u/LowWhile5600

Last week was my second egg retrieval. First ER went smoothly. Recovery was fast and I was very positive that things were going to be just the same for the second ER. Well, I was mistaken.

I had the retrieval on Tuesday this week. Everything went well, I stayed at the clinic for an hour just to make sure I didn't have any bad reaction. My husband and I left for our hotel room, slept for an hour and then decided to have lunch before driving back home (2 hour drive). When we were about to pay, I felt like all my blood suddenly raised to my head. I told my husband I was going to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to throw up. I almost passed out once I reached the bathroom and I barely made it to the door to call my husband for help. Long story short, I fainted twice, my husband had to call an ambulance and I was rushed to the Emergency room. I had the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It was on my right abdomen all the way up to my right shoulder. I was admitted to the hospital at 7 pm due to hemorrhage. My hemoglobin was at 8 and I was really really close to having surgery. They wanted to remove my only ovary and me and my IVF doctor fought to avoid that unless it was life threatening. At the end, the stabilized me and sent me home the following day. It's now Saturday and I still feel like sh$t. My body temp ranges from 100 to 100.3 (almost fever) and my stomach is so dilated that I can barely walk. I can barely breath because if I take a long breath, my stomach and shoulder hurts bad.

After this horrible experience and a few other reasons, we decided to stop IVF, regardless of the outcome. I treasure my life too much and I don't want to put my body through this anymore. We only have one euploid embryo from 1st retrieval and no blasto results as of now but I don't want to have my hopes up (from 15 eggs retrieved, only 7 fertilized).

For those of you who read my post, don't get discouraged. My purpose with telling you all of these is to be aware of all the risks that go with IVF. I don't think only 1% of patients get these side effects. Read through this Reddit and you'll find many many stories like mine. Speak with your doctor and make sure you can identify the signs of hemorrhage after egg retrieval. I was lucky enough that we went straight to ER but some other women on this reddit have waited or have been dismissed by their medical team and that can be dangerous.

I hope we see the light at the end of the tunnel and we get a few more euploid from this final round. If not, my husband and I are OK with living life with no kids. ❤️

(English is not my native language.)

My husband and I (F39) started our IVF journey this past May. We've been together for 11 years (7 years married). We never wanted kids until late last year when we had a conversation. We decided to give it a try and after a few months we went straight to IVF due to my age. We have 1 euploid stored and waiting for our second round of IVF in August.

The reason for this post: I've always loved traveling, both solo and with my partner. My dream ever since I was a teenager was to travel the world, live overseas, learn new languages and get to meet people from different cultures. My husband is completely the opposite but he loves traveling with me.

However, the roles are inverted now due to our work. My husband has to travel at least once a month (for work) and he gets to have his own space, having dinner and drinks with colleagues every time. His social life is basically with coworkers because he doesn't have many close friends and the ones he has live in a different country. Me on the other hand, have a full remote job, not many friends around and the ones I have I see maybe every 2 months. I don't get to travel much by myself and my social life is basically zero. I'm starting to resent this whole situation and I feel like it's not fair, especially since he does go out a lot when he's on business trips. And just to be clear, this doesn't have anything to do with me thinking he's cheating because we have a solid trusting relationship. This is more about building up resentment for a life I envisioned and that I don't get to have. Now, picture this same situation but with a baby. Where I have to stay home with a newborn or toddler while he continues to travel and to get his space from all of it.

What if bringing a kid to our lives breaks our relationship? I don't think it's fair if it will bring resentment not only towards my husband but also to a future child. I don't think it's fair to ask my husband to change jobs or to stop going out because I can't have what he has. Lastly, I don't think it's fair for me to ignore these feelings.

I applied at an Internal Audit role and had a panel interview last week. I think I did fairly well and the reason why I think that is because the interviewers asked follow up questions to experiences I shared. They also asked me which Business Unit I would prefer to work at (if I were to choose). I asked really good questions, including items I read in prior year 10-K and the website's newsroom. I'm still waiting to hear back from as they said that it would take a week (so by Friday this week). I'm curious, if you recently got a job offer, what do you think made you the strongest candidate (besides your experience)?

Update: I call her doctor out of respect but she's a doctorate candidate, meaning she's just an acupunturist.

I decided to give acupuncture a try to improve my chances with IVF. The IVF dr recommended me an acupuncturist in the area who specializes in women's fertility. The first appointment she was 50 minutes late. They had me waiting in this cold ass room for all this time and I was already about to leave when she came in. I told her that I have been waiting for too long and that if I should expect all appointments to be like this so that I could plan my scheduled meetings at work better. She didn't take it well and never apologized. She did mention that she gives her best to all her clients and sometimes that means running behind with other clients. She even said "are you telling me you're never late for meetings at work?". I bit my tongue and just decided to get going with the appointment because I was sick and tired of her BS and attitude.

After thinking about it for a few days, I decided to give the clinic a try and sign up for an 8 session package. The following appointments were awkward with the doctor but I managed to even bring humor to the room.

Well today I came to my appointment on time as usual. The coordinator had me undressed and laid down at the treatment table, they set up everything, including the heat lamp. 35 minutes passed and the doctor was nowhere to be seen. After calling the coordinator to ask if everything was ok, she asked me to wait a bit longer for the dr. She finally showed up after 40 minutes and guess what? She didn't apologize this time either. I asked to reschedule because after waiting for that long I wasn't feeling very well due to the heat lamp and no water. She said OK and good luck.

I still have 2 other appointments to go and I'm so upset that I don't want to go there anymore. Acupuncture should be about relaxing and feeling well. This experience has been completely the opposite but since it's a doctor, I feel like I can't complain because we have normalized doctors been always late for appointments. She makes me feel like I owe her my time and money and that I should be grateful to be there. Uuughh am I overreacting? 😞🥲

Sorry for the rant and for my grammar. I'm not an English native speaker.

Context:

38.7 years old

AMH: 1.96

One ovary with a healthy fallopian tube

My follicle baseline was 30+

Medication: letrozole 5mg for 5 days, menopur (75), Follistim (300), ganirelix and double trigger shot (lupron +pregnyl)

Husband (35.8 y/o) with normal sperm (no concerns)

At stim day 10 I had 2 follicles at 23+ and a cohort of follicles between 14 and 19. Doctor triggered me at day 10 and day 11. I got 13 eggs but only 3 are mature. Doctor called me to let me know that embriologyst was going to let the other 10 mature overnight and then would fertilize them. After reading various sources, it seems like M1 eggs don't have a high chance of making it to blastocysts so that leaves me with 3 eggs to pray for.

Questions:

1. Is it worth going through a second round of IVF? I have a 50k max on insurance coverage and I know that donor eggs are expensive

2. At what stage can we know if this has to do with egg quality? I've been taking Coq10 for the past 5 months.

3. Any words of encouragement in regard to my M1 eggs? 😞

Appreciate you all!