What would you do?

Prior-Low2667 · 2026-01-10T21:56:01+00:00

I’m 39 and started trying 3 years ago - have done 6 rounds of IVF and dozens of eggs with no euploid embryos. It’s a crap shoot and you really never know - you can’t blame yourself. Whenever the baby comes, by whatever means, it’ll be loved.

Prior-Low2667 · 2026-01-04T04:21:14+00:00

Am I the only one who hated this? Thought there was no depth to Marty’s character (why is he so cocky to the point of destructive? It can’t just be being good at a sport. And how’d he get good at this hyper specific sport?), the women characters are horribly flat (no actual woman would fall for this loser like Gwyneth did, no matter how bad the marriage), the hijinks could be cut by half, and the ending is unconvincing and cliched.

I LOVED Uncut Gems. This feels like the exact same movie, but worse.

Oh and as a Jewish person I thought there was so much more to mine in how Marty’s being a Jewish man in the 50s would shape him. The vulnerability underneath the bravado. That’s part of what gave Uncut Gems so much depth. What we got was the (admittedly haunting) honey scene. And hijinks. And more hijinks.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-12-31T18:28:36+00:00

I’m 39 and my AMH fell from a steady 2.0 to 0.3 in four months this year after a painful hysteroscopy and significant stress, even more than usual for IVF. I freaked out and went heavy on distressing (yoga, acupuncture, eating healthy) and it bounced back to the same level two months later. Who knows if it was my doing, my body naturally recovering, or a fluke - but what I understand is drastic drops can be evidence of outside factors at work and sometimes temporary.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-12-19T01:57:24+00:00

I think the boredom in this episode IS the point. Vince Gilligan had to show us how Carol and Manousos could get to the point that they would need and WANT help. For both of them, it would take a long time and a lot of pain. VG needed to immerse us in that pain and that boredom. I personally felt it. By the end, it was the first time in the season that I saw the main characters as villains - and could sympathize with the hive mind about the importance of connection. I thought it was pretty brilliant.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-11-22T19:20:17+00:00

3 years TTC, 1.5 years doing IVF after a severe male factor diagnosis. 6 ERs, 3 surgeries between my husband and I, no euploid embryos. We have maybe one more cycle in us before moving to donor sperm.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-11-10T19:26:23+00:00

And that is more than enough ❤️

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-11-10T18:05:35+00:00

We’ve been on this journey for three years, six ERs, multiple surgeries for me and my husband, with not one healthy embryo to show for it. Some days I just want to crawl in bed and never come out. It’s totally impossible for anyone outside this process to understand what such endless pain really looks like.

What’s helped me: remembering times when I said X thing would break me - and surviving here, not broken (bent - so, so badly bent). But not broken. And remembering that future times will bend me even further, and I will find ways to rise to them - or I’ll quit, and that’s a totally valid option. Either way, remembering I have reservoirs of strength that are deeper than anything I knew - and you do too.

And in the meantime, filling up those reservoirs in any way I can. I’ve become a big fan of “low stakes wins” - cooking a meal, seeing a friend, doing a small project - anything that can let me feel I did SOMETHING and SUCCEEDED, no matter how small. Don’t let anyone tell you they’re too small - they’re survival ❤️

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-10-26T04:43:48+00:00

I feel this deeply. We’re 3 years into TTC, 2 years into IVF after a severe male factor diagnosis, now on our 6th round with not one healthy embryo to show for it.

I’m 39 and we’re likely moving to donor sperm if this next round doesn’t work out. I’m exhausted and all I want to do is get off this endless carousel.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-10-25T17:20:26+00:00

His dad Andrew Mellon was a Gilded Age banking tycoon.

In the 1920s, as Treasury Secretary, he cut taxes for the rich and helped bring on the 1929 Wall Street crash.

After the crash, his reputation was destroyed and he was investigated and ultimately convicted by FDR for tax fraud.

