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I have a question and I guess this is the best place for it. I'm a trans woman. I began my HRT two weeks ago, and prior to beginning I was freezing sperm at a private clinic. I was delaying my medical transition in order to freeze samples that were unaffected by the hormonal changes, but when some unexpected delays came up partway through my freezing schedule I decided I couldn't wait any longer and I began taking my hormones. There are 19 ampules frozen, which to me both sounds like a lot and not very much. Is anybody who's had experience of IVF or IU insemination using frozen sperm able to tell me whether this seems like a good amount and it's ok to stop there, or should I be trying to arrange more sample freezes ASAP before my new hormones really start to gently caress around with things. It's unlikely that there will be much changing this early on in my process, but obviously it's possible, and the onset of these changes is unpredictable. Edit: I suppose I should clarify that this is all 'just in case' - I do not have any current plans to start a family and therefore I don't have any sense of what future family goals would look like. There are so many variables in how such a thing might come about that it doesn't feel worth torturing myself trying to think of them. So I guess my question is: as an 'in case' store for unknowable future scenarios, does 19 ampules seem like enough? Squibsy fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 08:42
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Squibsy posted:There are 19 ampules frozen, which to me both sounds like a lot and not very much. For background I work in a large fertility clinic in Canada. In my experience many clinics can freeze ampules/straws differently but your current stock sounds more than sufficient as long as the ampules are about 0.5 mL in volume. This all depends on the gamete analysis that was done after the freeze - most clinics should freeze the gametes, thaw one straw and test how the sample survived. I will say that if it was plain semen that was frozen your fertility should be excellent going forward. If you can get a hold of the post-thaw analysis you want to look at two things: the initial concentration of gametes (ideally should be more than 20 million per mL) and post-thaw motility (anything above 15-20% motility is great). If that is the case the samples will definitely be usable for IVF treatment in the future. As far as IUI treatments go I don't have much experience with those, but if you are only considering IUI in the future then 19 (as long as the post-thaw analysis is good) should be OK for about 2 attempts. Anything more and it would be prudent to save those gametes for future IVF treatments.
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Oct 11, 2021 19:44
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Thank you, that's really useful to know. The initial (pre storage) and post-freeze analyses all said "no problem." Still in two minds about how to proceed.
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Oct 11, 2021 20:35
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I saw a movie where a woman was portrayed as crazy by hanging upside down after sex to try and get pregnant. It was played for laughs but its not such a bad idea right?
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Nov 16, 2021 19:08
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Presumably the momentum from ejaculation propels any sperm that are going to make it past the cervix. At least that's how I understand it. That having been said, while hanging upside down is probably extreme, I don't think it can hurt to wait a few minutes before the post sex pee.
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Nov 16, 2021 19:25
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Presumably. But let's say you or your partner has a cervix that's got a bit of a lip on it. Perhaps adding a sort of vibration around there in the form of a massage belt would help too. But for real I'll likely be postin here in earnest soon. This is a dope thread. Thanks!
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Nov 16, 2021 19:37
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Hi everyone. 39yo F here, married to my partner for 17 years, and just now decided to start trying. I get a little worried about things like "advanced maternal age" and "geriatric pregnancy", but well, it's now or never, and I'd prefer now. I stopped by BC last month and started taking prenatals and doing ovulation tests - as much to reassure myself that my reproductive bits DO still work after being constantly on BC for... the past 23 years. Jesus! The first things I noticed was HOLY GOD, was there rebound arousal. We're talking 24/7 horny, uncomfortably so, to the point where my partner had to ask me to lay off. Then extreme nipple tenderness for a couple days, but that disappeared as well. Did anyone else experience those things when stopping BC? We're not planning on telling anyone we're trying until if/when I conceive, and then not until aways into the pregnancy, so it's nice to see a thread where I can at least chat about it. That is, if this thread isn't actually dead...
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May 25, 2022 22:11
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Good luck! I've heard about getting libido back after stopping hormonal bc. I use a copper IUD (and did before we started trying for our first) so I didn't get that benefit. This thread isn't quite dead, but it's a little quiet. I think a lot of people just post in the pregnancy thread, but it's kind of nice to have a space that's just for folks trying. It took us a while to get pregnant and seeing other people get pregnant definitely privately bummed me out sometimes.
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May 27, 2022 13:07
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I don't wanna poo poo up the thread but is there a list of the silly acronyms for sex that are banned from the thread out there somewhere? I just wanna learn what they are for my personal amusement.
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Jun 20, 2022 02:27
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I don't think there's a banned list per se but when this thread was more active I think a lot of people preferred to real-talk here instead of overly saccharine talk of "sprinkling baby dust" etc ("baby dust" for me always mentally translated to semen)
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Jun 20, 2022 06:02
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Similarly, BD (“baby dance/ing”) as a euphemism for sex makes me want to vomit every time I hear it.
