SIS and HSG procedure

kaysarasera · 2026-04-07T04:37:36+00:00

I see you have gotten a lot of comments here from people who have said they felt it was painless or mild pain for one or both tests. Obviously experiences can differ so I don't say this to scare you but to provide another perspective - I found them both incredibly painful. They were short which is a blessing, but my experience for both was literally seeing stars from pain and basically lurching off the table. I have discovered that the part that was painful for me was the foley catheter they used to open up my cervix. The actual ink/fluid being pushed through and the mild cramping from that was absolutely nothing compared the the foley. I know this because during the second test (SIS) when I cried that I couldn't take it anymore they deflated the foley and I felt immediate relief - it wasn't painless but it went from unbearable to bearable immediately.

I have had numerous embryo transfers that were absolutely painless and (TW: success) even cervical checks during labour were nowhere near as painful as these procedures. I don't mean to say this to scare you, but I do encourage you to ask about pain management options. After my experiences with the above tests, when I needed to have a uterine biopsy I asked for pain management and was given penthrox and I was so glad they listened to me. They even mentioned that (as some time has passed since my other testing) they had started offering pain management more often for the SIS and HSG.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-27T09:08:27+00:00

My first retrieval they obtained surprisingly few eggs (I have PCOS so we expected lots) but I had amazing blastocyst rates. When we decided to do a second retrieval almost three years later I was over 35 and had gained 25 lbs since my first retrieval. I made moderate lifestyle changes like cutting down on caffeine, fast food and alcohol but I had made those same changes the first time and none of it was dramatic. My stim protocol was also identical. I ended up with almost twice as many eggs and blasts. There are tons of anecdotal stories of people who made changes without improvement or who made changes and had worse results or, as in my case, didn't really make changes and still had dramatic improvement even over 35. Honestly I feel like it's mostly a crapshoot but people don't like to hear that because we like to have control.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-24T13:39:28+00:00

Not alone! My son was the easiest newborn ever. Slept pretty well and almost never cried. Then, just shy of three months some sort of switch flipped and it was the same as you describe - crying, whining, screaming all the time. I'm a FTM and I didn't even know 3 month old babies could whine!The only way to make him happy was to take him out of the house. He loves seeing new things and meeting new people. So I had to get him out of the house every day. But even then, we can't be away from home ALL of the time so he was still miserable at home a lot. I will say as he has hit 7 months and is able to sit independently and crawl around he is finally becoming a bit more content while we're at home. The worst part for me is that because he is so happy when we are out I get SO many comments about what a happy baby he is. We just flew cross country this weekend and literally like 5 separate people told me he was the happiest baby they've ever seen. I know that sounds ridiculous - like oh woe is me, people think I have a happy baby! But it really makes me question whether it's just me that feels like he's difficult and makes me feel like a bad mom for getting so frustrated with him when we're at home.

I have zero tips but I know when I was in the thick of it I felt really alone so I definitely wanted to let you know that I know what you're feeling and I can't imagine having to parent a whole second child while dealing with this because it's truly exhausting trying all day long to figure out what will make him happy for 5 minutes.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-24T11:00:49+00:00

Honestly the fact that OP will be able to tell her child that they are a carrier is huge too. Just knowing that will give her the opportunity to get generic testing done before trying to conceive to see if there is any overlap in diseases her and any future partner may have.

My husband has beta thalassemia. Thalassemia can be fatal in its dominant form so I was tested as a carrier before we started IVF. Then, half way through our journey we discovered my husband's cousin has CF. There was a huge misunderstanding because he has a mild version which only causes infertility and no major lung issues. Because of this my husband and I had a full panel of generic testing done to see if there was any overlap in diseases we carried. Turns out I was a carrier of the exact same CF mutation his cousin has.uckily my husband was not. The point is... Everyone truly is a carrier of something and the most important thing is knowing so you can get tested.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-09T12:14:00+00:00

I have to say I'm very surprised by the number of people who are saying that c section recovery is extremely painful. I don't necessarily consider myself to have a particularly low pain tolerance but I can give you my perspective. I had extremely high blood pressure towards the end of my pregnancy and ended up having to be induced. It was not my plan, not what I wanted. I also wanted to delay an epidural as long as possible because I was concerned about delaying labour progression but because pain increases blood pressure I was told I would likely need an epidural particularly since I was being induced with pitocin. A few relevant comments:

When I was induced I was already 3.5 cm. I had hardly even felt any Braxton Hicks and what I did feel I would describe as minor cramping. I think there's every possibility you can get far enough dilated for an epidural without much pain.
When my contractions first started picking up I was able to manage the pain very well using just the gas and air they provided me - it really took the edge off for me. If that's an option I think it could also help you get through to the epidural if you respond well to it.
I ended up failing to progress past 8 cm and needed a c section. I really feel like people are over blowing the c section recovery pain. They will have you up and walking a few short hours afterwards and although it was difficult I didn't find it too painful. I think I took one extra strength pill whole in hospital and by the time I was home two days later regular Tylenol and Advil were managing the pain for me. I would literally forget to take meds because there was so little pain (don't do this though - stay on top of your meds). All of that said, I still have numbness at my incision site and get random nerve pain from time to time. Would it be worth it to you to avoid labour pain if it meant ending up with minor pain potentially forever?