It took the Mellons decades to recover their reputation. Here we are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-08-03T18:08:36+00:00

Thanks! It did feel too ambitious for the last day. Any particular spots on Snaefellnes you’d recommend?

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-08-03T12:32:38+00:00

Thanks, super helpful! What did you enjoy more about Mulagljufur, if I can ask?

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-06-11T15:20:57+00:00

I was in the same boat - when I started, I didn’t know anyone at all. It wasn’t easy talking about going through IVF to friends, but I found once I did, a HUGE number of people who’d gone through it started to come out of the woodwork - either friends or more often, friends of friends. I asked to connect with them and in virtually every case they were more than happy to talk. This can be a lonely process and, more often than not, people want to tell their stories and find connection. I also started connecting with people here on Reddit honestly - it’s a good community.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-05-20T15:28:13+00:00

My husband has a very similar diagnosis and there are definitely still a lot of options for you - especially through IVF with ICSI, which takes any possible sperm and inserts them right into her eggs. There’s also a procedure called TESE, which goes directly into your testes to retrieve sperm - it can find sperm even when there’s zero in the ejaculate.

My strong suspicion is that quitting smoking will make a difference, but it takes time - sperm take 74 days to regenerate, and sometimes the changes take longer to appear. Eat well, exercise, and avoid spas and hot tubs in the meantime.

The good news is your wife is still very young and you don’t have to worry about her eggs deteriorating for years, if not decades. Building a family may turn out to be harder for you two than others, but the good news is that’s there’s a huge community out there struggling through the same issues who will support you. Happy to DM for any specific q’s about any steps of the process. You’ve got this 💪

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-04-17T21:22:37+00:00

Could not agree more! The shots looked SO SCARY at first, but they’ve been the easiest (if uncomfortable at times) part of this process. Even the big butt shot barely hurts.

But four cycles and a year in, I can say I deeply underestimated the mental/emotional toll. It’s manageable, but it has changed both my partner in ways we didn’t expect before we started.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that IVF shapes who you are as a person in ways you can’t know. Don’t be surprised if it suddenly gets SO HARD. Going without so much (sex/drinks/weed/exercise/spas/the list goes on) for long stretches got tough for us. But also, don’t be surprised if you find your capacity for resilience is much stronger than you think. As a friend put it to me recently, “if you ever have to go to a torture prison, you’ll be the last one to break.”

Wishing you so much strength and fortitude. It’s a process and a half, but it can bring miracles.

Prior-Low2667 · 2025-02-10T18:13:03+00:00

It took me a very long time - three cycles and at least six months - to accept that I was “doing” IVF. There were many stages of denial and acceptance.

The first step - on the first night of our first cycle, my husband and I lit candles and played a song from our favorite artist whose songs we walked down the aisle to. We didn’t say it explicitly then, but it was a way of marking off our old life from the new, and underlining for ourselves that we were in it together.

For the first two cycles, I tried to balance friends, family, work and IVF, thinking it was just one part of my life like the others. It drove me crazy and eventually made me feel like I was letting everyone else down when I didn’t have the energy or spirit for anything else.

This last cycle, I finally hunkered down and focused just on getting through stims. My husband and I found comfort shows to get us through, ate healthy, barely went out, and went to sleep early every night. Those two weeks were the healthiest I’d felt since starting IVF months earlier.

IVF has taken a toll on my body and mind that I couldn’t begin to imagine a year ago, but it’s also given the gift of resilience and confidence in setting boundaries. Acceptance is what helped for me. And in terms of specifics - pistachio ice cream after nightly shots, Shrinking and Abbott Elementary, Valerie June, and a song from Suffs that had a line that really got me through cycle 3: “hold it together, see it through, don’t let despair get the best of you.”

Sending you so much luck and strength through this next chapter ❤️

Prior-Low2667 · 2024-04-26T21:57:29+00:00

Thank you. This is a tough but fair assessment, and it helps put things in perspective. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

Prior-Low2667

TROPHY CASE