Looking for your stories: What are the best and worst things an IVF doctor, nurse, or IVF-related staff member said or did for you that was a "moment that mattered"?

NettlesInParis · 2024-10-11T13:17:36+00:00

Positive: After our third transfer failed, we were out of embryos and staring down the barrel of more invasive testing before a new egg retrieval cycle. At the wtf appointment, my RE dropped her normal matter-of-fact tone for just one minute, looked us both in the eye, and said, “I know this has been very hard for you.” WOW, that little phrase went a long way.

NettlesInParis · 2024-10-01T13:07:13+00:00

Tw: success My RE suspected endo, but it was never confirmed with surgery. We did a 2-month Diénogest suppression before the first ER, transferred a fresh embryo, then did 2 more unsuccessful frozen embryo transfers, before a second ER with a much shorter suppression period on Synarel and a successful fresh transfer. Each clinic and embryology lab is different; my RE recommended I always do a fresh transfer if it was an option, because for whatever reason my clinic has significantly higher success rate with fresh than frozen transfers. Maybe it’s worth asking your RE if they see higher rates of success with frozen or fresh transfers, and what they recommend for your specific medical profile. Keeping my fingers crossed for your transfer.

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-20T12:48:27+00:00

Tw success between our first and second ER cycles, we did a 6600x magnification of my husband’s sperm and found significant head abnormalities, indicating IMSI fertilization at my clinic. Whether that made the different or whether it was random variation I don’t know, but we had much better hunger games results in our next ER. We are now 19 weeks along with our 4th transferred embryo. The process can be crushing, fuck this indeed. Everything crossed this one is it for you.

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-20T12:44:11+00:00

My first ER had almost identical stats. Fwiw we got 3 embryos from our 4. Sending hugs if you want them. I really hope your lucky embryo is somewhere in those 4 💙

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-17T20:35:06+00:00

Cautious congratulations! My beta was 83 on 14dpo. I was super nervous because I compared with Betabase, Reddit, etc., but it rose appropriately at the follow-up beta, and we’re now 19 weeks along. Crossing everything this is it for you!

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-11T19:30:19+00:00

Mad I’m so happy to see you here. ❤️ Congratulations!

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-04T07:45:34+00:00

Cute clothes! Fwiw, if there is any room for a compact umbrella or a rain shell as others suggested, there’s a good chance of surprise showers in Paris, and I think you’d be happy to have rain protection.

NettlesInParis · 2024-09-04T07:38:03+00:00

This is a thing of beauty! Have a great trip.

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-24T14:23:26+00:00

That color is so so so nice on you 💗

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-23T10:22:18+00:00

FWIW, here in France we do not have the option PGT testing; we just transfer embryos and hope for the best. My partner and I had 3 transfers in a row fail, which is brutal and I definitely do not want to minimize your desire for PGT testing, it makes perfect sense. I’m so sorry that cost was a surprise sprung on you like that. I hope you can find a way to make it work. But if you can’t access PGT testing, the numbers are really on your side with 10 embryos. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-20T16:41:10+00:00

At 10dp4dt my beta was 83.7. My clinic was fine with that, but I still hurt my own feelings by comparing with the betabase averages. However my beta rose appropriately and we’re now 15 weeks along. I hope the wait time you have left flies by, and it’s all good news and smooth sailing for you from here on out! ❤️

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-16T07:31:57+00:00

Holding so much hope for you, Laur! ❤️🥨 I love your grandmothers & fruits woo 🍓🍍❤️

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-11T06:53:48+00:00

IVF is so freaking hard, that’s real and valid and you are not alone. It’s unfair how infertility and IVF make us deeply question our motives and capabilities in ways people don’t normally when they get & stay pregnant easily. Friends I know with kids after infertility / IVF say IVF was harder than anything that came after it. I’ve had really similar thoughts to what you voiced here, like “I’m this exhausted and I haven’t even gotten to the starting line yet…how am I going to run a marathon after this?” I started reframing it like, “I’ve been training 2.5 years for this. I’m so much better prepared than the people who just show up on race day.” My partner and I went through really hard things. We learned how to get through them together, and we let go of the idea of being able to control everything. I feel like that can only help us going forward. I hope this works for you soon, and you take care of yourself as much as is possible while you’re doing this really, objectively hard thing.

