The Struggles of Infertility: DEIVF Round 1, IVF Attempt No.2

I can’t wrap my head around the last month or so…

It’s been challenge after challenge. Stress after stress.

The past two-three weeks have been really really shit to be honest.

I feel like a failure, that I’ve let my husband, our families and our friends down.

I know so many of you were rooting for us and we appreciate you all so much for supporting us, more than we were rooting for this cycle, because we didn’t want to get our hopes up.

After constant bad news with either my health or infertility, you kind of get used to being immune to shit happening all the time. So, when you start receiving positive news it gives a a glimmer of hope (for a short period).

I think someone who has had severe health complications, mistakes in IVF procedures and unsuccessful attempts will truly understand where I’m coming from.

Every single time you get bad news, you want to remove yourself from this planet. But you don’t. You pick yourself up time and time again and you fight because you are one heck of a strong person and one hell of a powerful resilient couple.

We were expecting the worse and the worst happened on the 12th July 2023.

After feeling like this time was different and feeling the symptoms of pregnancy for weeks after we had our blastocyst day 5 embryo injected into my womb in late June in Spain.

I spent most of the “two week wait” relaxing, doing some gentle exercises, eating super carefully, taking all the meds and vitamins, drinking JUST water for around two months (LOL I was dedicated), sleeping on the recommended side, you name it, I did it. Not only this but I was EXTREMELY exhausted after embryo transfer, that I honestly couldn’t do much… even cooking a meal was really hard work.

It was quite a weird feeling, that level of exhaustion was insane because I had never felt like that ever. I was even fine before I was diagnosed with an under-active Thyroid and spent most days doing 2-3 hours of exercise a day! I felt tired for sure… but HOW DID I HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY?! God knows…

Anyway… After embryo went inside, we got to take a scan picture home with us, to show family and friends. We did feel a little bit of hope when it went into the womb.

We waited to do my pregnancy blood test at around “five weeks pregnant” and it was “unsuccessful” the day after bloods were taken. My baby on board badge arrived that same day… What a kick in the teeth.

Devastated.

I’ve invested SO much of my time and life into this journey of trying to become a mother, I gave up my career (for a while) to really dedicate the time to ensure that our DEIVF round was going to be successful. I focused on my wellness and health leading up to the embryo transfer to ensure I was stress-free and in a healthy state of mind.

I’ve spent a lot of time on my own dealing with countless appointments over the phone, email, video and in person because my husband is incredibly busy with his job and I had some free time to concentrate on this. Not only this, masses of paperwork to read, fill out and sign. And everything else that comes with DEIVF… Especially when you’re doing this in the UK and also abroad. Additional costs of the flights, hotels, and all the little costs of foods and stuff while you’re there.

Luckily our UK clinic is around 45 minutes away, so this isn’t too bad, but it still takes a chuck out of our day to do a scan or bloods. Joe has to work around these appointments because I no longer drive.

Everything leading up to embryo transfer was HARD. Really fucking hard. It was like having a full-time job to be honest. When I look back, I honestly don’t know how I did the first round of IVF whilst working a busy day-job in London full-time.

ANYWAY…

After having a video call with our IVF doctor the following day from hearing the awful result, we felt a bit more positive that they weren’t ready to give up and they had a solution. And, we were just on the same page. The doctor understands because she knows I will blame myself, but we are investigating and we will be doing further tests because we need to find out why. I need answers.

So, we had some time to process the sad news. To be honest it will take some time to heal from this loss. It hurts more this round than the first one did. I think that’s because I was so heavily invested in making sure it was going to be successful.

I take each day as it comes these days… we were lucky to go away recently in the UK for a few days to relax, recharge and spend some quality time together.

Some days have been really mentally tough. I hit a low point after we heard the news for a few days but I managed to pick myself up, as I always do.

We have had an insane amount of support from friends and family which honestly got me through my lowest days. I didn’t want to be left alone, otherwise I would start over-thinking everything and anything. So, someone has been with me everyday for the past two-three weeks. Today is actually the first day I’m home alone with my beautiful sausage dog, so I’m trying to keep myself busy all day until Joe comes back from work.

Next Steps

We are ready for stepping into to the world of IVF investigations. Still discussing with our UK and Spanish IVF clinics on the next steps.

The plan is to do a biopsy of my endometrial lining, possibly a 3D scan of my stomach, a full investigation of my bloods and anything else needed when I’m ready to do so. This is quite costly to do. On top of what we have already forked out for our DEIVF package.

The good news is we still have four beautiful frozen embryos and we would only really need to pay for embryo transfer round 3 and some other fees needed when we next fly over to Spain, as well as the investigation costs. BUT because we are also working alongside my UK clinic. I’m certain we will have to also pay for fees for scans, bloods, monitoring and so on when it comes to it.

DEIVF is extremely costly. We could have probably had a few months of travelling around the world with the amount of money that we have already paid. We are so lucky and fortunate to be able to afford this at this stage in our lives. I don’t take any of that for granted.

Having a family is super important to us. We have invested almost seven years of our lives to have a baby. Why give up now? Who knows how long this journey will take? Hopefully we will be able to look back on this one day and say it was all worth it.

The investigations will help us decide what we plan on doing next. I am thinking of the worst, as I haven’t been 100% well in about 8 months or longer. You start wondering if you might have a hidden cancer somewhere… but until we know of anything, then we can potentially treat it if that was the case.

Anywho, hopefully we can achieve a successful pregnancy one day.

I know I’m high risk anyway and I would need to be closely monitored the entire time and at the birth.

Some of my surgeons would need to be there, such as, my endo surgeon and stoma specialist surgeon JUST IN CASE. If I was to have a “C section” they would need to cut me where my scar is instead of across. If that happens, this cut takes an incredible amount of time to recover from. And I can only be cut so many times on my stomach.

So that’s where we are at.

I also haven’t been dealing with pregnancy announcements very well at the moment. I want to be happy for everyone, but it’s really hard to deal with when you’ve been trying for a really long long time.

Some people fall pregnant quickly, some take years, some have to use help from fertility treatments. Everyone’s journey is different. But seeing pregnancy announcements are very raw for me right now. If you are a close friend or family member and you want to kindly message me or Joe your news for us to process that would be much appreciated than just catching us off guard.

Any questions about DEIVF, IVF or our journey I will try my best to answer of course. Either leave a comment below or DM or Insta.

If you’re interested in other IVF posts I’ve written here is the link.