IVF Buddies 2012 - all got our BFPs now awaiting the bubbas. Sticking together x

[Springy]

Hi everyone! I've beeen reading the thread and catching up. Seems like a lot of positive energy here. I am looking to have ER around March 20th so I am close to a few of you. I start my meds March 5th. I have 2 needles a day and like Mrsmax and probably all of us, I'm not looking forward to it. My DH will be no help as he passes out at the sight of needles. I'm going to have to involve a friend when it comes time for the progesterone shot since it is given from behind my hip and I was told would not be able to administer myself. GL ladies! I hope we all get our BFPs soon. The IVF process is exciting but sooooo overwhelming!!

Welcome Marie!!!

As for the needles, I used to have two large and VERY irrational fears 1) needles 2) vomit .... I now only have one and that is vomit. When I started all of this infertility crap I wondered how I was going to do this as I refused to go for blood work for physicals and refused to do any sort of thing that involved a needle. When my husband and I were first sent to the fertility clinic I needed a friend to drive me and take me to get my blood work done. She had to hold my hand, talk to me, rub my head and give me juice etc. Now I have no trouble going on my own and just putting on my iPod and zoning out, do I love it, NO but am I able to be ok with it, yes - after all it is all for a good reason right!?. Fast forward to August of 2011 and I'm put on Gonal F for an IUI cycle .... I was thinking HOW AM I EVER going to do this myself?!?! and "YOU WANT ME TO INJECT MYSELF?!" Well you would be amazed what you can do when you need to. I have no issue now with injecting myself. Honestly from someone who is a TOTAL NEEDLE PHOBE these injection needles are EASY PEASY and I have also never even bruised myself or made myself bleed and I did two months on Gonal F.

I'll find a link to a friend on here who does her own PIO shots - she said the first one she almost passed out but after that she now has no issue doing them on her own

 

[Kelly9]

A PIO shot is an intramuscular injection so I would not want to do it myself. I am a registered nurse and typically have no issues with getting needles or giving myself subcutaneous ones but I don't want to try in the muscle lol. We do vaginal inserts for our progesterone so no shots there, though a once a day shot vs 6 little balls 3 times a day sounds much better. The discharge from the progesterone is yucky and ruins your underwear, so wear a pantyliner!

 

[mrsmax]

Hi Marie :wave: Sounds like we will be cycling just a few days apart. I'm worried about the needles too, but hoping acupuncture has cured me of that...What is your story if you dont mind me asking? Are you unexplaiend or explained?

Can't wait to go away in a few days for a long weekend in a nice hotel. Am going to have some alcohol too!! I havent had a drop since been on this fertility diet thing since new year - probably will get drunk very quickly, but figured it will be only chance before I start taking the drugs.
Are any of you doing any special diets or treatments or anything? I am meeting someoen next Wednesday who does all the holisitic thinsg like fertility reflexology and hypnosis. Shoudl be fun. She is quite cheap (cheaper that accupuncture) so worth a shot!! Will let you all know how it goes.

 

[marie44]

Thanks Springy! I also avoided BW like the plague, I think I managed a 7 year stretch one time until my dr got on me. I did give myself 2 ovidrel shots the last few months so I can do it if I have to...maybe I'll try the ipod for a distractor. I guess as long as I don't have to draw my own blood, I'll survive.

Kelly, I would much rather ruin a few pairs of underwear that do these shots. They told me I should lean over a counter with obviously my underwear half down which is going to be really awkward when I have to get a friend to do it for me. I have a few more weeks before I have to have worry about who will have that privilege. I may lose a few friends from this experience lol.