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Jun 20, 2022 14:56
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Haha, thanks.
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Jun 21, 2022 01:38
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BD is "baby dance" aka loving, TTC = trying to conceive (which isn't nearly as cringe-inducing), "baby dust" = positive thoughts from others that help you conceive, DTD = "do the deed", IW = "infertility warrior", I think that's all I can remember off the top of my head. Most of them are really dumb, you should feel encouraged to come up with your own if they make you laugh and if it makes the situation less scary. We coined "the gently caress zone" for the period of optimal sex-having before ovulation. I could have sworn I had posted in this thread before, but either way, my partner (40F) and I (35M) just recently got pregnant, after two IVF cycles (which feels really lucky). We had a weird experience in the midst of IVF where a friend announced their own pregnancy to us, and I remember it felt crushing. The friend in question knew about our IVF situation and clearly didn't really read the room, but it's really crazy how eye-opening dealing with infertility can be. The fact that there's a little creature with a beating heart inside my partner's body right now feels completely miraculous, especially after I know how insane the odds can be for any given step along the path. The thing doesn't even have fingers or toes yet and I'm gonna be freaking out the entire time until it pops out in April or so.
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Aug 23, 2022 20:53
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Necronomicon posted:BD is "baby dance" aka loving, TTC = trying to conceive (which isn't nearly as cringe-inducing), "baby dust" = positive thoughts from others that help you conceive, DTD = "do the deed", IW = "infertility warrior", I think that's all I can remember off the top of my head. Most of them are really dumb, you should feel encouraged to come up with your own if they make you laugh and if it makes the situation less scary. We coined "the gently caress zone" for the period of optimal sex-having before ovulation. Congrats! My partner (36M) and I (35F) are in much the same boat. 2.5 years of trying to conceive (and like a dozen pregnancy announcements between family and friends) and 1.5 years of fertility treatments with no success, and we recently popped positive after our first round of IVF. I'm currently about 6.5 weeks along, so obviously a long way to go but we heard the heartbeat at our ultrasound yesterday which felt like a nice hurdle to clear, and which according to our RE bodes very well for an ongoing pregnancy, knock on wood. Still absolutely terrified about any number of things but hey, this is as far as we've ever gotten.
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Aug 23, 2022 21:39
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If people don't know they just Don't Know. It's a special kind of hell I think you have to go through to be able to fully appreciate how it affects other people going through it. I know there is sometimes bitterness from people who have not had success with fertility treatments, insinuating that people just skip off over the rainbow to Baby Having if they're lucky enough that treatment works and forget about the hard road to get there. I can't speak for everyone but it's not something I've ever forgotten. Getting multiple embryos through one IVF round did however lead to the surreal experience of conceiving the second time by going to the baby shop (fertility clinic) and saying "one baby please" and having the very first frozen transfer take immediately.
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Aug 24, 2022 08:19
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Tamarillo posted:Getting multiple embryos through one IVF round did however lead to the surreal experience of conceiving the second time by going to the baby shop (fertility clinic) and saying "one baby please" and having the very first frozen transfer take immediately. We were not quite so lucky to have additional viable embryos (blastocysts?) that we could freeze for later. We also want two kids, so it brings up the very real possibility of adoption if we can't get pregnant again. I was halfway convinced we would have twins since they transferred two embryos, but one didn't take, and I guess that's exactly why they tend to do multiple transfers at once. JaneError posted:I'm currently about 6.5 weeks along, so obviously a long way to go but we heard the heartbeat at our ultrasound yesterday which felt like a nice hurdle to clear, and which according to our RE bodes very well for an ongoing pregnancy, knock on wood. Still absolutely terrified about any number of things but hey, this is as far as we've ever gotten. Hearing the heartbeat was a really intense experience. My partner has this extremely detailed spreadsheet around baby outcomes, part of which includes a descending column which includes the probability of making it to live birth, and looking at that number go up every week helps a lot. I think at this point we have something like a 95% probability and climbing based on HCG levels, crown-rump length and heart rate of fetus, and a few other things I can't recall. I'm still waiting to tell my immediate family until we clear the first trimester, but my friends all know at this point.
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Aug 24, 2022 16:12
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Emily Spinach posted:Presumably the momentum from ejaculation propels any sperm that are going to make it past the cervix. At least that's how I understand it. That having been said, while hanging upside down is probably extreme, I don't think it can hurt to wait a few minutes before the post sex pee. (they can also trigger birth to start too if you're overdue)
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Aug 24, 2022 23:55
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For those of you who have struggled with infertility, are there ways people can make pregnancy announcements that are more sensitive or would feel less crushing to you? I have a friend in that boat and before I made my announcement on social media, I sent her a private message letting her know and saying I realize this may be hard to hear etc. Not sure if I handled it okay but I just didn't want her to find out from a general announcement.
