Anonymous wrote:I didn't think I'd be 1.5 years in to trying with no BFP yet....

Amen.

I am in the 2ww of my first IVF trying for #1. We found out that our chances of getting pregnant naturally are less than 1% naturally. We ended up doing better on this first try than predicted but I am still apprehensive. I am AMA and my numbers are OK but not fantastic.

I never thought I would be in this position like many of the previous posters. My doctor strongly advised me to wait until I finished an allergy shot protocol before trying to get pregnant (my very severe allergies could be bad for the developing baby) and I am now regretting that decision. But hindsight is always 20-20. None of my friends experienced infertility.

I hope for the posters trying for their first baby that they have a positive outcome (in whatever form that may take).

I didn't think I'd be 1.5 years in to trying with no BFP yet.... So sad and not excited about the infertility road ahead, which we've now started...

Anonymous wrote:
Just turned 43. Have been trying for 2 years. Four pregnancies = four miscarriages. Clueless, enthusiastic husband (plus no IVF coverage) kept us from pursuing IVF until now. ("Honey, you can obviously get pregnant... let's just keep trying!") Scared, nervous, sad, feeling like a fool for not going straight to this. Given that we're out-of-pocket, and my age, it's not like we're going to be able to spend years trying to perfect the protocol so the pressure's on ....

Damn it. Why did it take me so long to look up from my work long enough to find a terrific husband, fall in love, and decide that I actually do want to be a mom?



Hey, if you had "looked up" earlier, who's to say you would have found someone then? And if you did, would he be as great as your now-husband? I met mine when I was 25 and that did not save me from infertility hell. In other words: blame the universe, not yourself. (Easy for me to say while I beat myself up for every choice I've ever made.)

Good luck! I would say it actually is promising that you've been able to get pregnant before. Hopefully with the right embryo, it will stick! Are you going to do PGS?

43 year old here. Thanks for the encouragement/kindness. This journey is so hard and we beat up on ourselves, don't we? So hard not to... Yes to PGS. We are out of pocket and not "wealthy" but it seems to be that I don't have a second to waste and with 4 miscarriages due to chromosomal abnormalities, it seems like bad judgement not to just make the investment and give this our best shot possible. I'm about to start "estrogen priming" in about a week and then hopefully a cycle in April. Crossed fingers for us all....

Anonymous wrote:Just turned 43. Have been trying for 2 years. Four pregnancies = four miscarriages. Clueless, enthusiastic husband (plus no IVF coverage) kept us from pursuing IVF until now. ("Honey, you can obviously get pregnant... let's just keep trying!") Scared, nervous, sad, feeling like a fool for not going straight to this. Given that we're out-of-pocket, and my age, it's not like we're going to be able to spend years trying to perfect the protocol so the pressure's on ....

Damn it. Why did it take me so long to look up from my work long enough to find a terrific husband, fall in love, and decide that I actually do want to be a mom?

Hey, if you had "looked up" earlier, who's to say you would have found someone then? And if you did, would he be as great as your now-husband? I met mine when I was 25 and that did not save me from infertility hell. In other words: blame the universe, not yourself. (Easy for me to say while I beat myself up for every choice I've ever made.)

Good luck! I would say it actually is promising that you've been able to get pregnant before. Hopefully with the right embryo, it will stick! Are you going to do PGS?

Just turned 43. Have been trying for 2 years. Four pregnancies = four miscarriages. Clueless, enthusiastic husband (plus no IVF coverage) kept us from pursuing IVF until now. ("Honey, you can obviously get pregnant... let's just keep trying!") Scared, nervous, sad, feeling like a fool for not going straight to this. Given that we're out-of-pocket, and my age, it's not like we're going to be able to spend years trying to perfect the protocol so the pressure's on ....

Damn it. Why did it take me so long to look up from my work long enough to find a terrific husband, fall in love, and decide that I actually do want to be a mom?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good thread

I'm 33, husband 31. Unexplained for 4 years. 3 IUIs, 1 IVF resulting in OHSS requiring that we freeze all our embryos (9 all grade AA). First FET was a BFN. Second FET was a chemical. We then took a 2 year break as I was a total wreck emotionally. As a last minute thought we did PGS before our 3rd FET. No longer unexplained infertility... every single one of our "perfect" embryos were chrom. abnomal (most had trisomy 21). We just sent second biopsies to Natera to determine if it was maternal or paternal. They couldn't figure it out. We then did ANOTHER fresh IVF as a shot in the dark for normal embryos... (again, we don't know if we'd need an egg or sperm donor) Just got my Day 6 report that 3 made it to freeze (of 16). We immediately biopsied and are waiting for the results. As there's no way of knowing if it's an issue with me or my husband (and both our karyotypes are normal), we'll have to move straight to embyro adoption.

