it. After about 5 cycles on Clomid, my FS told us that we should move on to IVF as DH sperm's morphology was pretty low. We were both so angry when our FS told us about this as he never mentioned it before. DH had his sperm anaysis before we even started with Clomid and he never told us abt it! In hindsight, we figured our FS wanted to try if we can get pregnant with Clomid and timed DTD before we proceed with IVF. On my husband's birthday last year, he prayed for that one special gift, our very own baby. That same day, my SIL told us she was pregnant! I was absolutely gutted not because I wasn't happy for her but because we wanted it so badly and we just can't seem to get pregnant �� Worst, they weren't even planning to have a baby yet! That night we finally decided to start our IVF journey. In November, we started with the treatment. They collected 18 eggs, 15 fertalised and I had a day 2 transfer. 11 made it to freeze and our official test date was scheduled on the 24th of Dec. Unfortunately, I started bleeding on the 20th. I did a pregnancy test on the 21st in the off chance i was preggo even with the bleeding and I had a positive test! I called the clinic and was told to come in for a blood test. When the results came, I was told that it won't be a viable pregnancy (HCG was 37). We were absolutely devastated and on Christmas Eve, the clinic called after another blood test to tell me abt the chemical pregnancy ��. That was the most painful Christmas Eve we had to endure as our relos celebrated, blissfully unaware of our grief. Since then, I had 3 failed thaw cycles, the last one was so promising we thought it will finally happen. A week and a half ago, we were told that it was another failed cycle. We're taking a month break and hopefully in September, it'll be 5th time lucky and we will have our own little miracle!
Oh dear, sorry for my very long story. I know that this thread is lucky and I am hoping some of this luck will rub off on me.

 

[Take2]

Hello Shazz and a big welcome. It really is exciting to see some new faces. You've had a rough trot mate and I'm hoping the good luck from this thread will roll your way. Look forward to hearing how things go for you. We had a failed cycle right near xmas, that was hard enough so I really felt for you reading your story. Would be lovely if you got lucky like me and got a natural BFP while taking a break x

 

[wishandwait]

Hey ladies!!!!! Long time no post but I've been checking in and keeping up to date with you all!!
Maddy- so great you're feeling those movements how amazing! It truly is the best part of pregnancy. We need an updated bump pic!

Kirsty- sorry you've been feeling shit. It's bloody hard work growing a person and you're doing a great job! Have you been stocking up on girls stuff? It is the best!

Take- I can't wait to hear about your gender scan... Not long now! I think girl. Any names?

Chook- how's the 2ww going? When's your test day? Hope you're holding it together mate and sending good vibes your way.

Red and Aleja- how are your beautiful boys going? Hope your managing some sleep!

Molly and Shaz welcome!! It's so nice to have some new faces on this thread..I really hope you stick around and catchy he good luck that's gone around here.

As for me... Yohanna will be 7 weeks Tuesday and I can barely remember a time when she wasn't here. Had my first night back on the booze Saturday and it was just as AWESOME as I remember!!! Although those nights will be a lot fewer and further between now. And it's a pain in the butt expressing. Today I've spent the day in bed (slightly hungover) snuggling my baby and eating mcflurries. Bliss.