A post for those worried about stress during ER
I just wanted to share my positive story regarding my recent ER results.
I did my first round of IVF around 3 years ago, at 35. Unexplained infertility, we later found out about an X-linked condition that I carry, so we had to do IVF also for genetic reasons.
My first ER yielded 22 eggs, 17 mature and 12 fertilized. But only 2 made it to blastocysts, and only one was euploid. At that point, I just wanted to become a mum, so we decided to try transferring it. We were very lucky and that embryo is now a 19 months old toddler.
At the beginning of the year, my husband and I decided to start planning a second ER, to hopefully bank some embryos. We went to the same clinic and doctor and One week after the first visit, I had my period, and on day 2 I went for my first scan. They gave me my medicines etc, I did the first injection that day.
The following day, we were home during nap time when we heard some bangs. Some LOUD bangs. It was February 28th, USA e Israel attacked Iran and Iran was attacking us. We live in Abu Dhabi. I will never forget that day, the fear and the stress, and probably I still haven't fully processed how our life changed that day (even though I feel very lucky that we never had to experience the fear of a ''proper'' war, as the missiles were mostly intercepted). That afternoon, I called my doctor and asked her what to do. She told me to continue with the injections if I felt okay with that, the clinic was open, and things were going on as usual.
We already paid part of the package, so we decided to continue. In the following weeks, I did my injections during missile attacks, alarms or while hiding in our laundry room. I went to the scans with my GPS not working due to jamming, constantly looking at the sky in fear. I even had to bring my son with me to do a scan, because nurseries and schools were closed, and I didn't know where to leave him. He refused to stay with the nurse, so I had to hold him on the bed with me while they were doing the scan to count my eggs. There was a missile alert even on my ER day and I remember the doctor telling me ''We will be fast''. They retrieved 13 eggs, much less than the first round. 48 hours later, still very much bloated, we packed and left the UAE to go back to my home country.
It was a crazy period, and I had so many things in my mind that I barely thought about the stimming. I had to set so many alarms to remind me to do the injections. I was so worried that the stress I had to deal with those days would interfere with the entire process, that we got only 2 blastos the first time, so probably we wouldn't get anything this time.
Well...those 13 eggs were all mature and 11 fertilized. And we got 7 blasts!! SEVEN!! From seven unfortunately only two passed both PGTA and PGTM, but still it was a great result for me, also considering my age. I still have to talk with my doctor to understand the results of the other 5, if we have some mosaics or if some are carriers of the condition (expecially the girls, who could be carriers but not affected). But we most probably will proceed with a transfer during the summer.
I am sorry if this post is very long and if there are some typos/grammar mistakes, English is not my native language. But I really wanted to tell my story because I often read posts from people who are worried about doing the ER during a stressful time!