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Aug 25, 2022 09:21
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OzyMandrill posted:There's a documentary about where they film a cervix during orgasm and it has muscles that make it literally suck sperm in (if your timing is OK). So make sure she has a good orgasm after he's done to get the best chance. And it's polite. Multiple, just in case. I think semen usually doesn't enter the cervix, it's mostly sperm moving themselves from the vagina into the cervix post-ejaculation. IIRC that process is relatively quick (order of minutes) and after they enter the cervix they're in a friendlier environment and can last a few days or so until ovulation. So as long as it's close-ish to the cervical opening that's good enough as far as I know.
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Aug 25, 2022 15:59
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boquiabierta posted:For those of you who have struggled with infertility, are there ways people can make pregnancy announcements that are more sensitive or would feel less crushing to you? I have a friend in that boat and before I made my announcement on social media, I sent her a private message letting her know and saying I realize this may be hard to hear etc. Not sure if I handled it okay but I just didn't want her to find out from a general announcement. Generally, I think that's the best way to handle it--a text or e-mail that they can digest on their own time rather than having to react to the news live via phone/in-person conversation.
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Aug 25, 2022 18:06
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boquiabierta posted:For those of you who have struggled with infertility, are there ways people can make pregnancy announcements that are more sensitive or would feel less crushing to you? I have a friend in that boat and before I made my announcement on social media, I sent her a private message letting her know and saying I realize this may be hard to hear etc. Not sure if I handled it okay but I just didn't want her to find out from a general announcement. As someone who spent almost a decade going through pretty much everythings in IVF short of donated eggs: it's like saying "is there a nicer way to rip out someone's guts with a rake and step on them?". Basically, there's nothing you can do to make it not hurt. But now that I'm on the other end of this horrible ordeal, I can also say that you can't go on not enjoying your success in fear of making other people upset. Just don't rub it into the friend's face, and you've done about as much as possible in your situation.
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Aug 26, 2022 15:50
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lilljonas posted:But now that I'm on the other end of this horrible ordeal, I can also say that you can't go on not enjoying your success in fear of making other people upset. It's tough, but I think this is the important part. Ultimately I think it's important to not spring a pregnancy announcement on someone in a "live" setting, and give them time to process it. A friend of ours was upset with us because we didn't react to their pregnancy announcement with rainbows and sunshine immediately, which felt like they just weren't reading the room at all. We were just about to start our second IVF cycle. My partner is currently in getting another ultrasound and I keep feeling paranoid about something going wrong. It's just gonna be like this forever, isn't it?
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Sep 2, 2022 19:43
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Necronomicon posted:It's tough, but I think this is the important part. Ultimately I think it's important to not spring a pregnancy announcement on someone in a "live" setting, and give them time to process it. A friend of ours was upset with us because we didn't react to their pregnancy announcement with rainbows and sunshine immediately, which felt like they just weren't reading the room at all. We were just about to start our second IVF cycle. Yeah. We were were well into double digits before success. It doesn't get easier, but it helps if you're prepared that it can take a while. Also in our case, to read up on alternative ways to improve your odds that your clinic might not tell you about. In our case, we can't prove that it was the defining factor, but doing other tests than the standard ones offered in our country were probably instrumental in changing our fortune.
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Sep 6, 2022 14:58
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Argh baby stopped forming ~6wks and wife had to take pills to get the body to evacuate everything, didn't really hit me hard but it has been rough on her. After trying for around a year this happens, but at least we KNOW it can happen now.
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Sep 14, 2022 17:57
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MF_James posted:Argh baby stopped forming ~6wks and wife had to take pills to get the body to evacuate everything, didn't really hit me hard but it has been rough on her. I'm so sorry to hear that. Best to you and especially your wife.
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Sep 14, 2022 18:19
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We decided to start trying for #2 after #1 turned 1, and man, I did not miss that whole "end of the two week wait trying to figure out if that's a faint second line or a hallucination" thing.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:01
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MF_James posted:Argh baby stopped forming ~6wks and wife had to take pills to get the body to evacuate everything, didn't really hit me hard but it has been rough on her. Sorry to hear about that. My wife and I had one of those last year, no development at about 6 weeks and had to take pills to get things moving. Hope things turn around for you.
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Oct 23, 2022 20:37
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This thread has been supportive to read, me and the missus are 20 months into trying with zero "results", I'm also at the age now where friends are having second children so I can relate to but being able to share other people's happiness etc. It's not an easy topic to talk about irl, you get to your mid 30s and I dunno, i guess the topic of why you don't have children isn't something that comes up often, maybe people just assume it's a touchy subject to talk about. I just try and take it as it comes and not get too upset over things outwith my control. You try and look at the positives but it's hard especially when you just ignorantly assume like I did that you just stop birth control, have sex and then wait 9 months and it would be that easy. It's a small comfort to know there are people out there in the same situation.
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Oct 24, 2022 00:24
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