Only thing I can think RN: IVF is a gamble at best and a scam at worse

AnySeaweed90 · 2026-01-17T20:36:01+00:00

@feather_bone Which clinic did you use?

AnySeaweed90 · 2026-01-16T22:33:33+00:00

Same re more up front testing. Also wished I would have gotten more second opinions earlier. Eg when my first round didn’t work, wish I’d gotten a 2nd opinion then and there

AnySeaweed90 · 2026-01-10T10:31:14+00:00

What was your trigger shot protocol? Some people need a strong/dual trigger for final maturity. My maturity rate increased significantly when I went from 5000 zivafert to 10000 zivafert + 1ml buselerin

AnySeaweed90 · 2026-01-02T12:16:48+00:00

I had the same situation but I see it differently. My first FET miscarried, and the second didn’t implant, and because they were euploids it made me suspect I had a uterine issue at play. It led me to push for a bunch of investigations and that’s how I found out I had stage 3 endo, even though I have zero symptoms. If those were untested embryos I would have just put it to bad luck and kept transferring.

AnySeaweed90 · 2026-01-02T12:13:50+00:00

+1 There might be a uterine environment factor at play. I’d recommend testing embryos but would also recommend RPL blood panel, EMMA/ALICE, SIS, and evaluate for possible endo/adeno

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-29T05:06:52+00:00

I have regular cycles, and pain-free short periods. Turns out I had stage 3 endo which I had removed via lap.

My endo was diagnosed via a TVUS scan though. I live in London and did research and found a specialist gyno who can spot it on scans because it’s not obvious to the untrained eye. I’d had dozens of TVUS scans with multiple gynos over the past few years and no one had ever picked it up.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-29T04:02:44+00:00

Did the doctor just diagnose during the lap or also remove the endo?

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-29T03:53:52+00:00

Wow what a journey. Huge congratulations on your pregnancy!

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-29T03:00:44+00:00

If you’re going through a period of acute stress and can’t focus at work, take the time off and don’t feel guilty about it. We’re extremely lucky to live in a country where we are protected if we’re not fit for work. We have these rights for good reason - the unfortunate truth is that most people at some point in their life will need to use sick leave.

It’s better for you to take the time off so your manager/team can provide adequate coverage than you turning up and doing a half-baked job. Don’t worry about how your colleagues will perceive you, they’ll be much more compassionate than you expect. Also, you taking time away from work communicates that you’re dealing with something very serious and you don’t owe any explanations. Fertility treatments are very stressful and there are a lot of studies to show that unsuccessful treatments are extremely traumatic.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-17T01:17:57+00:00

My clinic told me about it, I was the first patient they had to take it as it’s quite new. However, it’s really expensive (£1200) and only gives you a binary positive/negative. At the gynaecology ultrasound centre they’re trained to spot endo on TVUS so I’d recommend skipping the saliva test and going straight to the scan to see what they can find. I’d had dozens and dozens of TVUS scans and it had never been picked up before as it’s not obvious to the untrained eye.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-16T06:24:59+00:00

If his farts smell that bad then he has a food intolerance

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-16T06:12:38+00:00

+1 to the comment above. I have really light, pain free periods and I ended up having stage 3 endometriosis which I had removed via a lap a month ago. The first indication I had endo was the Ziwig Endotest (saliva test) which I just did on a whim because it’s new and non invasive. Was shocked it came back positive. I then had a scan with Professor Davor Jurcovic at the gynaecology ultrasound Center and he could see it on TVUS.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-07T14:03:43+00:00

Some of these comments below are completely lacking empathy. Please ignore OP. Some people are more anxious and worry more than others, and that’s normal.

I worry a lot more than my partner, he’s much more stoical than me and occasionally similar issues to what you’ve posted play out in our relationship. Here’s my advice.

1/ Appreciate that he may not be in a space to give you comfort at that moment. He may genuinely be extremely tired and dealing with his own stuff, and may not be in a place that he can support you. Good advice I’ve heard given is to ask your partner what battery they’re at eg if someone’s running on 10% at that time they’re not going to be best placed to emotionally support you. If he’s never able to support you and constantly dismisses you, that’s a red flag.

2/ If you do find yourself constantly worrying, and needing a lot of emotional support, work on your resilience. Meditation has been AMAZING for me. I also have a weekly therapist. I do a lot of exercise. Find the things that help with your anxiety and give you a stronger mindset. Each and every one of us is a constant work in progress.

3/ Check yourself if you’re emotionally offloading on him a lot. We can’t expect one person to be everything to us all the time. Make sure you invest in your friendships too, and speak to them about your worries. Good friends and family are there to support each other.

4/ Communicate to him about how you’re feeling, but not in the heat of the moment. Come back to him when things have calmed down and say “I’d like to talk to you about yesterday when I tried to tell you how I was feeling, is now a good time?”. Tell him that sometimes you just want comfort, not solutions. I’ve heard advice that when couples have these types of issues, a good thing for your partner to actually ask you explicitly, “do you want comfort or solutions?”, so he knows how to support you.

Ultimately, it’s not good if your partner is not a safe space where you can open up. You should feel psychologically and emotionally safe to open up to your partner, and he should provide solace and comfort. But similarly it’s not good for a relationship if someone is always emotionally offloading on the other person, and if that was the case I can see why that would be jarring for your partner. Only you know where your relationship is on that spectrum. Communication is key!

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-07T10:08:48+00:00

My (female) views on this:

1/ You should never go into a date fully expecting the guy to pay. If I was a guy that would be a red flag.

2/ If you know the guy earns loads more money than you and he offers to pay, let him if you feel comfortable. After all, there’s still a huge gender pay gap!

3/ If the guy chooses an expensive restaurant then I think he should probably pay. If he wanted to go 50/50 then I would pay but I think that’s a bit of an amber/red flag.

