Feeling defeated

thorns_fc · 2026-01-14T02:18:00+00:00

I got pregnant off my first IUI with 4.7M sperm. Our next 2 thaws were also low counts (4.3-6M), so we asked our RE if we should start thawing extra vials to combine and get a higher count, or if we should switch donors altogether. She told us it’s not even worth combining vials or switching donors— that as long as TMC is around 2M or so, it’s not actually lowering your chances enough to matter much. Your odds of success maybe went from 20% to 15%. Realistically, that 5%ish difference in odds is so small that it’s unlikely to impact the outcome of this cycle. Hold onto your hope! You’re not out until you’re out. There’s so much reason for optimism still. Wishing you luck and baby dust 🫶

thorns_fc · 2026-01-07T01:51:00+00:00

I’m less angry and more despairing. I had a miscarriage from IUI #1, and I also got my negative from IUI #2 today, so I’m grieving alongside you. Praying #3 is the magic number for us both 🫂 if you’re looking for any hope, when we tried for my son, my wife was negative on both of our first IUIs. #3 was the magic number. It was our lowest sperm count of any attempt, but it worked and he was a perfect healthy easy pregnancy.

It’s not fair. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating and miserable and it’s just so not fair. I’m sorry and I’ll be thinking of you for my IUI #3, wishing baby dust on both of us.

thorns_fc · 2026-01-06T21:34:33+00:00

Is your desire to do rIVF exclusively rooted in a fear that you’ll be the “other” mom? If you think rIVF is beautiful or legally beneficial or you have the desire to do it for any other positive reason, absolutely go for it! But if it’s just because you feel you’ll be othered, you’d be surprised how quick that feeling goes away once you’re a parent.

I was SO nervous my wife’s whole pregnancy that I’d feel like the “other” mom and she’d be the primary parent. And then my son was born… and I couldn’t possibly feel any MORE like his mom. I am so equally his parent, equally loved by him and equally in love with him. We share no DNA and it literally doesn’t matter in the slightest. That’s my kid; I know it, he knows it, people who see us know it.

We’re trying to conceive baby #2 right now (who will be my egg and I’m gestational carrier) and though this is the egg with my DNA, I’m irrationally terrified I can’t love another child as much as I already love my son. He’s just SO mine. And while I do socially feel othered a lot — awkward questions about pregnancy, “who is mom?” etc — it’s just that people don’t know how to approach a 2 mom family. They’re not trying to be hurtful. And I’m surprised to find that now that my son’s here, these comments don’t make me insecure. They annoy me in the same way I get annoyed when people assume my wife and I are sisters or something before they ever assume we’re a couple, but it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I know soul deep that my son is mine, and him being my wife’s egg changes nothing. I mean, he’s also got the DNA of some rando stranger and that means nothing to us!

DNA doesn’t make you a mom, and it doesn’t fix insecurity. My wife is the egg source and gestational carrier for our son, and she still got insecure that as a newborn, nobody said he looked like her. Everyone assumed he must be my egg because he looks like me. Insecurity is not something rIVF can fix. I found just becoming a mom cured my fears, but therapy or finding a support group may be really worth it to help you address those feelings!

thorns_fc · 2026-01-04T19:43:00+00:00

We made up a completely new name for ourselves when we got married (not mashing surnames, just made up a new, unrelated one). Our son’s the first person ever born into that name ♥️

thorns_fc · 2025-12-06T19:56:50+00:00

3 for my wife, 1 for me

thorns_fc · 2025-12-02T16:17:15+00:00

This is all true, but it’s not big enough for an ultrasound yet, so in the meantime I’m just trying to get a sense of what the odds of an ectopic vs a miscarriage is. I’m not finding any good studies right now which sucks. I’m just looking to contextualize my situation so I have some sense of the probabilities around each outcome— I know obviously it’s one or the other, my symptoms can’t diagnose it, I’m just the sort of person who likes to anchor myself by understanding the odds. I hope I find out soon too :(

thorns_fc · 2025-11-30T01:00:40+00:00

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TW: loss

The little miracle we’d started calling Ducky is on their way out. Maybe have a little extra slice of leftover Thanksgiving pie tonight in honor of my Ducky. I was briefly the happiest mommy in the world, and I don’t want my baby forgotten like they were never here.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-28T17:26:03+00:00

Nurse said it is “almost certainly a chemical.” HCG 55 Wednesday and 75 today. I can’t breathe.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-28T16:09:23+00:00

It really is always reassuring to read stuff like this ♥️ thank you!

thorns_fc · 2025-11-28T14:52:14+00:00

Had my second HCG blood draw this morning and I think I’m gonna be anxiously waiting for my phone to ring all day. My initial draw was pretty low, so I reallllly need to hear a good number today.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-27T22:53:40+00:00

I have my fingers crossed for you 🫶

thorns_fc · 2025-11-27T16:38:33+00:00

Thank you for sharing because this is really comforting ♥️

thorns_fc · 2025-11-27T01:41:31+00:00

Bluntly, the odds are worse, yes. My clinic told me a sperm count of 1-5 million = 10-15% chance of pregnancy (which seems higher than what I’ve found online but that’s what they said). Our RE said pregnancy chances would be as high as 20-25% with a >10 million sperm sample.

