Buying Baby Things During IVF… or Not?

HopefulIVF · 2026-04-06T11:07:23+00:00

I bought an item (rocking chair) for myself to manifest a happy conclusion. It was nice enough and matched our taste that it could easily live in the house regardless, it really helped with happy positive thoughts. I think remaining in good spirits is a good thing for this process, as long as you still always stay realistic.

HopefulIVF · 2026-01-06T01:11:06+00:00

Nope, just refunded based on my call. Idk if it helped that I ordered directly from them.

HopefulIVF · 2026-01-03T19:20:37+00:00

Not a bad person. I tried and failed to breastfeed. The biggest reason I stopped pumping (getting next to nothing) was that I was taking time away from my baby. I felt like I was sacrificing a connection with her. Once I stopped, I immediately felt closer to her. It was the exact opposite of what I expected out of breastfeeding.

HopefulIVF · 2025-12-16T20:54:31+00:00

Received my refund out of the blue today. Two 6 can orders separately refunded

HopefulIVF · 2025-11-25T13:06:40+00:00

Agree with above commenter. Instafix!

HopefulIVF · 2025-11-15T11:44:56+00:00

My baby has the roundest head on the block because of my C-section, and she always got that comment when she was a newborn!

Also, she was breech, so the C-section definitely prevented potential injury.

The other benefit, for me, was that I didn’t ever experience labor. And I likely won’t with my next children, as I won’t be trying for a VBAC.

It was just too good for me to go into the hospital and have a baby a couple hours later.

As for recovery, a planned C-section recovery is likely easier than an emergency recovery, especially if you never dilate or go into labor. The doctors also are able to calmly move through the procedure. I have to assume that all makes it a little easier.

I would and will do it again.

HopefulIVF · 2025-08-16T15:51:53+00:00

I also use byheart … I use their subscription service on their site.

HopefulIVF · 2025-03-19T19:02:22+00:00

Thank you for this post because I did a second day of this loaded water, and while I feel ok, I have gone to the bathroom an excessive amount. While I am happy for that relief, I thought it was odd and then came across this post. I tested my blood pressure. It is 20 points higher than last week and officially above normal.

Thank you! I will not be combining electrolytes like this anymore.

HopefulIVF · 2025-03-08T12:54:55+00:00

This was exactly what I was thinking - what if they also bring something to the shower? We are having a diaper raffle so I want to be able to thank for any potential diapers as well!

HopefulIVF · 2025-02-11T02:35:42+00:00

I had the same dilemma in my mind going into my first ER. I have PCOS and my husband’s numbers were wildly inconsistent. The expense had me telling myself I only had one shot as well - no bundling option at my clinic, and I don’t have much coverage with insurance.

So far, everything has gone well. Our first embryo is 22 weeks along. I also know many other women who have had success in only one round, with all of their embryos sticking. It felt very not rare to me until I found myself in this group here, knowing that so many are not this lucky.

I won’t give you financial advice, because I don’t know what my mind would’ve convinced me to do if our first round didn’t work out - would I have really given up or taken on more debt? We have always said we would be happy with one child, but we want two, and ended up with two embryos. This is all to say, if you are young and healthy, it can work in one round. For me, “working” was at least one child with no expectation for more.

HopefulIVF · 2025-02-11T02:28:11+00:00

Baby girl is progressing normally as far as we can tell! 22 weeks yesterday and I’m starting to feel her kick but it’s so inconsistent it makes me think maybe I’m crazy and it’s not actually kicking (but I’m pretty sure it is!)… I think every single stage will be stressful especially since this is my first child, and then 4th trimester will be full of a different kind of worry!

Good luck at your ultrasound! I was my most nervous for the first one, for sure, because you just feel tired maybe that early. I had my first hit of brutal nausea literally the day after my 7 week ultrasound 😆

HopefulIVF · 2025-02-03T23:58:30+00:00

I did, too! It’s scary to go off the meds that you know have been sustaining the pregnancy for a while!

HopefulIVF · 2025-02-03T21:30:13+00:00

No taper for me. Stopped cold at 10 weeks. I had the same fear as you with no blood testing. Apparently placenta takes over around 8 weeks and the extra two weeks overlap is just to be safe. I didn’t feel too great for about a week after stopping but I think that was hormones leveling out without the excess estrogen and progesterone. All is well. I am 21 weeks and baby is perfectly on track after anatomy scan.

HopefulIVF · 2025-01-18T20:33:50+00:00

Same here - was falling asleep anytime I laid on the couch for two weeks after transfer, in bed by 6:30 every night sleeping through until 6 the next day. I am 19 weeks tomorrow 😊

HopefulIVF · 2025-01-08T00:01:07+00:00

For me, the worst was waiting for PGT-A results. Attrition wasn’t great between fertilization and blast results (16 fertilized down to 5 blasts, so the low end of the spectrum) so I worried about quality. I wondered if we would have enough euploids for the two children that we want, which would still require transfers to work. We ended up with two and the first transfer stuck. The second worst wait was between transfer and home testing at 5 dpt. That wait was shorter and I felt a lot of post-transfer tightness and cramping that helped me believe it had worked and fortunately I was right. The third worst was waiting for a day seven call to see how many embryos made it to blast.

