What’s the process

The consultation is different from everyone based on history etc.. You have medications to stimulate your ovaries, usually start on Day 2 of your cycle (period) and if you dont have regular ones they induce this for you, there's also medications to stop spontaneous ovulation so no panic, most clinics are doing bloods and scans throughout stims to keep you safe and are constantly checking how you're responding to the medications... Once they are satisfied, egg collection is booked in, your eggs are collected & fertilised and they transfer one based on grade (unless you're older, sometimes they will transfer 2 eggs depending on the guidelines of your clinic).. Personally I found everything straight forward like this for mine. 🥰 It's fairly quick from consultation I found, I was basically admitted in and we started straight away 🫶🏻 Sending you em baby dust! 🫶🏻✨️

Thank you, that’s really helped. I suppose because everyone is different you won’t really know what is going to happen until you go for that first appointment. How last minute are the appointments, will I need to let work know or do you think I’ll be able to do it all without them knowing x

Some appointments are planned in advance, like your consult and all of your investigatory blood tests and scans etc, some you will know around when they will be but they depend on things like when your period starts and the clinics schedule as well as your scan/blood results mid after you start medication in a cycle. I would tell your manager - you will need some time for appointments and days off around egg collection as this is done under sedation. And, this process can be hard physically and emotionally so if your work know, they can hopefully help you be as flexible as you need to be. I hope the process for you is as smooth and easy as it can be but for me, it has been tricky at times and I am so glad I told work beforehand so I didn’t have to make up excuses for all the time off and for when the meds made me feel crappy.

@Laura I daren’t tell them as they are male but I feel like they’ll be supportive. I’m going to wait a bit longer until we get the first appointment and mention it then. Thank you

You might be surprised by your work mates cos some might have been through fertility issues with their partners. I would defo tell them - as Laura said, most are appointments are planned but it can also mean scans arerequired every few days leading up to egg collection and the last day or so you need to get timing of injections spot on for the surgery so don’t let work get in the way … this should take top priority. Take the day off on and after surgery 100% I think 🤔 the whole cycle takes approx 17 days so it’s not crazy long. Once they have the eggs they will give you an update about 5 days later to tell you if they fertilised etc and how many are good. My first round of own eggs we got 5 and only 1 was good. My doner later managed 24 eggs and 13 were good!! Good luck and just ask your team lots of questions they are used to people feeling overwhelmed or confused!