u/SFLonghorn

My first (and only) embryo transfer is tomorrow, so I am throwing everything at it. A study out of Israel (woot woot) found that women who were entertained by a professional medical clown immediately after an embryo transfer had a higher pregnancy rate than those in the control group - so I’m looking for something I can watch that will make me laugh.
I am not super well versed in standup comedians and don’t want to accidentally veer into Jew hatred (looking at you, Dave Chappell) so looking for some recs.
Who makes you laugh hysterically?!

ETA: thanks everyone!! I will be watching all of these recs over the next couple of days!

I lay here awake, drenched in sweat after my millionth hot flash, 7.5/8 weeks into lupron suppression before my one and only FET.

I want to say suppression hasn’t been brutal, I guess aside from the hot flashes, insomnia, vaginal atrophy, depressive mood swings and bloating. I am literally counting down the days until my baseline scan on Monday.

Last week, I had a huge work event out of state that I planned from start to finish in the months leading up. It was a beating of job to get done but now that it is behind me, I am worried about the level of stress I carried to make it happen while in this phase.

I also lost it today looking at photos from the event. I have gained between 20-30 lbs over the last year and half through all of the ERs and now suppression. I hardly recognized myself in the photos. A moon face, swollen belly, and my neck - where did it go? It’s making me feel terrible.

I tried really hard to take advantage of these last 8 weeks - eating healthy (probably 80% of the time) and getting back into exercising after not being able to for months during the ER phase. Summer heat has significantly decreased my step count though and having not lost a pound but seemingly gained during this part of the process has me second guessing every bite I’ve taken. I also feel like the only person ever who gained during suppression. Every post I search re: this topic is full of comments about people who lost weight. I worry it’s causing a ton of other issues that could potentially hurt FET chances.

Not even sure what my point is but I needed to vent.

A very tmi question but I can’t seem to find anything online.

I am almost 5 weeks into suppression and I’ve seemed to unlock a new side effect this past week- the sensation that I have air trapped in my vagina and no matter how much I kegal, it won’t go away 😳.

Anyone else experience that during lupron depot?

Don’t get me wrong, I’d take air bubbles in my vagina over these hot flashes any day but if it’s not normal, i probs need to go see my obgyn.

Yesterday, we got news that our 4th ER yielded no blasts. Out of 4 ERs, we have one untested day 6 4BB. We are going to move forward with FET because I cannot handle the emotional and physical pain of going through another ER to not get any blasts, not to mention the financial strain each ER causes. I did all the things, all the supplements, beet juice, pom juice, brazil nuts, PRP, HBOT, med diet. I am just so done trying to fix something that doesn't feel fixable and ready to move on to the next step.

To give our one embryo the best odds, my doctor wants to do 2 months of lupron depot suppression. it is one shot that they administer every 4 weeks. I am looking for anyone's experience with suppression meds. Did you gain a bunch of weight? Was all okay?

Also, what should I be doing in these two months to help prepare for FET? What supplements can I discontinue (I used to take all the things recommended in It Starts with the Egg, but have stopped re-ordering as I have run out, so currently only taking a pre-natal, vit D, COQ10, Acai.

Any other advice or tips to help prepare, please let me know.

Also, any success stories from one untested embryo would be greatly appreciated.

Has anyone seen Giant on Broadway with John Lithglow? According to google, the play “depicts a single afternoon in 1983 where Roald Dahl is forced to confront the fallout from his antisemitic article, which was a review of a book about the 1982 siege of Beirut” and “tackles difficult subjects like antisemitism, the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

I am headed to NYC tomorrow and am contemplating going to see it, but truly wondering if it approaches I/P from a place of nuance or if it’s been modified to appease the watermelon masses somehow.

I’m currently stimming for my fourth egg retrieval (this is my 6th stim cycle overall).

My first two ERs resulted in 0 blasts. At my third ER, I finally made my first blast, a day 6 4BB. My doctor advised we do not PGT test it since it is our only embryo, so we froze it as is.

Prior to ER3, I did OPRP and HBOT during stims. I honestly don’t know if that helped, but it was the first time we got a blast so it did give us some hope.

We decided to do one more ER in hopes of getting at least one more embryo. This time my AFC came back at 18, which felt really encouraging since it has usually been 6–12 in prior cycles. My REI credits PRP for the higher AFC.

I am a poor responder. ER1 I had 3 mature eggs, ER2 I had 4 mature eggs, ER3 I had 5 mature eggs. ER1 was standard antagonist, ER2 and ER3 were mini IVF (75 menopur, 75 gonal, 100mg clomid first 5 days of stims, 25IU omnitrope) with some variations in priming before each. We have had 100% fertilization rate across all three ERs (husband has been tested for DNA frag but all is good on his end).

Because of the higher AFC this cycle, my RE increased my gonal from 75 to 150. I was really hopeful, but I just got my monitoring results today and only 3 follicles are responding so far (9mm, 10mm, 11mm on day 7 of stims, tonight is night 8).

This is the slowest response I have ever had. I asked about dropping back down to 75 gonal since it feels like I’m only recruiting 3 follicles anyway, but my doctor wants me to stay at 150.

I am just feeling really bummed out and discouraged. I know it is still early, but after everything this process has already taken out of us, it’s hard not to spiral.

If anyone has been through something similar or has any success stories from a slow start cycle, I would really appreciate hearing them.

36F, AMH 1.36 (last tested Aug 2025)