Tell me all you can ab IVF

Our most recent IUI just failed. Next step is IVF but for many, many reasons I am hesitant. Can someone please walk me through the process as detailed as possible? Do I get a say in the number of eggs that are fertilized at a time? My one conern is having unused embyos at the end of the process no matter what the cost. Thank you!!

Re: Tell me all you can ab IVF

I can tell you I was hesitant as well and honestly, it wasn't AS bad as I had it in my head.

You will go for a # of tests to rule out issues. I went for an HSG, Hysteroscopy, blood work, ultrasounds, etc. to make sure all was in working order.
DH had a semen analysis done and that was fine too.

Your dr. will go over with you the best course of action based on what they find.

I believe I had a pretty standard antagonist protocol. I did 10 days of inject-able meds; towards the end it was 3 injections; at the beginning it was 2. Then trigger shot to mature the follicles.
Egg retrieval took about 30 min I think but I was knocked out. I had very little pain/discomfort afterwards. but they only got 8 eggs. 5 of which were viable.
if you over stim or have a lot of eggs retrieved you may have more discomfort recovering.

Not all eggs will fertilize. not all of them will make it to development. this is normal. If you have unused embryos they can be frozen. Or donated to research, destroyed, or donated to another couple. Thats your decision.

I did not wind up with any to store.

I honestly found the injections part to be the easiest part. its the dr visits every other day for follicle checks and bloodwork, especially with having to get my kid to school and then get to work afterwards. It was intense for 2 weeks. Emotionally its draining. Im not gonna lie.

the waiting is the hardest.

Tell me all you can ab IVF

I agree with the OP. The waiting is the worst. I've had a few cycles that have failed. Now I have a DD and I would do it all again for her in a minute. The shots and meds are a lot less intense than I thought they would be.

Re: Tell me all you can ab IVF

your RE is probably going to be the best person to talk to about this. I'm far from an expert but I think unfertilized eggs typical dissolve after 24-48 hours. So if you asked for them to try to fertilize only a couple and they don't take you would have to do the whole process all over again as apposed to giving them all a shot. Never mind the cost, it's not great on your body to go through cycle after cycle. A friend of mine has terrible thyroid issues as a result of doing 8 rounds of infertility tx.
In my experience, after 5 weeks of birth control I did 9 days of injectables then lupron as a trigger.HCG wasn't an option for me because I was developing OHSS. Basically, the injectables caused my uterus to fill with fluid so the lupron suppressed my hormones instead of surging them. At my retrieval they retrieved 24 eggs. Of those 24, 17 were mature and placed for fertilization. Of those 17, only 4 fertilized. I transferred 1 and the other 3 never made it to freeze. My situation is not that uncommon, perfect embryos sometimes never take. Most of my friends who have done IVF don't have many embryos to freeze. Only one person I know had 7 to freeze. Everyone else none or 1.

Re: Tell me all you can ab IVF

Tell me all you can ab IVF

I did 3 IVFS. I always transferred 2 and out of all 3 IVFs I only had a total of 3 frozen. My last IVF which finally resulted in DS I had 15 fertilize and almost all of them were still going on day 3. By day 5 many were still going but we ended up transferring 2 and only having 1 to freeze. I couldn't believe that out of 15 embryos that looked good on day 3 we only had 1 to freeze. So its rare to get lots to freeze. From being on different boards it seems like 0-3 is what I hear most often. 2 of my IVFs I had nothing to freeze. I was in my early 30s when I started IVF.

As for going through the actual IVF it sucked but it was my only hope at becoming a mom so I sucked it up and did what I needed to do. It was crazy because my RE thought IUIs would work for us but after 6 IUIS, then 2 IVFS, 1 FET, and then another IVF I finally have a child.

Good luck!