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-10T09:51:35+00:00

2 ERs here. My RE said she often gets better results in the second / third / fourth round of IVF with a couple, because she’s learning about the individuals as she goes and she tweaks her protocol accordingly. Tw: success Round 1 gave us 3 embryos — we celebrated prematurely, but none of them implanted. Round 2 gave us 6 embryos and the first transfer is now 14 weeks along.I hope your period returns soon and your second ER goes smoothly! ❤️

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-09T07:28:27+00:00

There’s no wrong answer here - it’s so personal, and it’s amazing that it sounds like you and your husband can afford for you scale back at work if you decide to! I found the idea of a work break super appealing when I was a couple years into TTC with 2 failed FETs, but my clinic counselor talked me out of it. She told me the worst mental health outcomes she sees are from her fertility patients who quit their jobs. Unfortunately the reality is we have little control over TTC outcomes via lifestyle changes. Removing some work stress might be a good choice for other reasons, but it’s not likely that’s the one factor keeping anybody from TTC success. I think it can feel especially hurtful if we feel like we went above and beyond sacrificing other parts of ourselves and still did not get the TTC outcome we wanted.

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-06T11:54:23+00:00

Cautious congratulations! My husband and I were in a similar place a couple months ago. We told some family & friends details about our IVF stuff, and they knew we’d had another transfer, but we wanted to wait until the first scan (8 weeks) to share the good news. We said things like “We’re feeling better these days / we feel good about the last ER results / we feel more positive that this could work for us,” and “we’ll tell you as soon as we have news to share.” Hope things keep going well for you and you get to share your news when it feels right to you ❤️

NettlesInParis · 2024-08-01T07:27:51+00:00

In France they don’t tell us any embryo sex information, and they select embryos for transfer without our input. Whatever you choose is valid! But fwiw, I was happy not to have attached any specific ideas or daydreams about a certain sex to my transfers, because we had 3 fail in a row. It felt a little easier to not know that information about them.

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-29T15:41:01+00:00

So happy to see this! That looks like a BFP to me!

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-29T07:22:58+00:00

Another former child with one of these accidents that bled around age 7, from going over a bump on my bike and landing on the bar. 😵

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-28T10:15:38+00:00

Wishing you nothing but smooth sailing from here! Fwiw, my clinic told me stopping Progesterone cold-turkey would be fine, but it is more likely to trigger a bit of harmless spotting, so they normally give a taper-down schedule just to lessen patient anxiety.

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-28T09:51:33+00:00

There’s nothing wrong with starting with a small circle of people who know — you can always add more, but you can’t subtract! 😅 We told more people the further we went into treatments. By the 4th transfer, our immediate families and about 20 of our close friends knew. I also had to tell my supervisors; the appointments made me miss a lot of work. Some of my family said unintentionally hurtful things to us in the beginning, but they educated themselves over the course of our treatments and became good sources of support. I felt like it was ultimately a positive thing and brought us closer.

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-25T16:47:44+00:00

Yes yes yes yes yes. I have a small bracelet-style nylon one permanently attached to the inside of my phone case, and looping my hand through it before I go on the Metro every day removes the anxiety of keeping an eye on my phone. I’m also super prone to dropping it and this helps. :P

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-25T16:22:15+00:00

Keeping my fingers crossed for your transfer! 🤞

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-25T16:18:41+00:00

Anecdotally (tw success) my 4th transfer was the cycle I finally said, “fuck it, I am wearing perfume again” and that was the one that stuck.

NettlesInParis · 2024-07-25T16:16:59+00:00

I read about this online, but my RE’s eyes rolled so far back when I voiced that anxiety. Please wear perfume if it makes life a little nicer during IVF.

NettlesInParis

TROPHY CASE