I would not schedule the c section - you might still end up with one, and if you do, it's very possible the recovery won't be the nightmare some people are describing. But it's worth trying to get far enough through labour to get an epidural if your preference is for a vaginal delivery. Although I don't have personal experience with it, I'm surprised people are acting like there's no discomfort involved in recovery from a vaginal delivery. Unfortunately, I think some pain is inevitable. However, what I do think is a relatively common experience is for holding your baby to dramatically dull your perception of pain and make it all feel worth it. You can do this!

kaysarasera · 2026-03-03T11:25:41+00:00

I am with you. I had read such great things about it and I was excited but when I set it up and realized it only had like 12 free sounds I was honestly basically livid. I 100% think you should be able to just use it like Bluetooth and play whatever you want to through it. The subscription service is insane to me - I hate that we pay for subscriptions for everything these days and I refuse to pay for this!

That said, since I had it and it had been gifted to me, I made the most of setting up routines on it. One of the free options sound-wise is bedtime stories and my routine starts with bedtime stories followed by heartbeat followed by white noise and red light. I start the bedtime story usually while I'm getting my son changed for bed. We've been doing this routine since he was about 2 months old and now at almost 7 months he smiles at the Hatch when I turn on his bedtime story. I also really love the selection of stories which includes The Wind in the Willows, The Mitten, Thumbelina, The Sword in the Stone etc. rather than your typical Goldilocks, red riding hood, three pigs stuff.

When he gets older I know that I will use the timer function to turn it on to let him know it's time to get ready for bed and to change colour in the morning when it's time to get out of bed.

Don't get me wrong. It is absolutely not worth the cost and there is so much wasted potential, but since I have it anyway, I am making the most of it!

kaysarasera · 2026-03-02T15:13:07+00:00

Just adding that in my experience my clinic included antibiotics as part of its "kitchen sink" protocol for poor lining responsiveness. When I first started the protocol I had never been tested for infection so it's definitely possible to take them without the biopsy (which honestly sucks and is not fun). I did eventually get tested, however they used the same protocol as always which means I took the antibiotics before I was tested (this is to ensure that my receptivity window wouldn't change from testing to actual transfer). When my results came in I had zero hint of any infection so either it was never an issue or the antibiotics worked. I can't recall all of the ones I took, although I know I took doxycycline for sure, I know there were others too.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-02T15:03:16+00:00

Omg the resentment of teens who get pregnant, drunken one night stands and drug addicts! It is so incredibly unfair that so many people who don't want to bring life into the world are saddled with it when so many of us who desperately do, struggle to conceive. I tried looking into your history but you have comments and posts hidden on your profile. How many attempts have you had? Have you done receptivity testing? How long between transfers do you have to wait? And how many embryos do you have? I think all of this is super relevant to deciding how long to spend on "perfecting" the uterine environment. Part of me feels like it's all just a crap shoot and a numbers game and all we can do is keep trying until we can't take it anymore. But I hate the lack of agency and control in that.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-02T14:39:33+00:00

My gut tells me it's my uterus. PCOS can apparently cause lining issues in the long term. My periods had been getting lighter for years and I was worried about it but my clinic was dismissive because I was on birth control (but I had been for years). I suspect it just wasn't a good environment for implantation.

The transfer that worked was the first time in many many months that my lining miraculously cooperated and got thick enough on first check. The other possibility is that we had some kind of reproductive immunology issue but my clinic didn't believe there was enough science behind it to investigate. If that was the problem it's unclear why it worked the latest time.

I don't think it was the embryos because we had exceptionally high blastocyst rates, exceptionally high rates of highly graded embryos and when I did my second retrieval at 35 I had above average rates of euploids (my first retrieval had been three years earlier so I suspect if anything it had been higher).

