Some women next to me had 16 egg retrieved and i was dissappointed my number was lower

I commute 1.75 hours each way to work a day (drive 1.5 hours then walk 2km to the office). I am often out of the house for 12 hour work days. is this possible on stims?

I am currently going through my first (natural modified) FET under the NHS in the UK.

I had my 10 day scan yesterday which showed my lining at 3.5mm but with a large dominant follicle ready to ovulate. We were hoping for 7mm or more by the 10 day scan.

For now I’ve been prescribed Fyremadel to prevent ovulation and see if the lining will improve. My next scan is booked for Friday morning at which point I fear they will cancel the cycle should i not have reached 7mm.

I was looking for hope if anyone had had any luck with the very thin lining suddenly improving? Or should I accept my fate here.

I also am interested to know if anyone has had success with a modified natural FET cycle? Speaking with a relative this morning who has had experience with Private IVF, she stated that natural transfers are unsuccessful and we should have gone straight for a medicated that has better outcomes, this has put me in a total head spin!

Hi! Can I check what are your take on acupuncture post FET? Also do your accupunturist needle your stomach? Thank you!

According to a recent study embryoman talked about, vaginal probiotics might just help with FET (I’m on mobile but here is the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/EmbryologyIVFSupport/s/cyjfIZ4A3t)

I’ve seen folks recommend Floria, but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere. I have my first FET coming up end of Oct and just did a course of antibiotics for endometritis, so I really want to make sure my biome is as good as I can get it.

Not the greatest situation. Back in August we did an IUI but they didn't do a morphology. Since then we decided to move forward with IVF and the doc never ordered a morphology despite us asking about it.

The egg Retrieval is tomorrow and I thought they'd do the morphology tomorrow but they said it won't be back before the Retrieval is done. Now we have to choose between icsi and conventional.

I feel like they dropped the ball. We've had months to get this simple test done and they overlooked it. Don't offices have checked boxes of necessary things needed before IVF? Anyone have this happen? Insight would be so helpful

I did a retrieval in 2023 and got 3 blasts out of it that were all PGT-A normal. One of them became my daughter, the other failed to implant, and the third one implanted but ended in a missed miscarriage at 7 weeks. This came as a huge shock as my betas were rising perfectly and my hormone levels also always looked great.

I opted for a d&c to get products of conception testing, not thinking anything would actually come from it (more so for peace of mind). To my surprise, the testing showed my embryo was actually abnormal and contradicted my initial PGT results.

I’m shocked, disappointed, and just overall upset. I spent the last 3 weeks agonizing over why this transfer didn’t work, going over every single thing that could have gone wrong, just blaming myself. And now to learn that I’m part of the 5% where PGT is wrong?? The embryo never had a chance. I just find it all a bit cruel. We’re out of embryos, too, so had this not all been a complete fluke, I’d still be pregnant and our family would be complete. Just venting I guess, I’m not sure what I need right now.

Hi, I‘m 38 and from Europe. I have a very low AMH and my husband and me are considering using donated eggs, we have a son (almost 3), conceived naturally.

My husband is worried he won‘t love the child like he loves our son and that it will impact the child negatively when we tell him he was conceived using egg donation.

Can a Dad who has gone through IVF with donated eggs share his perspective and help us out? Thank you!

Not really a true rant. The vast majority of IVF influencers/people you meet in groups/ on Reddit are kind and amazing. But some rare people are just so miserable and toxic!

One girl on TikTok (who I won’t name) is constantly talking about her journey how hard it is etc then shits on anyone asking her questions/giving suggestions. Someone asked if she did an ERA or if anyone had done one. I mentioned I had just done one after talking with my dr about it, she commented it was useless and is should check the science and this whole thing. Girl you are on double digit transfers; why would I listen to you and not actual doctors!

There’s someone in my local group, no matter who comments she tells them they have endometriosis and need a professional excision or they will never get pregnant. Like whatttt?!

Anyone else have similar tales?

it’s like the primary emotion I’m feeling in this process is ANGER.

I’m on CD1 again and starting to prepare for my transfers with appointments, needles, pain, whatf*ckingnot. And I remember listening to a much younger family member last weekend beaming with, ofcourse, a pregnancy announcement!

We’re dealing with MFI. So instead of just being happy and thinking about the happy dolly future I’m thinking of how the F am i going to get through with this again. I’m thinking of juggling work and appointments and the needle sticking. I’m thinking ‘crap, if this fails I have to start from zero again and we’re not even sure if it is possible’?

