If you’ve been told by your doctor or fertility specialist that your best chances of getting pregnant are from IVF, don’t worry, you are not alone. IVF is much more common today than it was 20 years ago. When couples are told that IVF might be their only option or best option of getting pregnant, this often adds another layer of stress to the mix; don’t let this happen. Accept the fact that there might be fertility problems. Accept the fact that IVF might be your best shot. Accept the fact that you have to use technology instead of the good old fashion way. Once you can get past the IVF WOW factor, you will be on your way.
Your first IVF cycle should be a great learning experience. It might work, it might not. IVF is still part medical science and part luck. It might take a few times before you have a successful IVF cycle. Use your first IVF cycle as a life learning experience. Get closer to your loved one, do things that help you relax, eat better, and learn about the IVF process. Knowledge is power and the more you know about IVF and what is involved in the IVF process, the better equipped you will be while going through your fertility and IVF treatments.
Fertility specialists also say that your chances of IVF increase after each cycle. The doctors can learn a lot about how your body reacts to the IVF treatment and this information can be use to improve your chances with future IVF treatments if your first ivf cycle is unsuccessful. The more the doctors know about your body, the more they can adjust the IVF process to increase your chances of getting pregnant.
My wife and I recently finished our first IVF cycle. It was unsuccessful. Of course we were upset, sad and confused when we heard the news. We soon realized that the first IVF cycle was a learning experience for both us and our fertility doctor. Our first IVF cycle went pretty smoothly and Wendi reacted wonderful to the fertility meds. Our egg retrieval went great ; we ended up with 5 great embryos. 2 of which we used for the first IVF cycle and 3 that were frozen (we are using 2 next week for our first FET)! The transfer went great, but it wasn’t our time and we have come to realize that. We did take some valuable information from our first IVF cycle. We know that everything went smoothly up until the embryos needed to start growing once they were attached to the uterine lining. There could be a million reasons they didn’t grow at that point but we can eliminate any major problems up to that point. This is a lot of information for the doctors. It tells them that the meds worked correctly. It tells them that we had healthy embryos. It tells them that the embryos implanted. Those 3 things can often be the cause of problems in IVF. We got passed those parts successfully.
Was this our ideal outcome for our first IVF cycle? No, of course not, but we are satisfied because we learned a lot, we got a lot of information about how Wendi reacted to the treatment and now we have 2 frozen embryos for our first FET next week. Keep your fingers crossed for us…and we will be sure to do the same for you.
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