Support thread for ladies who have had 3+ failed IVF cycles

[Unlucky41]

Babydancing so sad to hear your news. I am glad you are not prepared to give up. Take your much needed break and wish you all the best for your FET.

Bub you must be excited now! Prepare for the happiest day of your life followed by many sleepless nights but all worth it!

 

[ashknowsbest]

I posted my CCRM experience in my blog if anyone is interested.

peachy - how are you feeling? How's the LO?

babydancing - sorry for the BFN Infertility sucks!

 

[BabyDancing13]

Thanks ladies. I really hope you get your BFP's soon. This infertility rollercoaster is such a bitch isn't it. xxx

 

[bunyhuny]

Hi ladies. I hope it's okay if I join you. Just found out yesterday that my beta didn't rise (went from 63 to 67 in 72hours). Looks like another failure. Just can't wrap my head around it. Have cried so much that I don't have tears left. Hopefully we'll be able to go right into the next FET.... depends on hCG results tomorrow. Next FET I'll be on Prednisone, Aspirin, Metformin, and daily injections of blood thinners. Thanks for having me. It's good to be around others who understand this feeling.


Our IVF so far:

IVF #1 (half Standard, half ICSI), August 2014: M/C. 300 gonal-f daily, 1000mg XR Metformin. 18 eggs: 10 eggs standard (DH still had great sperm then), 8 ICSI. All ICSI fertilized but stopped growing by day 3. Seven standard IVF fertilized and we got 3 blastocysts: 3AA, 3AB, 3BB. SET of the 3AA gave us a BFP, but I immediately started spotting and it continued for weeks. Doctors couldn't figure out why. In tenth week, I started weaning off my progesterone and miscarried.

FET #1, January 2014: BFN. On Metformin only.

IVF #2 (Standard), February 2014: BFN. 300 gonal-f, Aspirin, and Prednisone, but RE didn't put me on Metformin. Only got 8 eggs. DH's sperm had all sorts of problems (totally out of the blue). Only got one embryo from standard IVF (didn't want to risk ICSI) and had a SET on day 3.

IVF #3 (PICSI), March 2014: Ectopic. 300 gonal-f, Aspirin, Prednisone, Metformin. 20+eggs fertilized well and we ended up 6 blastocysts. Transferred a 5AA and a 4AA, and got a BFP. hCG was low but doubled normally. Ultrasound revealed baby with heartbeat in my left tube at 6 weeks and they removed the tube.

FET #2, October 2014: Chemical Pregnancy/Early M/C. Was on Aspirin and Metformin. No prednisone. First beta = 37, two days later = 64, three days later (yesterday) = 67. RE says no hope to salvage this one. Very, very sad.

After the next FET we're totally out of funds and will have maxed out both our credit cards, so who knows what will happen if it doesn't work. We already sold our house last year to pay for the first IVF (and all the associated complications) and the first FET. Nothing left to sell, so I guess we'd have to take time off to pay down the card. Just trying to keep my head up.

 

[Peachy1584]

Ash just read your blog about CCRM and wow. I don't like the extra costs either but I'm glad you found the experience there as a whole good because one thing that doesn't change is their success rates. I first heard about them because of Giulianna and Bill Rancic. Not sure if you know her from E! or from their own reality show but they were finally able to have a baby (through a surrogate) from there and they have enough money to go anywhere in the world. I know sometimes it's better to have answers but sometimes it's just a crap shoot to getting the right embryo. Which happened to be my case. So if everything will be back on 2-3 weeks when would you be starting your cycle?

Buny I am so very sorry you are going through this again. I remember you from a different thread. I hope things turn out better for you than you think. Huge

 

[Unlucky41]

Bub how you going? Had your little one yet?

 

[eveclo]

Yes Bub ! Hope little man has made his way safely into the world and you are feeling good right about now Thinking of you

 

[Sandy83]

Bubumaci thinking of you and hoping your little boy has had a safe entry into the world xx

 

[bubumaci]

Hello sweet Ladies,

Just a quick message (sorry for not having been around) to let you all know that we are doing really well. Baby P. :
Fabian Christopher Graham Obermüller
was born on 31st October at 18:13 (under 12 hours of contractions - 13 minutes of pushing), natural birth in the bath, no pain meds - and he is just perfect. Weighed in at 3.100g, 47cms long.

After the birth, I lost about 1,5 litres of blood, so my circulation crashed and things got quite hectic. It's part of the reason why I haven't been on here to let you know how things are yet - and to be honest, I still have a long way to go to replenish what I lost, and iron levels are very low too.

I promise that I will be posting some photos of our little miracle soon - but at the moment, I have to spend most of my time lying down.

Fabian is really perfect, he is a gorgeous little boy, very sweet, very easy going and is a total joy to watch (which Mama does of course non-stop). We are very much in love with the little man

And yes ... he is a Halloween baby - amazing, how right my gut was!

 

[Sandy83]

Congratulations Bubumaci Sorry to hear you had a hectic time after the birth. make sure you take it easy and will look forward to seeing the pics xx

 

[bunyhuny]

Congrats bubumaci! Good luck with your recovery! Enjoy those baby cuddles.

As for me:

I know I don't post on here very much and don't know all of you ladies super well yet, but I thought I'd share my most recent journal post with you all. It's in regards to something called the "antihistamine protocol" that used to be used at CCRM and is occasionally used in other clinics. DH and I stumbled across is when we were trying to figure out what could be causing our miscarriages and it put a lot of things into perspective for us. The protocol and the reasons behind it haven't been researched much yet, so there isn't a lot of info on it, but after reading up on the research that has been done, it seems like it could be a big cause of our infertility. DH and I started off with unexplained infertility years ago when I didn't have PCOS yet and DH had perfect semen analysis results.

My PCOS came from a progesterone spike cause by an herbal supplement I took after unsuccessfully TTC for several months, then DH's SA's went bad possibly due to BD'ing with me while I was on progesterone suppositories, then I lost my left tube to ectopic and that's the side I usually O on.... so we have all sort of issues right now... but in the beginning of all this, I O'd every month and DH's SA was perfect. How crazy would it be if the only thing we started out with was an immunological/allergy issue?

The post is long so I'm not going to repost it here, but my journal link is in my signature.

 

[bugs]

Congratulations Bubu, hope your feeling better soon xxxx

 

[Peachy1584]

Bubu that's wonderful! So happy for you and your family. Hope you get well soon and I'm glad he's taking it easy on mommy while you recover

 

[Unlucky41]

Congrats bub wonderful news! Rest up and use the mid wives as much as you can you will need all the energy you can muster up!

 

[Unlucky41]

Buny huny all the best for the FET this coming Dec2014. Hope you get wonderful news for the new year

 

[Plex]

Bubumaci - Congratulations hun!!! sorry it was a traumatic birth for u Im wishing u a speedy recovery hun - looking forward to seeing pictures of ur lil boy xx

 

[bubumaci]

Thank you!
The birth itself was absolutely perfect! Just the aftermath was rather hectic and could have been very serious (well, it was, nearly needed a transfusion). But I definitely got the birth I wanted. And I'm still blown away by the experience.

I hope it works, I've tried uploading some photos while on my iPad. The first is directly after he was born. The last, was last night. Absolutely smitten with our gorgeous little man!

Hmmm, from my iPad I can only upload one picture it would seem... So this photo is from last night. He's had slightly gunky eyes, but he is fine and content

 

[bubumaci]

This is right after he was born

 

[bubumaci]

First cuddles

 

[bubumaci]

Three days old, on his due date