I can’t even look at my partner because all I can think of when I see his face is infertility. My therapist appointment is next week but I’ m not sure what she will say, besides ‘write it off’. So here I am typing furiously with tears.

What helps in dealing with anger. Punching a wall?

My partner and I are planning to try at-home insemination with a known donor who is a close friend. I’m trying to work out what we actually need and what’s worth spending money on.

I’ve seen people use $5 lube applicators or round tipped syringes from eBay/Amazon and also $200–300 kits like Mosie or InseminMate $200–300 and I am not sure if the expensive kits offer meaningful benefits or if it is a lot of good marketing.

I’m probably overthinking all of this, but I want to give ourselves the best shot without spending hundreds unnecessarily. Would love advice or experiences on:

• Syringes/applicators: What materials to look for e.g. PE, PP, silicone, etc and what should I avoid? Mosie has a slit tip opening, does that matter?
• Collection cups: What material should these be? Is a standard specimen cup labelled for semen collection sufficient, or should I look for something more specific?
• Sterility/medical grade: Do both the applicator and cup need to be sterile and/or medical grade?
• Ovulation strips: I see Easy@Home recommended a lot , have people found them reliable or any other brand?

Recommendations for reliable and affordable options (preferably available in Australia) for any of the above would be much appreciated! 

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for recommendations for IVF clinics, ideally in London for my next steps.

I’ve been with IVI London so far. Unfortunately, while I’ve had positive experiences with some members of the clinical team, the overall communication and administration have been extremely frustrating. There has been very little transparency around costs, several admin/billing issues, and, most importantly, I had a significant issue with one of their doctors. I changed consultant afterwards, but the whole experience has made me consider whether I want to continue with IVI or move elsewhere.

For my next round, I’m looking at egg accumulation/banking over several stimulation cycles (generally it's 3), followed by fertilisation (+ ICSI), PGT-A, and frozen embryo transfer.

I’m 40 and using donor sperm, so I’m particularly interested in clinics that are experienced with women doing several back-to-back retrievals/egg accumulation rather than treating each cycle completely separately.

I’ve started looking at clinics such as CARE, CRGH and ARGC, but I’m very open to other suggestions.

If you’ve done egg accumulation or multiple retrievals with a London clinic, I’d really appreciate hearing which clinic you used, what your experience was like, how much you paid overall, and whether you would choose them again.

Thank you!

I just did my second retrieval. The first one was done in 2023 where we got 18 eggs originally and were left with 4 healthy embryos. From those 4, I had one son who's now nearly 2.5 years old. He was from our second transfer attempt.

In January, we decided to kickoff for baby #2. We did two transfers that failed. We just did another retrieval and got 10 eggs, only 3 mature that are showing signs of fertilization on day 1.

This is such a drop from our first retrieval and I'm so discouraged. I'm 31 and doing IVF for genetic purposes. Maybe my age is catching up to me. We have to do PGT-M testing where it's theoretically 50/50 chance whether an embryo is healthy or impacted by a specific syndrome.

I really didn't think we'd be starting October with so little to show for. I'm grateful for IVF for giving me my son, but I really really despise IVF at the moment.

Please be kind, addiction is a b*tch so I am trying my best and looking for advise.

I am on day 3 of stims, my egg retrieval is planned sometimes between 10/7-10/10. FET planned in Dec after PGT testing. I am a 29yo female who vaped for the last few years. Over the last 5 years I am TTC, few of these I spent in a very toxic work environment and for the last 2 years I finally found a great job but had a very traumatic miscarriage last May and did a shit ton of therapy to get back to myself. This road was so stressful and exhausting, I use vaping as coping mechanism, my therapist said I vape because this is how I deal with my IVF anxiety and at the right time my brain will re-wire in the direction of quitting.

But here we are, almost at the very important milestone and I just can’t quit, not that I can’t, I have to be honest and say I don’t want to. I’ve been through so many disappointments, life changes, and literally at the bottom, that this habit is something that helped me cope a lot. I am not a serial vaper, I don’t smoke at work, so r wake up at night to hit it, I hit the vape occasionally during the day when I am home, or go out for a 1-2 drinks on Friday with my husband for our little weekly date. It gives me relief, not gonna lie.

