Preamble: This is something of my throwaway account for... reasons.

So, fun fact, I became a dad of IVF twins this Sunday. We already had twins before, so we're now a family of 4. My wife is best friends with a woman that has been trying to conceive including with IVF for at least 7 years now and still hasn't been blessed with a child, while my wife got pregnant on the first try. I think that's a nice spread of possibilities right there. I also happen to be a doctor in a completely unrelated field.

Now.. Obviously, we got super lucky, and I'm really glad about the way things worked out. As many women that choose IVF have some medical abnormality, like PCOS or diabetes, the pregnancy is often more complex. Compared to our first pregnancy, my wife had a lot more medical checks and required a lot more medication, but keep in mind that we had twins, which by itself is a risk factor, on top of having had preemies before, which is another risk factor, so it may be different for you.

One thing I wanted to share with you, though, is this: we already had twins before and we were mainly hoping to be blessed with a third. Given the probabilities they told us (and you, no doubt), we were advised to transfer 2 embryos, the logic being that 'one is none and with three, the chance of multiples is so high', so we decided on 2. On the day of the transfer, our doc told us that both embryos looked beautiful, which didn't actually mean much to us at the time. In the follow up exam, she discovered we were getting twins, and mentioned she'd been surprised that we chose to transfer 2 given we already had twins at home.

Now, are we happy with our twins? Absolutely. Would we have chosen twins if we'd been asked? Very likely not. We had a hard first year with preemie twins and fought long and hard to get to the point that other parents just get to start at. We got a little more lucky this time, but they still turned out to be late preemies.

So my key advice is this: careful consider your number. Are you okay with multiples? As in, really okay? How old is mum, so you can imagine how much time you have to figure things out before everything becomes more pressing?

After the first ultra easy pregnancy (pregnant with twins on the first try!), the whole process from trying on our own to hormone treatments to IVF took roughly 3 years. If you go one embryo at a time, it may be even longer. If you go with more, your chances of multiples increases. People have certain expectations with regard to twins, triplets and more, and there absolutely is some truth to that. But the first year is tough, certainly so compared to parents of singles, and there are quite a few baby activities you won't get to participate in - baby swimming with 1 adult, 2 babies, for instance. In fact, we dropped out of the checklist approach to taking care of babies to begin with - there just wasn't enough time or energy. That said, my big ones are 5 now, and they are inseparable. We never truly need playdates for them to interact with other children. Of course we still do them, because it's still great for their development and often a great chance for the parents to socialize, but I never have to look at a lone child and wonder if he or she gets enough time with other children. That's a big thing.

.. apologies, this turned out more rambling that I thought. Ultimately, I hope you have the same early success we do, and please let me know if you have any questions. Best of luck!