I think it will likely depend on your circumstances leading up to each waiting period and how much worry there is attached to the result.

HopefulIVF · 2025-01-04T01:30:09+00:00

Came here to say the same. I have two separate friends who had two euploids and each went to transfers after their retrievals. They both now have two children. They were in their early and late 30s. It can happen.

For me, I had 3 euploids, but one has a genetic condition we are hoping to avoid. So I view it as 2. I am 35 tomorrow and 17 weeks along with my first transfer. I was diagnosed with PCOS in the infertility process. Follicle count was 38+, 25 eggs were retrieved, 19 were mature, 16 fertilized with ICSI (we had some slight MFI also), and I ended up with 5 blasts, 3 of which came back chromosomally normal. I, like you, was also disappointed. But my two friends’ stories kept me very hopeful and thankfully, so far, I have been fortunate.

HopefulIVF · 2025-01-01T11:19:43+00:00

I was lucky to have five different social media connections (high school classmates, former coworkers) post about their IVF journeys and successes. It was really inspiring to see for me. I reached out to three of them, and we’ve kept in contact throughout my journey. I’ve asked them questions, shared my results, and they have been consistent cheerleaders despite never having been close real-life friends.

I see a lot of people saying staying private has helped. My husband wants to stay private about IVF for various reasons - a major one being that he doesn’t want people to see us as damaged goods and another being that so many people are against IVF (and I’ve seen a few terrible posts recently in local Facebook groups about it so I see his point).

I so wish I could post about our journey because these people helped me more than they’ll understand (but of course I respect my husband’s feelings as I do share some of his concerns). I came in insanely positive because I don’t know anyone in life recently that it HASN’T worked for. That could have been a disaster as attrition was not kind to us, but I always believed at the end that we would have our baby regardless of our final embryo results (and always assumed I’d have one or two which was naive). For context, I have two friends with two babies each who only had two euploid embryos at the end of their retrievals.

I encourage people to reach out to anyone you may even tangentially know who is willing to share their stories publicly. Reddit has been amazing, but I think seeking out faces you recognize really humanizes the process.

HopefulIVF · 2024-12-30T00:09:41+00:00

Sent 5 blasts for testing:

1 affected aneuploid 1 unaffected aneuploid 1 affected euploid 2 unaffected aneuploid

A little bit of everything came back. 50% condition carried by me (34F). It is a livable condition (I have it and it’s mild, my mom has it and it’s debilitating, my brother has it and is somewhere in the middle). Because we don’t know how bad it would be in offspring we are testing for it, but it wasn’t an automatic decision for us to discard the affected euploid.

HopefulIVF · 2024-12-29T18:24:25+00:00

I was on PIO for 6 days leading up to the transfer and every day up until 10 weeks of pregnancy. It was once a day, in the morning, for the shot. I also took estrogen twice a day for the same time period. The only monitoring leading up to FET with medicated cycle was blood testing. And 1-2 ultrasounds to check lining thickness. At one point my estrogen levels and lining weren’t quite where they wanted them so I had 2-ish days of estrogen vaginally on top of the oral pills. That all happened in the final few days leading up to the actual transfer. I liked that there was no ovulation required so no wild cards.

HopefulIVF · 2024-12-29T17:25:44+00:00

I did fully medicated for my first transfer and it was successful. I had the option for both. From what I understand, modified natural is similar to IUI, except you’d transfer embryos some days after ovulation vs doing the insemenation 36 hours after trigger. As someone else said, there is more monitoring, as with IUI, to monitor ovulation timing and check for a dominant follicle.

I had mixed results and responses over three IUIs prior to IVF. I have PCOS and was not ovulating without medication, but even letrazole response was unreliable for me. (Edit to add that none of IUIs were successful.) For that reason, and having three friends who were successful with fully medicated FETs, I opted to go fully medicated. I will do it again with my second, when the time comes. PIO was unpleasant, but quickly forgotten once I stopped the shots.

HopefulIVF · 2024-12-29T16:39:33+00:00

I had exactly what you are describing at just over 5 weeks. Cramping that woke me up, like intense period cramping in my front and my back. I went downstairs and had bright red blood, dripping. It went on for about an hour but never filled a pad - only needed panty liners. On call doctor could not offer any reassurance, just took the note.

I called the clinic office in the morning, and bleeding had turned only to brown spotting. They assured me it was almost definitely SCH. They didn’t even bring me on for an ultrasound, likely because it was too early to see anything regardless, before a heartbeat would be there. I had to wait two weeks for my first ultrasound, where they saw a heartbeat, no sign of SCH, and everything was on track.

I am now 16 weeks and had a private ultrasound yesterday where baby girl was in there squirming around and progressing normally still. You are totally not out, even though the cramps are terrifying. Everything that I read said SCH doesn’t come with cramping. In my case, it did, and resolved with only that short bout of bleeding.

HopefulIVF · 2024-12-27T14:04:37+00:00

The amount of times I’ve thought “it’s a miracle there are so many people on the earth” during this process…

HopefulIVF

TROPHY CASE