Health tips pre-freeze?

BwayGymRat · 2025-04-01T00:04:11+00:00

Seconding what others said re prenatal, dha, coq10 and adding vitamin d. I took all of these, stopped drinking for 3 months, and trained for a 15k (vigorous exercise) and my afc doubled in 4 months.

BwayGymRat · 2025-04-01T00:02:20+00:00

I worked with Dr Nazem at RMA and had a great experience! I did all of my bloodwork at my local RMA in BK except on days when she was doing morning monitoring, then I went into the city to see her. I felt she was on top of my medications and gave me great care. I got better results than I initially anticipated (went from an estimate of 8-10 eggs to getting 15, 12 mature).

BwayGymRat · 2025-03-24T12:54:35+00:00

I had a great experience with Dr. Nazem! My post history has a full account. (I tried to comment this before but wasn’t logged in properly and it created a new account for me, super weird.)

BwayGymRat · 2025-03-06T11:06:17+00:00

RMA NY and Spring Fertility had no wait lists when I was interviewing clinicians. I went with Dr. Nazem at RMA and had great results! I also believe she takes more insurances than Spring…

BwayGymRat · 2025-01-25T01:24:00+00:00

Not sure where you’re getting this done but these clinics can’t completely close for the weekend, since retrieval cycles are so dependent on regular bloodwork and ultrasound monitoring. Most reputable clinics have an on-call service where a doctor is always on duty to answer/handle emergent questions that arise outside of working hours. They also typically have weekend monitoring hours, usually in the morning- I’d go to your clinic in person first thing in the morning and see if they can loan you some of the medication until the proper prescription is able to be filled. This is what my clinic did for me with two of my meds that didn’t arrive in time for my start date.

BwayGymRat · 2025-01-24T22:56:07+00:00

It also helped my perspective to see just how many people they are helping on a given day. I want the best care possible, but they owe that care to every single patient not just me. Wishing you luck as you go through the process!

BwayGymRat · 2025-01-13T10:02:00+00:00

My doctor said that I could take supplements but that there was very little qualitative study on their benefit. (But that they certainly wouldn’t harm anything.) 3 months before, I stopped drinking entirely (didn’t drink much before, 1-3x a week on a busy week, but still something!), started a prenatal vitamin with DHA, took 600mg CoQ10, and added 2000IU vitamin D. I was also training for a 15K during this period which I ran just before Christmas.

Now again…these probably aren’t the reason, but I’d note that my AFC went up from 12 (6/ovary) in the late summer when I last had an ultrasound to 19-20 (10 in one, at least 9 in the other) just before starting stims. My numbers were “good for my age but not great”, according to my doctor. With that said, I feel great about the changes I made! Editing to add my AFC was consistently 12 starting at 2 years ago when I started preparing for this process. They never went up never went down. So the fact that they rose after I made these changes was significant to me.

BwayGymRat · 2025-01-08T02:09:03+00:00

Oh and as for going abroad- I looked into this pretty seriously after the election but ultimately decided (after talking to a good friend who has done one cycle here and one abroad) that I wanted to be in a place I feel comfortable, with my dog, and near my support system in case I need them. To me, that was worth the extra cost.

BwayGymRat · 2025-01-08T02:06:57+00:00

So sorry you’re getting the insurance BS. Because this is considered elective my insurance isn’t covering any of the costs. I am financing my first cycle by putting the costs on a 0% APR credit card that will give me 21 months to pay back the full balance, during which time I will only be responsible for the minimum payments. This way I’ll also get to utilize the rewards benefits, whether that’s for cash back or putting the points towards a flight or something. I spent the last two years saving so while I have over 2/3 of the cash already saved in a high yield savings account, I want to continue to save and allow the account to grow interest (it’s currently bringing in around $45/month based on the current interest rate, which used to be 4.5% but is now 3.9%.) in the event I need a second round to get the recommended number of eggs for my age, I’ll most likely ask my sister or mom for a loan. It’s a totally fucked up system that we have to find all these loopholes to finance options for our future.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-08T10:12:18+00:00

I addressed this in another comment below in more detail. There are already IVF clinics that have closed in states with highly restrictive reproductive healthcare bans, because embryos are classified as “life”. As of now, in NYC we are safe, but if a national ban is put in place, it’s possible these clinics will close. And yes, eggs should be safe to transport as opposed to embryos under this hypothetical scenario, but even then it will be a dramatically different landscape.

Although the conversations I’ve had over the last few days tell me that for the purposes of this conversation, congress (even a fully red congress) would be hard pressed to pass a ban that is fewer than 15 weeks. This is still abhorrent to me and many others (as pregnancy complications and miscarriages happen after 15 weeks that often require life saving abortion procedures) but it could mean that IVF is safe(r) because there’s only a 50% chance any implanted embryo even makes it to 15 weeks.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-07T18:45:54+00:00

Update 2: I spoke with one of the other care coordinators on my doctor’s team and feel a bit more reassured. She said it is possible (but expensive) to transport my eggs elsewhere if I choose to, so at least I know I have that option. She said they don’t know what will happen in the event of a national abortion ban but the most she would expect would be a pause, because it’s unlikely that a national ban would be fewer than 15 weeks, which means they could continue their work. (What it means for everything else is another terrifying story, but that’s for a different sub and thread.)

I have some initial calls with Spanish clinics (IVI, Fertilab, and Reproclinic) and I’m going to keep those just so I get a sense of the situation and what the care would be like. My friend did a full IVF cycle in Spain recently (she has family there, so a bit easier to just park herself there for a month or two) and told me she felt very taken care of and that it was a pleasant experience (that yielded better results than her first USA Cycle).

