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A Journey Through Infertility

pudding.cool

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Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#11

Post by velavar »

danduma wrote: post #4

The website is great! Many of my friends have gone through IVF and still I was surprised by some weird parts of the story. For example: "I was stabbed with 932 needles" and when you tap you find out "because I wanted to improve my odds, I went to 31 acupuncture appointments, where 687 needles pierced my underbelly, legs and head". It is clearly established that acupuncture is placebo, but beyond whether this placebo…

It might very well be placebo but it helped me deeply and I can see why women that want to give it their all would try it (and that's why I don't begrudge her counting those jabs). If it helps anyone - my first cycle was without acupuncture and I barely got 4 eggs out of it. I underwent acupuncture for 3 months before my second cycle and that got me 12 eggs.

When each cycle costs about 30k USD, a lot of women with low amh, egg quality or ovarian reserve would try anything to help tweak the odds!

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#12

Post by slavik81 »

danduma wrote: post #4

The website is great! Many of my friends have gone through IVF and still I was surprised by some weird parts of the story. For example: "I was stabbed with 932 needles" and when you tap you find out "because I wanted to improve my odds, I went to 31 acupuncture appointments, where 687 needles pierced my underbelly, legs and head". It is clearly established that acupuncture is placebo, but beyond whether this placebo…

The total number might be a little out there due to her non-medical treatments, but the general sentiment is accurate for IVF. My wife filled up an entire sharps box with the injections she needed to take and that was with success on the first try of the first round (which is very rare).

As someone who is a bit squeamish around needles, I don't know if I could have done what she did.

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#13

Post by fecal_henge »

danduma wrote: post #4

The website is great! Many of my friends have gone through IVF and still I was surprised by some weird parts of the story. For example: "I was stabbed with 932 needles" and when you tap you find out "because I wanted to improve my odds, I went to 31 acupuncture appointments, where 687 needles pierced my underbelly, legs and head". It is clearly established that acupuncture is placebo, but beyond whether this placebo…

For a multiple IVF treatment case (a fancy hospital might have 40% cycle to birth rate remember) it would not be unusual to have ~100 actual injections.

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#14

Post by chaostheory »

On a related note, this is becoming a more common issue worldwide. Almost every country, even developing ones, are experiencing below replenishment birthrates. Only a few countries are spared in Central Africa, though not sure how long that will last.

https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/series/anal...

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v66n4/v66n4p37.html

https://www.newsweek.com/americas-population-time-bomb-18987...

IVF is also no longer something that's only for older women. Younger couples from both sexes are starting to need it.

https://tulipivf.com/news/detail/397

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4727738-people-need-i...

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#15

Post by bsder »

danduma wrote: post #4

The website is great! Many of my friends have gone through IVF and still I was surprised by some weird parts of the story. For example: "I was stabbed with 932 needles" and when you tap you find out "because I wanted to improve my odds, I went to 31 acupuncture appointments, where 687 needles pierced my underbelly, legs and head". It is clearly established that acupuncture is placebo, but beyond whether this placebo…

In yet another great cosmic irony, one of the things that is notorious for making it difficult for a woman to get pregnant is the stress of trying to get pregnant.

Placebo or not, anything which reduces the stress of the mother-to-be can be extremely helpful.

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#18

Post by aozgaa »

slavik81 wrote: post #12
danduma wrote: post #4

The website is great! Many of my friends have gone through IVF and still I was surprised by some weird parts of the story. For example: "I was stabbed with 932 needles" and when you tap you find out "because I wanted to improve my odds, I went to 31 acupuncture appointments, where 687 needles pierced my underbelly, legs and head". It is clearly established that acupuncture is placebo, but beyond whether this placebo…

The total number might be a little out there due to her non-medical treatments, but the general sentiment is accurate for IVF. My wife filled up an entire sharps box with the injections she needed to take and that was with success on the first try of the first round (which is very rare). As someone who is a bit squeamish around needles, I don't know if I could have done what she did.

> that was with success on the first try of the first round (which is very rare).

This very much depends on the patient history (age, cause of infertility, …) and the clinic. Live births per intended retrieval can vary from 10%-60% conditional on the above.

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#19

Post by michieldotv »

I get that in the West we are generally conceiving at a later stage in life than before, and that this does not improve odds of conception. However, with fertility, just as with so many things, we are individualising the problem. Here too the focus is on age. Just get kids when you're younger! What's the big deal.

Let's set aside that there are deeper sociological reasons on why young people start with kids later in life. We are not giving enough weight to all of the pollutants that we are exposed to in society, and how they affect our bodies, health and lives.

I heard Dr. Shanna Swan talk recently about the effects of hormone disrupting chemicals on (male) infertility. It's dire stuff really.

She was on the podcast promoting a recent Netflix documentary called The Plastic Detox in which they intervene in couple's lifestyles to reduce the amount of plastics and the hormone disrupting chemicals (bisphenols, phthalates, etc) they are exposed to. I highly recommend it.

There's over 70 different hormones in the human body regulating all kinds of biological functions. Fertility is only one aspect but think about the adverse effects these chemicals might be having on body weight, our sleep cycle, blood pressure, stress, libido, etc. We are prescribed drugs for related ailments at record rates. Maybe we should take a step back and treat less and prevent more.

Re: A Journey Through Infertility

#20

Post by inglor_cz »

I am a husband in an infertile pair which even needs surrogacy, so it is a horrendous journey. We've had 6 unsuccessful transfers so far - on average less than 1 a year (we have been trying since 2019), mostly on behalf of the surrogate mothers deciding to skedaddle randomly during the process. Although Covid didn't help either.

My wife regularly observes that this hell of a journey looks more taxing on me than her. Which is probably true.

This process is hard on the fathers-to-be as well. We do exist, we want to have kids, we are heartbroken each time as well. We also have to be careful not to hurt our wives' feelings when expressing our grief and sorrow.

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