Miserable. Isolated. Alone. Overweight. In debt. OVER IT.

You are not alone.

+1 Nope. You are not. Though we went through three egg donors and multiple surrogates before finally insisting on PGS. Turns out our "perfect" looking embies - both with my OE, and with younger, ideal age egg donors - were all aneuploid. My soul burns to think of all the money we lost and heartache we experienced on transfers that were never going to work b/c our embies were terrible even when they looked AA. But the REs kept telling us to "save money" and not do PGS, not worth it because we had an egg donor, etc. (Never occurred to them that DH was the problem!) Finally, we insisted. 80% aneuploid embies with a 20 yo egg donor and DH's sperm. Thankfully, there were some normal embies, but it sure explained a lot. Our GS is now 15 wks pg, which, even then, took two tries. We also have normal karyotypes and DH's sperm looks fine. Clearly, it's not.

The only thing I regret about our eight years in the infertility trenches is not insisting on screening donor egg embryos from the start. We spent six figures trying to save ourselves $5,000. Makes me sick.

OP here (of the Unexplained comment...also, I forgot to had that my husband and I had normal karyotypes). Thank you to those who commented that this also happened to them and best of luck to pregnant GS. Please ladies, PGS may save you months or years of heartbreak and certainly may be worth the $$.

I'm so sorry, PP. Thank you for telling your story. I'm doing donor egg now and I am vascilating in between doing PGS testing or not. Your story helps me make a decision. Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good thread

I'm 33, husband 31. Unexplained for 4 years. 3 IUIs, 1 IVF resulting in OHSS requiring that we freeze all our embryos (9 all grade AA). First FET was a BFN. Second FET was a chemical. We then took a 2 year break as I was a total wreck emotionally. As a last minute thought we did PGS before our 3rd FET. No longer unexplained infertility... every single one of our "perfect" embryos were chrom. abnomal (most had trisomy 21). We just sent second biopsies to Natera to determine if it was maternal or paternal. They couldn't figure it out. We then did ANOTHER fresh IVF as a shot in the dark for normal embryos... (again, we don't know if we'd need an egg or sperm donor) Just got my Day 6 report that 3 made it to freeze (of 16). We immediately biopsied and are waiting for the results. As there's no way of knowing if it's an issue with me or my husband (and both our karyotypes are normal), we'll have to move straight to embyro adoption.

Miserable. Isolated. Alone. Overweight. In debt. OVER IT.

You are not alone.

+1 Nope. You are not. Though we went through three egg donors and multiple surrogates before finally insisting on PGS. Turns out our "perfect" looking embies - both with my OE, and with younger, ideal age egg donors - were all aneuploid. My soul burns to think of all the money we lost and heartache we experienced on transfers that were never going to work b/c our embies were terrible even when they looked AA. But the REs kept telling us to "save money" and not do PGS, not worth it because we had an egg donor, etc. (Never occurred to them that DH was the problem!) Finally, we insisted. 80% aneuploid embies with a 20 yo egg donor and DH's sperm. Thankfully, there were some normal embies, but it sure explained a lot. Our GS is now 15 wks pg, which, even then, took two tries. We also have normal karyotypes and DH's sperm looks fine. Clearly, it's not.

The only thing I regret about our eight years in the infertility trenches is not insisting on screening donor egg embryos from the start. We spent six figures trying to save ourselves $5,000. Makes me sick.

Anonymous wrote:36, in TWW of second IVF. DOR, low AMh. been trying for two years next month for #!. Very doubtful it will ever happen.

I hope you get your bfp this round!

I'm 40, DH 42. Never been pregnant, trying for years. Did clomid, now doing IVF at SG. Did Counsyl, will do PGS, start my first shots tomorrow. As much as I've tried to educate my husband about this, he talks in such certainties about this (ie, discussing future plans as if it's 100% that this will work the first time). It makes me so anxious, but I don't want to tamp down his optimism. But honestly, I wish he'd stop talking to so many of his work friends about it. I'm mostly a big mess about it. Good luck to everyone!