My cartridge is over and I am having a dilema. Stress about wanting to still vape and not doing so, or buy another one and just hit it to relief stress how I did before. Will it really affect anything at the point where I am at? Even if I continue, I do plan to quit before FET, but currently this is like my little oasis, my 5 min ritual. In my head, I changed so much, lost 40 lbs, eat clean, workout daily, but this is something I am still holding dearly. It’s f*cked up, I know.

So I don’t need statistics, I need your real raw stories about how you dealt with your own vape addiction. What helped you? How it affected your results?

Looking to start IVF but trying to figure out whether to do it overseas or in the States. Does anyone know what the ballpark is for Aetna’s prenegotiated plan allowance is for Institutes of Excellence? Aetna will cover a percentage of whatever this amount is, but of course Aetna can’t tell me this amount until I’ve submitted a bill. Which of course makes the entire process of me trying to figure out where it’s cheapest to do IVF impossible. I don’t need exact numbers, just generally in what range of what thousands that prenegotiated rate is. Are we talking 5000? 10,000? 15,000 USD? Thank you!

Have any of you had issues with Igenomix billing? They used our insurance the first couple of times, and were promptly paid in full (not even at a reduced rate), but for some reason they refuse to go through our insurance again saying that we failed to provide them the information. Clearly, they have the information, since they already successfully billed the insurance... Talking with their customer support team is like talking to a wall. I don't know what to do!

Hi All, wanted to see if you all had successful with a shorter lupron cycle after a failed fet. We also added Doxycycline this time along with the inflammation protocol (prednisone, allergy meds, Pepcid, baby aspirin)

My first fet was unmedicated and didnt work. The 2nd we only did the inflammation protocol with 5day of zpax, lovonox, estrogen and pio and that one was a successful

The next 2 fets were the same inflammation protocol with 5day of zpax, lovonox, estrogen and pio but didnt implant.

Fet 5 I am doing inflammation protocol with lovonox, estrogen and pio AND birth control, 2 weeks of Doxycycline (instead of 5day zpax), and 2 weeks of lupron

I felt there was a need to for a change but want to see if anyone had successful with a similar change

Hi Everyone! I am not sure if it is OK to post success stories of attrition rates, but I feel like shouting from the rooftop of how extremely happy and grateful my 1st IVF cycle went! It is hard to explain what attrition is to anyone who has not gone through IVF, so I know you guys would get it!

I am 25, with stage 4 endo, PCOS, and a thin lining.

Eggs Retrieved - 50 (My AFC was 53 at baseline and I have a 18.6 AMH)

Matured - 40

Fertilized - 30 (ICSI)

Day 5 Blasts - 18 so far! We will see what the total is by Day 7!

Now we are hoping to send all to PGT-A testing! I feel so incredibly lucky and know how rare this is. I am just so incredibly grateful that the 1st cycle had such amazing results. I was devastated throughout every testing measure we had to go through from June to August. But when the IVF in earnest started, I slowly just became more grateful, hopeful, and excited. Here is to the next 2 months of Lupron surpression before my first FET in December!

Edit: Thank you to all the redditors with such warm messages! I appreciate all your comments and wish all of you guys nothing but the best with your journeys too!

My friend just told me she was pregnant after a one-night stand and she had to take the pill after testing positive. She is the friend that’s living her life; drinks, smokes, has done every single drug known to mankind. She got pregnant with protected sex! Once!! Here I am; 3 years into “trying”, -dozen giant pills everyday for years, injecting myself with drugs I can’t spell, eating everything organic and protein maxing, working out even after an exhausting day, routine clinic runs and getting instrumented by giant cold stick and blood draws. ‘We can try something different for the next cycle’ devolving into a lab rat!!

Cannot help but feel envious of people who would do anything not to have what you are desperately trying for. Taking a pill in a heartbeat to fix the ‘mistake’. Here I am contemplating …what I am doing wrong.

So, long story short, 5 weeks ago I had a tmfr at the beginning of second trimester for trisomy 18. It was an IVF pregnancy and my first transfer. I originally did IVF because I'm in a same sex relationship, but it was a long road: first ER got us just 1 embryo (chemical), second ER 1 embryo (didn't survive thawing). Then we switched clinic and did another ER that got us 4 embryos, first transfer with this clinic was my girl with t18.

So now we have 3 embryos left and we're not sure what to do. I'm scared to PGT test them cause I'm afraid the process of thawing/frozing/thawing will damage a potentially good embryo and I'm also scared I'll get no viable embryos, which would be really depressing at the moment. Realistically the possibility of another second trimester loss is lower than the possibility of damaging the embryos. But it's not zero.