Mrsmax, enjoy the weekend away. I am too planning some intoxication this weekend as I feel after that I should buckle down and start being extra healthy since I start stimming on March 5th. I bought a book called "the fertility diet" which I've actually had for years but just started looking through. I plan on giving up caffeine & alcohol and start exercising a little. I started drinking red rasberry tea which is supposed to be good for your uterine lining. I'm not going to go too crazy until I get my BFP.
My story is MFI. I am 35 and DH is old (48) so his swimmers are a little slow. My dr says his sperm count is at the low end of normal or the high level of low so not so bad where a natural BFP is impossible but a "long shot" as he calls it. We've been TTC for 2 1/2 years now with no luck. Time is ticking for us and we are in a lot of debt to begin with as DH has been laid off but we are using the credit cards for IVF and moving forward. Hopefully it works on the first shot because I don't know if we could manage 2 of them.
Nice neeting everyone. FX for all of us!!

 

[Kelly9]

I don't know where my husbands MFI falls, but we managed to conceive our son naturally though we were given less then a 3% chance of doing so. I want to have faith that it will happen again but I can't and so we did ICSI... plus we didn't want a huge gap in between our kids either which is now growing bigger by the day since we lost our girl. I doubt we'll ever use contraception again so if a surprise happens later in life to then so be it. For the mean time I want 3 kids with us, I've got 2 but only one on earth with us so we got two more to go. I am seriously hoping for twins this round, I know it's going to be so much work and I'll likely loose my mind but then I'd be done ttc and would never have to worry about it and all the complications that can happen because of it.

 

[marie44]

Sorry for your loss Kelly I secretly hope to conceive naturally after IVF too. I would love 2 children but I will settle for 1. I think we were given a 5% chance of conceiving naturally so it would be a miracle baby if it happened. My DH is hoping for twins. I will be blessed with whatever we get (besides a BFN).

 

[Kelly9]

We did it with less then 3%. My dh's count is on average 16 million the one time it was 23 mil then another it was 12 mil but 16 ish seems the norm, he's got issues with motility and morphology as well.

 

[babydrms]

Hi :wave: just stalking around. Very excited for all you who are getting ready to begin!!

 

[Springy]

Hi :wave: just stalking around. Very excited for all you who are getting ready to begin!!

You should join us since you're technically going to be in March for #2!!!

 

[marie44]

We did it with less then 3%. My dh's count is on average 16 million the one time it was 23 mil then another it was 12 mil but 16 ish seems the norm, he's got issues with motility and morphology as well.

My DH counts are very similar. We were told to go right to IVF with ICSI but we decided to try our luck with 3 IUIs first. In retrospect, what a waste of time but I guess we would have always wondered if we could have been one of the lucky ones. His count was 8.5 mil & 10mil postwashed so they weren't horrible #'s but not ideal. There's a woman on B&B that got a BFP on IUI with only 1.2 mil so you never know. I'm looking forward to getting a BFP and putting all of this stress behind me. PMA

 

[Springy]

We did it with less then 3%. My dh's count is on average 16 million the one time it was 23 mil then another it was 12 mil but 16 ish seems the norm, he's got issues with motility and morphology as well.

My DH counts are very similar. We were told to go right to IVF with ICSI but we decided to try our luck with 3 IUIs first. In retrospect, what a waste of time but I guess we would have always wondered if we could have been one of the lucky ones. His count was 8.5 mil & 10mil postwashed so they weren't horrible #'s but not ideal. There's a woman on B&B that got a BFP on IUI with only 1.2 mil so you never know. I'm looking forward to getting a BFP and putting all of this stress behind me. PMA

There are lots of women on here who get pregnant naturally or with IUI with really low numbers .... I know one woman who just got pregnant naturally with severe male factor while waiting for IVF. I used to believe that would be me and I would be that lucky one .... but now I have just accepted IVF as my fate.

 

[marie44]

We can dream of a natural BFP, can't we?? until evil reality hits

This IVF is going to set us back so much financially especially since I just found out this morning that my insurance is not going to cover any of the IVF meds. It puts a lot of pressure on getting a BFP and although I heard stress does not affect IVF results, it certainly can make the process miserable. I'm especially worried about the mood swings with all of these hormones in me. On the clomid, I went a little crazy and was really mean to DH and we fought the whole time until the meds wore off. Now I have to multiply that times 10 with all of these injections. Maybe we should stay in separate quarters during this process lol.

