Infertility Support Group
In vitro fertilization is one of the most common and utilized ways of treating conception problems. This support group is dedicated to those beginning their journey with IVF and needing support. Join the community and share your experiences, advice, and story with people going through similar challenges starting a family.
Hello all, I have finally gotten the courage to talk to people about the infertility issues that my husband and I have been going through. If there is anyone who has similar issues or any advice they are willing to share, I would be so greatful!
I am 38, menopause runs very early in my family (Mom was 38 when it hit her, her mother was 40.) We have been trying since 2014. In 2014 we were pregnant naturally, after about 2 months I lost the baby. We kept trying for two years after that, trying vitamins and other home remedy type things and we were unable to conceive again. In 2017 we finally knew we needed a Doctors help, I got good insurance and started treatments at a fertility center. the Dr. says that on the inside I am healthy and should have no problems carrying to term. But my AMH levels were very low and he gave us about a 15% chance at having children. Which crushed me. He told me our best option was IVF. I have been through two IVF egg retrievals, (they only retrieved 5 eggs and only 3 made it to the blastocyst stage.) I have done 2 Frozen embryo transfers. The first gave us a positive pregnancy but I once again lost the baby within a few weeks. The second didn't take. That left us with only one embryo, so we decided to go through another IVF egg retrieval which was completed 2 weeks ago but they were not able to get any more eggs this time. I am left with a few options: either do another IVF cycle back to back with the last one, wait a month to let my body heal (the Dr. said I shouldn't need to do that, but if I want to it would be fine.) or take our last shot and transfer our last embryo praying that it works. If it doesn't work then decide if we are going to continue IVF treatments. I have spent so much money despite our insurance, I don't have anything extra left any more, so donor eggs are not an option unless I can find some sort of payment plan and the same thing with adoption. As it is, my husband and I are both looking for better jobs so that we might have a prayer of meeting the financial demands of adoption. I am so lost, emotionally torn apart and just tired. I don't know that I have any hope left that my husband and I will ever have children... I don't know what to do anymore.
My IVF doctor also discovered I have low AMH levels, but we decided to go ahead with the retrievals. The first try only got three eggs, and none matured. The second try got six, and one managed to mature and made it through genetic testing (since that was the issue with the previous miscarriages we wanted to find out before we went through everything if the embryo was good). I was so excited to hear that we had one good embryo, but talk about putting all your eggs in one basket... So we decided to go through another retrieval to get a backup, but I didn't respond to the hormones well, and we weren't able to retrieve any eggs. So we decided to do another round, but it also didn't work.
It is so difficult going through all the expense and unpleasantness of the retrieval cycles for them to not work. My doctor said it's a numbers game, if you keep going you are almost certain to have it work eventually, but even without the staggering expense, I don't know how many times I'd be able to have my hopes dashed.
So now we have decided to go ahead with transferring the one embryo we have. I'm actually feeling pretty positive about it right now, so keep your fingers crossed for me and I'll keep mine crossed for you and your single embryo.