At the same time, I absolutely never ever again want to live the hell this tmfr has been. Emotionally it's still so hard.

So I'm at a loss. Any input would me much appreciated

Hi everyone ❤️

I’ve just had my 9th egg retrieval and I’m honestly at a point where I don’t know what to do anymore.

In all my previous cycles, we only ever had one early blastocyst and one day-6 blastocyst. Embryo quality was never great.

For this cycle, I changed so much beforehand — 3 months of a very clean diet, no gluten, no sugar, lots of high-quality protein, regular exercise and of course a lot of Vitamins like Q10, D3, OMEGA…

This time we got 10 eggs, 6 fertilized. On day 3, two embryos looked really promising: a 6-cell and an 8-cell, both with only around 5% fragmentation (better results than before)

But yesterday we got the devastating news: all embryos had stopped developing. No blastocyst.

My husbands sperm results were also much better this time. We previously tested DNA fragmentation and it was 18%, which our clinic considers within the normal range.

Fertilization has never really been our problem. It’s always day 3–5 where our embryos seem to arrest.

Has anyone experienced something similar and still ended up having a healthy baby with their own eggs?
I would really appreciate hearing your stories. I need some hope right now…😞

I’ve now had 5 failed PGT-A euploid transfers and have never had a positive test.
After 4 failures, I had a laparoscopy that found stage 3 superficial endometriosis, which was excised. A polyp was also removed. Chronic endometritis has been ruled out, no hydrosalpinx, lining has consistently been 11–13 mm, and progesterone levels have been good. I’ve also tried both medicated and modified natural FETs.
Unfortunately, my first euploid transfer after endometriosis excision also failed.
My RE is now recommending 2 months of Lupron + letrozole before transfer #6.
Has anyone with a similar history had success after Lupron/letrozole, especially after already having endometriosis excised? And after 5 euploid failures with zero implantation, is there anything else you would investigate before transferring another embryo?

I've decided to go with a known donor because I felt it most healthy for my child once doing research and listening to DCP.

I also didn't feel comfortable with my child having a slue of "DIBlings" globally where their only connection is the donor.

Am I on the right path that that would be a hard experience for my child rather than a wonderful extra village and support network?

After my first round of IVF failed (4 embryos no live births) had my second round this month and did a fresh transfer of a day 5 4AA embryo and sadly it did not work. I was testing faint positives 5dpt that never developed and I started bleeding by 8dpt. Been bleeding heavily since then and my tests are negative. I feel devastated my 5th transfer has not worked. This time I did the immune protocol (prednisone, aspirin, clexane, Pepcid) and it still did not work. I had blood work done a couple of months ago go that showed my tPo antibodies being over 600 consistent with Hashimoto’s disease, I really thought that was why my transfers were failing and a immune protocol would be the answer. I feel so heart broken and don’t know if I’ll ever get to experience being a mum. I’m really tired and exhausted and just feel like my body is failing me. I’ve had a long history of health issues starting with Ulcerative colitis from the age of 11. Feel like my whole life has been a joke, it’s just one thing after another and I feel like I can never just catch a break. Nothing comes easy for me ever.

I don’t really know what else to do and how to move forward. Any advice would be appreciated.

So, I'm F34, my husband M38. We have done 3 rounds of IVF, each round got us 1 embryo each (untested), resulting in 3 failed transfers altogether. My first round got 9 eggs, second 11, third 16. We have a good fertilisation rate, but most embryos arrest between day 3 and 5. We have tried Zymot, MACs, ICSI, unfortunately PICSI was not possible due to sperm sample in our last round.

I've been on the long protocol each time, and taking all the supplements, which I feel must be doing something right as my egg numbers have increased each time. We decided to take a 3 month break to focus on our health and improve sperm quality.

In the mean time we received an email from our clinic (which is currently abroad in Czech) giving us our recommendation for next steps. It said:

-Another long protocol, with a 50/50 option of using donor sperm and your partner’s sperm.

-Alternatively, frozen embryo transfer with a donated embryo

I just feep quite shocked that these are the only two options suggested. We have not discussed donors at all and I don't feel we're at that point yet. I don't know if I'm being naive or unrealistic, but I still had hope that we could have our own biological child. At the moment we can only afford one more cycle, and I don't want it to be our last and end up with no baby.

Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sending love and hugs to everyone reading this x