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First try IVF success story

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My IVF success story (on the first try)

I got pregnant on IVF (in vitro fertilization) first try after 5 years of failing to conceive naturally. We were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. It took about one year after starting IVF treatment to have a healthy baby to hold in our arms.

I have never thought that we would success on the first round of IVF as I was really nervous the whole time during the treatment process. I had no obvious symptoms during the two week wait before the pregnancy test (read my notes day-by-day here). And here are my tips to boost up my chance of getting pregnant.

Here is the story of my first try IVF success…

Starting IVF treatment

My husband and I are both very healthy. We don’t have any health issue, eat healthy food and exercise regularly. We have never thought that having baby would be a difficult road for us.

I have a very regular period cycles so I know when I would ovulate. We have tried using ovulation test kit to guide us. Still, I have never got positive pregnancy test.

After trying to conceive for 5 years without success we finally made a decision to give IVF a go. My age is the main reason that prompts me into the process as I knew that the older I am, the harder it will be to get pregnant or to have a successful IVF treatment. Moreover the risk of miscarriage and birth defects also increases with woman’s age.

We started IVF around May 2016 when I was 34 year olds. We both got checked up and the results showed no obvious reasons why we could not get pregnant naturally. My husband sperm check was normal. My ovary and uterus look normal. No blockage found in my ovarian tube.

Hormone injections

First stage of injections is to suppress the natural menstrual cycle. I had injected myself every morning on tummy. To me the injections were quite straightforward. The difficult part was the wait for my period to start.

The bleeding has to start to get the womb lining back to its baseline before moving onto the next phase which is egg stimulation. It took about 16 days for me before bleeding started. To be honest, I have never wanted to have period as much as this.

I had several ultrasound scans to check the thickness of my womb lining and ovaries, blood test for hormone level to make sure that my natural cycle had been suppressed.

Then, egg stimulation stage began. In this stage, two injections were needed each day.  Again, I choose to inject both injections in the morning, one on tummy and another on my thigh to spread soreness.

The side effects that I noticed from these hormone injection were:

From egg collection to embryo transfer

After a month and a half of hormone injections, they scanned to check if there are enough mature follicles in my ovaries and if the womb lining is thicken enough (~8 mm). They said they can see about 7-8 good size follicles. I felt really really bloated at the time, probably due to swollen ovaries (full of mature follicles).

The egg collection is, in my opinion, is the most painful step in IVF treatment. I got a very painful abdominal pain and cramp for a few days after that. The pain was so bad that I could barely walk. Luckily, it did not last for too long. I was perfectly fine after a few days.

5 mature eggs were retrieved from my ovaries. Only three of them got fertilized and grew into blastocysts. We were lucky enough to have three good-quality-looking blastocysts on day 5. My doctor wanted to put one of them back to my uterus at 5 days after fertilization. So we have 2 left to be frozen.

The embryo transfer process was really quick and painless. No pain or any cramp afterward. I went back home and lie down to relax for a few days after that before went out for a walk with my dog. I did not feel any thing different at all.

With my age and the quality of embryos we got, my doctor suggested we transferred only one embryo back to reduce chance of complications from multiple pregnancy. Basically, pregnant with twins or triplets significantly increase the risk of complications for both you and babies e.g miscarriage, diabetes, preterm birth and small babies etc.

The wait after embryo transfer

The wait after embryo transfer was absolutely killing. I didn’t know what to expect so I kept close eye on my body and how it might have changed. I was to afraid of disappointment to use a home pregnancy test, so I just keep observing my body until the blood test day at the IVF clinic.

I have described my experience/symptoms during this period day-by-day here.

If you would like to know what I did to boost up my chance of getting pregnant, read here.

Pregnancy test (blood test)

Nine days after day-5 embryo transferred (14 days after fertilization), it’s time for a blood test to check the level of beta-HCG in order to determine if I was pregnant. The level of above 50 mIU/mL is a mark for positive pregnant.

My first beta-HCG level was 49… borderline… I didn’t know what to think when I got the result. It is not quite a positive test, but it is also not negative. I was thinking positively at the time that I still have hope and this means atleast it was not game over yet.

The clinic wanted me to come back 48 hours later to do another blood test. If I was pregnant, the level should go atleast double two days later.

Pregnancy test (home pregnancy kit)

On the same day of the first blood test I went home and decided to check with home pregnancy test kit. For the first time in my life, I saw the second line appeared! The second line was faint, but there were two lines, so to me I believed it was a positive pregnancy test. “I’m finally pregnant!!!”

It was hard to believe and I was very reluctant as the blood test result was not 100% confirmed. I did not know what to think at the time… so just needed to wait and see

Anyway I did another home pregnancy test every day after that, and the positive line was getting stronger and stronger everyday, which I thought was a very good sign.

Confirmed pregnant by second blood test

As expected based on the home pregnancy tests, my beta-HCG level increased to 148 on the second blood test. With this result, everyone was congratulated me on being pregnant. Beyond my expectation it was the first time IVF success. I was really over the moon at the time.

The beginning of my pregnancy journey — it was a really tough one!

Next thing was to wait for an ultrasound scan to see little heartbeat in 6 weeks time (i.e. 8 weeks pregnant). However, things did not go as planned as I started spotting brown blood/discharge when I was 6 weeks pregnant which I talked more about here, followed by bleeding due to subchorionic hematoma for a few months, and finally my waters broke when I was 24 weeks pregnant.

I hope my story gives you some hopes and some ideas on what to expect throughout the whole treatment process. The whole journey is really emotional rollercoaster but it is totally worth the effort when you can hold your little one in your arms.

Please feel free to get in touch or leave your message in the comment box below if you think I can help with anything or if you’d like to share your story.

 

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