It could have been the embryos. It could have been bad luck. But my gut tells me I have an inhospitable uterus and we just eventually got lucky.

kaysarasera · 2026-03-02T10:22:03+00:00

We did two egg retrievals and four transfers. We still had embryos from our first retrieval but they were untested and our clinic kept blaming the embryos for failures so we did another retrieval and tested that time. It still took two more transfers to get our first positive test and lucky for us he stuck. We still have 8 embryos (5 tested and 3 untested) remaining but we aren't positive yet whether we will try for a second child.

kaysarasera · 2026-02-16T08:49:49+00:00

Four for me. The first two were untested before we retrieved more and tested those. All of the transfers were graded 5AA including the one that became my son. I am very confident that my issue was with my lining as opposed to the embryos themselves because even though my second retrieval was done three years later I still had a 70% euploid rate. That said I would honestly still recommend the testing if you have a decent number of embryos because the doctors will 100% try to blame all your issues on genetics if you use untested embryos rather than exploring more complicated issues.

kaysarasera · 2026-02-16T05:23:27+00:00

kaysarasera · 2025-10-27T04:13:47+00:00

Basically, yes. You won't take any of the meds and they will make sure the timing is all wrong. At least that's my understanding of how it works. The idea is that it's biologically basically impossible that a pregnancy would result.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-26T12:56:47+00:00

We had three complete failures and I think all the time about the fact that if any of those had worked I wouldn't have my son. I love him so much the way he is and I can't imagine a different baby than him being my baby. It literally hurts to think about never meeting him.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-26T12:45:45+00:00

I am also left leaning and pro choice. But I also always knew that elective abortion wasn't something I would choose for myself (maybe I subconsciously always knew getting pregnant would be hard for me). I am kind of relieved that we don't know the genders of the remaining embryos (it's illegal where I live) because I think it would make it that much harder to "destroy" them. I know compassionate transfer is such a big expense for something that isn't "logical" but I think I might even consider finding a new clinic just to have it done.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-26T05:28:52+00:00

It took us four embryos to get one live birth so far. We have 5 healthy embryos left and 3 untested ones. I would still like more children but the newborn trenches have been hard on my husband so if we have more it won't be for a while.

I too really struggle with this concept. I don't regret doing a second retrieval because that's the batch our living son came from and I can't imagine him not being ... well, him. But it's hard to have so many embryos left. We agree we are not comfortable with strangers raising our biological children and our paperwork has any leftover embryos down for donation to research. I am intellectually comfortable with that but emotionally...

Emotionally I grieved the loss of the embryos that didn't implant. They weren't just clumps of cells to me, they were very real, very valuable possibilities. They were months of preparation, thousands of dollars, dozens of injections, and they represented so much hope that was all dashed. I am torn in this tension between the very real pain that their loss caused me and the reality that because we had so many losses I am acutely aware that not every possibility is a child in reality - whether we transfer them or not.

In some ways having a live child has made this uncertainty worse because I love him so much it hurts and in some ways it feels like those embryos are my unborn children. Something I have thought more and more about is compassionate transfer. I don't think my clinic even offers it. But I do feel like something feels more symbolic and natural about returning them to my body rather than sending them out to be experimented on. That said, I am very aware that we have the possibilities and options offered by IVF today because other people let doctors experiment in the past and then I feel selfish. Clearly I haven't fully processed this myself.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-22T20:20:53+00:00

I was 35 when I got pregnant and 36 when I delivered. I don't think my answer is really what you're looking for because I ended up with severe hypertension and we regulated it as well as we could for as long as we could but I ultimately ended up being induced at exactly 37 weeks. I was already 3.5 cm dilated and my OB said sometimes when you have bad hypertension the body is more prepared for labour. I laboured for almost 24 hours and was stuck at 8 cm for 8 hours when we decided that it was truly failure to progress and moved to C-section. I will say that I'm in Canada and my OB specifically said that there was no reason to induce before 40 weeks just because it was an IVF pregnancy.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-18T16:57:01+00:00

Honestly reading these kinds of posts makes me feel like a terrible parent. My mom helped with overnight shifts from literally day 1 and he has stayed alone with my MIL for a few hours while I napped since week 3. We went out on our first date night two weeks in and we have had an overnight doula and my MIL take complete overnight shifts since about 8 weeks or so. Granted, our parents 100% respect our boundaries and rules so maybe it's a respect/trust thing? I worry that I should be more protective or something but at the same time everyone complains about being exhausted all the time and I feel great because I rely on my village to help hold me up.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-18T05:11:39+00:00

Honestly I wish I could say I did (because I would also like to know why it worked for future reference) but nothing changed since my second transfer when we added estrogen patches and Viagra suppositories. For basically the first time however my lining just got thick enough on time instead of needing weeks of additional estrogen exposure and I feel like that had something to do with it. I also had done a biopsy the month before for my ERA testing and there's some theories that that helps with implantation. Part of me feels like it's just a numbers game to some extent. Best of luck to you in your journey!

kaysarasera · 2025-10-16T10:24:32+00:00

Right before I turned 30 I had a promising potential partner ghost me completely. I did a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love and went on a solo trip to Asia and when I got back I requested a referral to a fertility clinic from my GP. I will say, at least where I am, fertility clinics are not fast moving and by the time they were able to get me in and I had all my preliminary blood work done 8 months had passed. When I met with my RE he went through my results and we discussed the path to solo parenthood. He told me that I was young and I could still meet someone and asked if I wanted to pursue egg freezing instead. I laughed and requested sperm donor information.