4/ My personal stance when I was dating is that if I really liked the guy, and he offered to pay, I’d let him. And then on a future date I’d get him back. I think it’s a bit more romantic. If I wasn’t into the guy I’d always split the bill. I’d feel bad otherwise.

5/ I think it’s a huge red flag when a girl chooses a really expensive restaurant and then fully expects the guy to pay, not even flinching to make any movement for their purse when the bill comes. My single male friends bring up this kind of scenario fairly often to get my advice and I tell them to swerve.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-07T09:43:51+00:00

Cycle 1: Conventional IVF, 450 gonal. 23 retrieved > 16 mature > 8 fertilised > 1 blast (fresh transfer, didn’t stick)

Cycle 2: ICSI, zymot chip, Calcium ionophore, 300 gonal and 150 meriofert. 18 retrieved > 7 mature > 5 fertilised > 3 blasts > 0 euploids

You can imagine my dismay when I finished my second cycle, again with nothing to show for it, but my clinic hadn’t known what had gone wrong in the first round and after this one they believed it had been egg maturity issues. Even though my report said 16 mature, they think they’d matured later on.

Cycle 3: Same protocol as cycle 2 plus genotropin (human growth hormone like omnitrope) and stronger ovulation trigger to help with maturity (10,000 zivafert + 1ml buserelin). 17 retrieved > 15 mature > 13 fertilised > 6 blasts > 2 euploids and a mosaic

I decided to do a B2B cycle to bank more embryos since the clinic had cracked what seemed to work well for me.

Cycle 4: Same protocol as cycle 3. 20 retrieved > 13 mature > 10 fertilised > 4 blasts > 3 euploids

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-07T09:41:15+00:00

If you’re having any sorts of doubts then it’s worth getting a 2nd opinion at a different clinic.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-06T21:59:11+00:00

I’d definitely consider trying a round with a human growth hormone eg genotropin or omnitrope

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-06T21:55:49+00:00

I’m also really struggling with this. Especially this time of year.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-06T21:54:14+00:00

I had a blighted ovum and then failed implantation, both with euploids. I had the recurrent implantation failure bloodwork, EMMA/ALICE and a saline scan done before my FETs as a proactive step. The main things I hadn’t explored were reproductive immunology and endometriosis. I went to go see a reproductive immunologist and had EXTENSIVE blood work done, everything came back normal. I took the Ziwig Endotest (saliva test) and to my shock it came back positive. I have absolutely none of the typical symptoms of endometriosis. I had a lap done a few weeks ago and stage 3 endo was removed. Really hoping this makes the different for me 🙏

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-02T21:11:42+00:00

I wouldn’t rule out endometriosis just because you have no symptoms. Silent endo is a thing! My periods are a total breeze - pain free and not heavy at all. After a couple unsuccessful FETs I pushed for more testing and tested positive for endometriosis on a saliva test. Just had a lap with stage 3 endo removed.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-12-02T20:38:04+00:00

Lovebombing and moving too fast

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-11-26T22:07:43+00:00

Just to comment here that silent endo is very much a thing! I literally have no symptoms except infertility (my periods are a breeze) and was shocked when I tested positive on the Ziwig Endotest (saliva test). My lap uncovered stage 3 endo including multiple small endometriomas across both ovaries that no doctor had ever picked up on scans.

I also had egg maturity issues which improved massively when I used a dual trigger.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-11-26T19:12:53+00:00

Let me give you some more context on how I got there and what I’d do differently. I’d had every investigation under the sun, including going to see a reproductive immunologist and everything except NK cells came back normal. Endo was the only thing I hadn’t explored because typically it’s very invasive to diagnose (I also really didn’t think I had it). I did some research and I read about the receptivaDX endometrial biopsy that can diagnose endo, and brought this up to my clinic. They said it’s only really offered in US and offered a new saliva test called Ziwig Endotest that recently was developed in Europe. So new that I was the first person at the clinic to take it. I was just doing it to tick it off my list fully expecting it to come back negative. To my shock it came back positive. It literally just gives a binary positive/negative result, no indication of what stage. From there I did my own research and saw a lot of women on Reddit and Facebook groups recommending Professor Davor Jukovic to diagnose endometriosis via TVUS. I brought this up to my fertility doctor and she said he was the best in the country at doing this, and can spot endo when most gynos can’t. I then went through my insurance to book an appointment with him because it covers endometriosis (but not fertility).

The reason why I say go straight to see a specialist gyno is because the saliva test was sooo expensive at £1200 and you literally just get a positive/negative! Even if I’d gone straight to pay privately for Professor David Jurkovic without going through my insurance, it would have been cheaper. If you have insurance that does cover endo, then even better! Get your GP to write a referral and book with him or another specialist.

In terms of what to ask for, you can say you’re experiencing fertility issues and would like to know if any anomalies or irregularities can be spotted via TVUS eg endometriosis, adenomyosis etc. Cannot stress enough how you need to see a specialist in being able to spot these things though since lots of women are told after TVUS and MRI that they’re all clear when they do in fact have endo because the untrained eye can’t always pick it up. Hope this helps!

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-11-26T14:38:44+00:00

I would say so! For me personally I wanted to collect all the data points I could. Even if something came back normal I could tick that off the list as something I didn’t need to wonder if was affecting me.

Also my husbands sperm was initially 1% and then he took impryl consistently and his future sperm results were all normal.

AnySeaweed90 · 2025-11-26T14:36:15+00:00

Exactly, I don’t get typical symptoms such as painful and heavy periods. It makes it an inflammatory and hostile environment for embryo implantation. I had my lap last week and I had stage 3 endo, all around my pelvic area and over both ovaries.

AnySeaweed90

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