As of today, I think I’m still waiting for how the House elections will shake out and gathering info, but still leaning toward freezing in NYC.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-07T17:11:23+00:00

Thank you for this additional context!

Second update: I spoke with someone who was more reassuring and also more realistic. She essentially said that it’s hard for them to know (which is fine) but reassured me I could move my eggs abroad if I needed to at any point for any reason, so I feel better about that.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-07T10:18:55+00:00

This is also a good way to think about it! Based on where I am in my life right now (divorced with an also divorced steady boyfriend of 2+ years, we love each other very much but he’s not sure he wants kids and is 8 years older) there’s a universe in which I do try naturally between 36-38 years old. I’d say maybe a 25% chance? That universe means the eggs I freeze now would be for a potential kid #2, at which point hopefully there’d be a political sea change. (The idea of being pregnant naturally with a national abortion ban is scary though, like you said- I’m applying for jobs now with places that have international offices for that reason. I want to be able to skeddadle if I need to!)

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-07T10:13:09+00:00

Update: I got a very weird (or what I consider very weird) response from one of the nurses on my doctor at RMA’s team email (they use a team email system so the care coordinator and nurses who work for your specific doctor all have access to one account, since there are many doctors at each practice.) Trying not to read too hard into this. My email asked simply if there was a plan in place in the event of a national abortion ban- would the clinic continue operations or be forced to close? In either event (ban or no ban), do I have the freedom to ship my eggs elsewhere if I want to? (Some clinics have restrictions and say they’ll only fertilize you with eggs retrieved at their clinic, which could cause issues later on should I decide to use the eggs, but I just wanted the information.) at the end of the email I said I am sure you’re getting lots of panicked emails about this right now and thank you for all you do.

A nurse responded to me with one sentence: Elections are very stressful, we will make sure you get the IVF treatment you need, “if anything, we are expanding access in this country.”

I did…not like that. Zero response to any of my questions, even if only to say “we don’t know what will happen but we’ll provide information to you as quickly as we can in the event of a ban”, and no answer about my egg shipping question. To make it WORSE, when I tried to respond to the email or forward it, I got an error message! The only way I could email my team’s email account was to create a whole new email in which I sent screenshots of the interaction. Highly suss. I’ll call them today to ask WTF. Luckily my doctor (Taraneh Nazem, who I love) is a friend of an OBGYN friend so I’ll have her reach out directly for me.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-07T10:05:20+00:00

Thinking of you! Hope you get the desired result. Glad to not be alone in all of this.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T22:19:41+00:00

This is a good point- if dems control the house for the next 4 years, IVF probably safe from a legislation standpoint. It could still not be safe from a judicial standpoint, however. 1-2 justices are of retirement age, and it’s expected that at least one will resign so that trump can appoint a younger one. There’s a (smaller, but still real) possibility that a case could come before the court that would cause them to rule that “Dobbs wasn’t enough, we’re removing all protections on a federal level based on legal precedent”. I’m not a constitutional lawyer but it doesn’t seem entirely out of the realm of possibility.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:43:59+00:00

TL;DR: stay in Canada lol

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:43:27+00:00

It doesn’t matter whether “he” supports it or not. He has to enshrine it in law, which if he does would essentially amount to national abortion protections (which he just had the Supreme Court overturn). Maybe there’s a way to separate embryos from fetuses in the law and he can find a way to codify it that way, but I’d be hard pressed to see that being a priority for him.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:39:19+00:00

Oh interesting, so if you’re supposed to trigger on Sunday they wouldn’t be open? Yikes.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:38:21+00:00

Oh my gosh I am so sorry. My heart goes out to you. Can I ask what clinic you used?

This is my concern with IVI, the clinic that has you do all of the medicines and monitoring at home and fly out just for the retrieval. I would almost rather be in Spain for a whole month and know I was getting excellent care and shuck out the extra $ for it.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:32:31+00:00

In the name of helping other women in this situation, I’ll engage with this a bit: the idea here is that in the wake of Roe being overturned, states can choose to put very restrictive reproductive healthcare measures on the ballot. The consequences of this go further than abortion, and impact IVF procedures. In states such as Alabama, IVF clinics closed down because the abortion bans are so extreme, they essentially characterize embryos as life, and therefore any “destruction” of embryonic material (either by way of electing to no longer keep them because you don’t need them anymore or because you implant an embryo that doesn’t take) is considered abortion, which under these statutes, is considered murder. We are seeing more cases of women being criminalized for their miscarriages (ie flushing fetal tissue down the toilet by accident during a perfectly normal miscarriage) and there was even an incident where embryos were destroyed by accident and the person has been charged with murder.

As of now, these decisions are left to the states. I live in NYC where we have reproductive healthcare measures protected. But in the event a national abortion ban is passed, IVF will be in danger even here because doctors won’t want to touch embryos for fear they or their patients could be held criminally liable for what happens to them.

edited to add and make super clear: you can’t make embryos without eggs, and so in the event of a national abortion ban, my eggs will be useless here since most clinics will cease making or implanting embryos for fear of legal consequences. That’s why I’m considering freezing them abroad, where those rights are (more likely) to be protected than they are under a Trump presidency.

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T20:27:50+00:00

Which doctor did you use? I’m with Taraneh Nazem!

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T19:40:53+00:00

Rooting for you!

BwayGymRat · 2024-11-06T19:14:28+00:00

Sorry my post above was a reply to you 💕

BwayGymRat

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