[puffsgirl11]

My advice would be to go with the flow re: your emotions.
After my cancelled cycle I wouldn't let myself feel anything but positive feelings, I didn't let myself become sad, angry, bitter or any other emotion.
I am now paying for this. I have every emotion you can think of atm, and they are all harder to deal with when they are all together.
So let yourself cry, be angry, hate the world and throw yourself a pity party. Then start thinking of all the positive things you have in your life and allow yourself to smile and laugh!

[open]

hi there we are only starting ivf . does anyone have any advice for us ? we have to travel along way for our ivf . i just want to get it started . i have the same thing friends / family are also having babys around me , which does not make it easy for me .

[Miss Kitty-Cat]

Hi Open,

I think IVF is a very personal experience. People are all going through their own personal journey - for some people it is unexplained, others it is related to a specific diagnosis. Therefore it can be hard for give advice generally on IVF...

A couple of things I would suggest:

- Be prepared for it to take (a lot) longer than you think: a lot of specialists give the "3 stim cycle/8 transfer" guideline for estimated or average success rates (depending on your individual situation of course). Some people conceive faster, others take a lot longer. But if you don't get your hopes up about falling pregnant on the first cycle you will likely cope better with the emotional rollercoaster of the journey. Look at each cycle as a chance and be prepared for the fact it might not work. Having said that, it's always good to feel positive about success. Just be balanced in your approach. The more excited you get about it (the higher you climb) the further there is to fall emotionally...

- If your clinic offers counseling, use it. It helps to talk through things and verbalise your feelings and emotions. Don't keep things inside and don't dump them on your partner - it's not fair.Infertility is not something anyone can control. A lot of people are in the same situation as you and can help you see your way through the depression of a cycle if you aren't coping well.

- Try and get your partner involved as much as possible. My DH gave me the injections. He came to the appointments with me. We did this as a team and it really helped us, mentally and emotionally to do this together. We supported each other and it made us stronger as a team.

- Be healthy in mind and body: eat well, get moderate amounts of exercise, try to sleep reasonable amounts and reduce stress. I found my successful cycle was the one where I felt the best and most relaxed. It's a cliche to say "just relax" but I found that it was the one that worked - coincidence? Perhaps, but it worked for me.

- Get on with your life: A dear friend who took 5 years to conceive her son using IVF gave me this piece of advice and it was one of the most valuable I could have been given. Don't stop doing the things you want to do. Don't put off holidays or work commitments "just in case". Live your life, don't put everything on hold. You'll only focus more on the IVF cycle and that's not healthy.

- Be prepared for the fact it might never work. I was initially afraid of starting IVF because we looked at it as our final chance to have a baby - what if it failed? Over a period of time I made peace with the fact that we might never have a child and we would be ok with that situation. No matter what, we would survive because we loved each other and I think that set me up mentally very well.

Just some general advice for you. Good luck with your TTC journey!

Kitty

[Miss Kitty-Cat]

Oh - another thing - throw out the pregnancy tests. I didn't use one when I was doing IVF. I left testing up to the professionals and didn't think about it til I did my blood test at the end of the cycle. I didn't worry about the result until then. Testing too early means a likelihood you'll end up with a negative result anyway, and blood tests are far more accurate. I think that helped me. I didn't focus on anything other than life, one day at a time.

[Gordo's Girl]

One suggestion I can make, is don't keep the fact that you are going through IVF a secret. Make sure people that are close to you, and those that you work closely with know what you are going through. That way you will find people cut you some slack when you cancel on things, understand if you're "just not up for going out", or you're late for work as you've been off getting bloods and scans done.

[open]

hi there . we are starting ivf soon . we have to travel each time to sydney . does anyone have any advice that could help ? this is such a big thing to go though .

[kez71]

I don't know if this has already been mentioned or not..but I only found out recently that after the medicare rebates, we can also get a tax deduction on all medical expenses over $2000! Noone at my clinic ever told me that, so I had to go in and do an ammendment on my return. My accountant said its on all medical expenses even not related to IVF, so any prescriptions, chiropractic etc..keep all your receipts!

[PrincessPeach]

I don't know if this has already been mentioned or not..but I only found out recently that after the medicare rebates, we can also get a tax deduction on all medical expenses over $2000! Noone at my clinic ever told me that, so I had to go in and do an ammendment on my return. My accountant said its on all medical expenses even not related to IVF, so any prescriptions, chiropractic etc..keep all your receipts!

Yep, it's 20% of the out of pocket costs over $2000.

The easiest way is to head to medicare & your PHI & get them to print out the statement of benefits for you, your partner & any dependents (including dependent parents living with you!), then all you need to do is add the total cost of the prescriptions for the year to your out of pocket expenses from medicare & PHI & give your accountant a grand total - no need for any further explainations to us.

Not my section, so feel free to tell me to get lost - but I am an accountant & when a close friend told me they were going through IVF, I felt a little bit helpless that this was the only piece of advice I could give her.

[MrsDoyle01]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I currently have two days left on two week wait on 3rd IUI cycle and the suspense is killing me.

My advice:-

DO NOT do at home pregnancy tests! They are an emotional rollercoaster. I thought I wanted to know as soon as I could, but after negative, negative, negative I realised I was just torturing myself.

I think you should definitely tell close friends/family that you are doing AC but not necessarily tell them dates. Just let them know that it is what you are trying and if you have any news you will let them know. I have told a handful of people and surprisingly two people who I didn't expect to be - have actually been the most amazing sounding boards. Neither had AC but both had difficulty conceiving/carrying and have both offered amazing support and advice (and given me space when I needed it).

Talk to you DH/DP about how you are feeling. I just starting bawling my eyes out one night for no apparent reason and DH was so worried. He didn't know what to do except to let me cry (which is all I needed). So after that episode I told him it was so hard not talking about BFN's and being on a hormone rollercoaster. I said that sometimes I just needed to let it all out and all I needed from him was for him to listen and to give me a great big hug. And that's what he does. He doesn't know why I'm crying but he knows that by just being there and listening to me waffle on that he is doing his part.

LIVE YOUR LIFE. Don't let AC rule your every thought and don't let it keep you awake at night. I found that if I did some positive visualisation at night when I went to bed then I went to sleep with a sense of well being and that I was doing all I could. On the nights I did that, I usually had wonderful dreams and woke up feeling much better. We also made sure we organised holidays and went out and enjoyed ourselves. And we kept saying - "well, we better do it now cause who knows when we'll get a chance to do this again when we've got three kids ruling the house!".

And one last thing... LAUGH!!! Be happy - you're alive, you're healthy, you have family and friends who love you and you are not alone in this. Tell silly jokes, watch stupid movies, think of something that made you laugh and remember how it made you feel. Yes, you can cry every now and then and feel better for it - but you can also have a bloody good belly laugh - laugh so hard you cry. And I can promise you will feel better for it too.

Thank you everyone for posting all these amazing messages. And good luck to you all!!

[kez71]

sorry, I must contradict the no pee tests advice. For my last cycle I was told i had a negative blood test, that it was less than 3. However, I had been using pee sticks, which were positive. The fact my pee sticks were getting darker made me ask for another test, which was positive. Turns out the first blood test had a lab error. If I hadn't been using pee tests Id have stopped all my meds and would have lost this baby (have a blood clotting disorder and need to be on blood thinners. Lost 3 babies before the disorder was discovered) So i say use them, but only start a day or 2 before your blood test so you don't go crazy!

This post has been edited by kez71: 20/11/2012, 11:40 PM