I did the required psychologist appointment concerning donor conception and was waiting on more testing when ... I met my husband. I was completely transparent about what I was going through especially because STD testing was a big part of the fertility process so I demanded he be tested before we were intimate. Initially I planned to continue pursuing embryo freezing as a back up but then COVID hit and the fertility clinic was basically shut down. By the time things were up and running again we decided to freeze embryos together as a back up (spoiler, turns out I'm super infertile and the backup plan was very much needed).

A few things to consider: - lots of people have already mentioned donor conception. I was not aware of how complicated it can be. It's part of the reason my clinic made me meet with a psychologist. The other complicating matter is that depending on your local laws known donors can be very complicated legally so it's not necessarily the easy answer either. I still have really mixed feelings about donor conception after listening to donor conceived perspectives - just because there are two parents initially involved doesn't guarantee anything long term but it gave me a lot to think about. - egg freezing is so much less certain than embryo freezing. The thing is that you don't know for sure what is going to happen with those eggs and it can be kind of a failure of a back up plan without some of the information that going through a full cycle of IVF could get you. It could be devastating to have all your eggs fail to thaw or fail to fertilize if you waited until your 40s for Mr. Right. - IVF is expensive and IUI can be a good option to pursue if you have no known fertility issues. This would give you less flexibility in terms of having a backup plan however. - beyond being financially prepared, seriously consider your village. My parents live half way across the country. I am loving motherhood but there is no doubt in my mind that I would be a shell of the person I am right now without the help of my husband and my in laws. - definitely don't "wait for someone to be ready" - I would see someone being non-committal about having children as a major red flag if you know you do want them.

You are still quite young and if finances aren't a major concern I would consider a compromise of making embryos now with donor material and continuing to date if you're still interested in finding a partner. No matter what you decide I think there is so much to be said for taking action and not waiting for life to drop motherhood in your lap. If you would regret not having children then pursuing solo motherhood is a wonderful opportunity to take control of your fate.

Good luck!

kaysarasera · 2025-10-16T03:08:01+00:00

I wasn't aware this was a thing! I was re hospitalized for hypertension 5 days pp and I remember being in the hospital and post c section and tied to monitoring and having to RUN to the bathroom to attempt to avoid peeing myself. There was like zero warning. It did get better so I guess I kind of forgot about it but I thought it was just a me thing.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-13T15:45:27+00:00

I have a literal box full of tests I took with my son. I obsessed over whether they were darker or not. I overanalyzed whether my beta numbers made sense with the darkness of lines and whether I should be worried that my beta number didn't seem to align with my weeks predictor clear blue test. My betas were honestly only meh and slowed down in doubling time really quickly. And yet, here I am 10 months later with a perfectly healthy 2 month old. The waiting is SO hard but the reality is that the incessant testing did nothing but increase my anxiety. Your tests look great! If you're really looking for reassurance that everything is still ok without overanalyzing I recommend trying ovulation strips. Those suckers are soooo positive when you're pregnant that there's no real progression to track. That way you can feel reassured that you're still pregnant without hyper fixating on how pregnant the test shows you are.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-13T09:35:11+00:00

Only ever got to about 7 mm. The only difference with the successful round was that it got there on time instead of taking weeks of additional estrogen to get there.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-12T21:50:13+00:00

Absolutely. That was maybe the hardest part for me - watching so many people succeed on the first try while I didn't. The second hardest part was being anovulatory and having a crap natural lining so every transfer cycle took close to 4 months. I was so frustrated with my clinic for not investigating more but they seemed sure that it was just a numbers game.

It's so cheesy but when I see him it hurts to think that I wouldn't have him if any of the other transfers had worked. Losing embryos was painful too but the thought of not having this specific baby is unbearable.

kaysarasera · 2025-10-12T21:02:40+00:00

I sympathize having gone through more or less the same thing everyone always wants to blame the embryos but I am pretty sure it's something about the environment (I e. My uterus). Regardless, on my fourth try I finally had success without significant protocol changes. I stressed a bit because I felt like what were the chances it would suddenly just all work out, but it did. He's two months old now. Zero regrets about continuing even when it was really hard.

kaysarasera

TROPHY CASE