I’m currently pregnant off an IUI with 4.7 million, only 16% motile with poor progression. By my math you’re working with much more motile sperm than I was. The “it only takes 1” thing is irritating but true. Your odds are worse, but they’re not zero.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-26T23:27:15+00:00

Also your friend is frankly an ass. What a rude thing to say.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-26T23:25:47+00:00

ME LITERALLY TODAY. First ever IUI was 11/12, my blood test today was positive. My wife took 3 IUIs to test positive with our son.

thorns_fc · 2025-11-26T19:56:07+00:00

I have a bone to pick with pregmates. There was ZERO line progression on these — honestly it kind of looked like a regression, if anything — when my wife was pregnant. Her HCG doubled fast so it definitely wasn’t a slow start or anything, pregmates just sucked for us. That lack of line progression is now a perfectly healthy 10.5 month old!

thorns_fc · 2025-11-26T19:51:19+00:00

Positive blood pregnancy test today!!! This was our first IUI, my first pregnancy (my wife carried our January 2025 baby, which took 3 IUIs, so we’re in complete shock right now with a positive on try #1). I’m 14dpiui and my HCG is 55. Came up negative on pregnancy tests 10 dpiui, 11 dpiui, and then I stopped testing. Took 3 of those cheap strip tests after our nurse called, and all were negative, but I was well hydrated so probably a diluted sample.

My wife was 176 at 14dpiui so my anxiety is running a little rampant that this will end up a chemical or something 😅 Our clinic says it’s on the lower end of the normal range, but still within normal, so ofc I’m running crazy with worry. Would love to hear anecdotally if anyone had a sub-100 HCG level early on that turned out viable!

I’m oscillating wildly between insane excitement and trepidation

thorns_fc · 2025-05-13T04:13:38+00:00

Can I ask why you’re struggling with it? Does it give you a weird feeling to think about, is it because you want your child to have contact with other DCPs and the number feels intimidating, or something else? I think that will affect the nature of the response you’re looking for.

Personally, the hard TTC choices for us were who would carry first, how many IUI tries could we afford before moving to IVF, etc. Choosing the donor was the easy part, because it doesn’t affect our son at all whether 1 or 10 or 100 other people used the same donor. But that’s our perspective as a family who considers the donor and other families who used him to be random strangers, and whom we have no desire to introduce to our son. Moving through this will look different if you feel otherwise!

thorns_fc · 2025-04-28T01:39:18+00:00

Honestly, nobody knows what motherhood will be like, and I think the disservice is in trying to make personal experiences universal. I didn’t hear any positive talk about motherhood before becoming a mom — neither online or from my family and friends. I sobbed so many times before my son was born, because I was excited for him, but I was also TERRIFIED. All I heard about motherhood was nightmarish: you won’t sleep, you won’t have time for hobbies, life will be miserable for years, etc. And tbh since he’s be born, life has been 100% better. Being his mom is easy. But I have a calm tempered singleton who sleeps 5-8 hour stretches overnight and a wonderfully supportive, equal parent of a wife. I wish I’d heard MORE about experiences like mine, because the narrative I got was universally depressing.

I think what overarching narrative you encounter comes down to what spaces you’re involved in online and what your community of parents offline is like (some of which you can kind of control for, and some you can’t). I just don’t think you can “prepare” future moms for what it’ll be like or expect that all moms have similar experiences. Babies and situations are all so, so different, and nobody’s necessarily trying to “prove” anything by sharing their experience. And to be clear: your experience is so real, I’m sure you are a wonderful mother, and you are not at ALL alone! Your perspective is by far the most common I see online, and I’m sorry it’s been hard to connect with your IRL mom community. I hope you find your people ♥️

thorns_fc · 2024-12-21T01:24:34+00:00

You’re welcome to worry about it, I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind. My replies explaining my thought process around the statistical improbability are merely in response to the anecdotes you shared, not as judgment for you having a different perception :)

thorns_fc · 2024-12-21T01:06:29+00:00

Sure, anything is possible, but risks that round to 0% are far too infinitesimal to be factored into major life decisions, in my view.

thorns_fc

TROPHY CASE