 

[Springy]

We can dream of a natural BFP, can't we?? until evil reality hits

This IVF is going to set us back so much financially especially since I just found out this morning that my insurance is not going to cover any of the IVF meds. It puts a lot of pressure on getting a BFP and although I heard stress does not affect IVF results, it certainly can make the process miserable. I'm especially worried about the mood swings with all of these hormones in me. On the clomid, I went a little crazy and was really mean to DH and we fought the whole time until the meds wore off. Now I have to multiply that times 10 with all of these injections. Maybe we should stay in separate quarters during this process lol.

I found way less side effects on the injections than I did with clomid. I was bloated and I had a few headaches but I wasn't as moody on the gonal F as I was on clomid.

Now the other drugs we'll need to use .... cant speak to that!

Do you know what drugs you're using??

 

[mrsmax]

I'm worried about finances and drugs too. We have saved enough for nearly two rounds, but sure puts on the pressue if we get that BFN. least we are all in the same boat

Springy - glad to hear that. I hate Clomid and was convinced teh IVf meds would be worse. I heard teh moddiest ones are the de-regging ones so you should be ok.

Am off for long weekend now - but hope you all have a good weekend.

 

[marie44]

Springy,
I'm going to be on Gonal F, Menapur, Ovidrel, Ganirelix & Progesterone. I think that's mostly it. They prescribed me low doses of Gonal F & Menapur (1 needle of each a day 12 hours apart). Some women just have 1 needle once a day with a larger dose. I wish that was me The progesterone starts after ET. That's the one I dread the most. It is a lot bigger needle and it's supposed to make you really drowsy and sore.

I hope you're right about the mood swings. I need my marriage to last at least until ET lol.

 

[marie44]

After this IVF, I have to take a look at our finances and see if we can afford a second one. I think only if we have frosties to put it, maybe we can do #2. If not, I told DH we may have to consider donor sperm. I'm not crazy about the idea and he flipped out about it, but we are determined to have a baby one way or another so we may have to step outside our comfort zone.

 

[Kelly9]

I had to take three needles a day when stimming. I didn't have crazy symptoms on the ivf meds till after collection then it's the bloat and the affects left over from the meds that make you feel yucky. Our meds are 80% covered which helps but we still paid about 8500 for everything for the one cycle. Our FET will cost 1100 plus meds so I would expect about a 100-150 for the portion of our meds that we pay since I won't be needing gonal this time. We used all our savings for our fresh ivf and if we have to do another we'll have to borrow from the in laws.

 

[Springy]

Got my protocol today .... its a short protocol which I was suprised with as I was expecting a long one!

BCP starting on CD 3 then either stimulation starting on March 16th or on April 5th. My clinic works on a strict scheduling plan ...

After BCP it is 150 IU Gonal F, Luveris, Ganirelix acetate, then hCG to trigger. After trigger on day of transfer I have on PIO that they give me then I get both progesterone and estrogen after transfer but not as injections - PHEW!!!

KEEP ALL THOSE FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED THAT SHOWS UP ON TIME THIS WEEKEND FOR ME SO I CAN HIT MARCH 16TH!!!!

 

[Kelly9]

Oh! if you call that the short protocol then I guess I was on short protocol to! I thought I did the long one cause to me short is no down regging which some people have done, they just go right on to stimming once the period comes. To many different ways to do this if you ask me.

 

[Springy]

Oh! if you call that the short protocol then I guess I was on short protocol to! I thought I did the long one cause to me short is no down regging which some people have done, they just go right on to stimming once the period comes. To many different ways to do this if you ask me.

Long = something like lupron / suprefact used to supress then start stimulation
Short = straight to stimulation

Mine is a short simply because there is no lupron / suprefact - the BCP is only for scheduling purposes and to slightly suppress the ovaries.