Unmedicated ivf

I think you’re probably seeing comments regarding medicated vs natural transfers, not retrievals.

The comments you are seeing are about transfers not about the stimulation. IVF is split into two parts: 1) stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple follicules (that contain eggs) by doing daily hormone injections. You’ll see people referring to it as “stims”. Then do an egg retrieval at the end of this part. 2) once you have retrieved eggs, they’re fertilized with sperm to create embryos. You can either: - do a fresh transfer 5/6 days after your egg retrieval - freeze your embryo(s) and transfer them later in a “transfer cycle”. You can do that frozen transfer cycle as natural (following your own hormonal cycle to simplify) or medicated.

Thanks girls. I knew all the steps for your “normal” ivf, I had just seen comments on here and on Facebook groups about unmedicated and got a bit confused on how that would work.

Uhm, I have heard about mild IVF with a lower simulation but not natural until now. I assume it consist of not taking any meds and just recovering your one egg you release as part of your normal cycle. I would never do that personally - you would retrieve one egg at best, and with the attrition, I don’t see the point of going through the surgery and stress for such low chance. IVF is a numbers game. If you limit your numbers, you also reduce your chances (what my doctor told me!)

@Annia that’s what I thought. I’m not sure if the comments were correct about what they meant. As I assumed then you’d only retrieve one, 2 maximum eggs, which I didn’t see having a huge success rate.

Yes totally agree :)

There is such a thing as natural IVF. It’s unmedicated - no stims and just follows your natural menstrual cycle , retrieving the egg that you would have naturally ovulated.

I personally wouldn’t bother going that route as IVF is a numbers game.

I was in a similar boat - many follicles and developed ohss! Don’t be too scared about ohss - it just means that your body produced lots of eggs, which is a good thing! Definitely plan for a full freeze cycle as a transfer with ohss is not ideal and can cause hospitalization. I managed ohss by: 1) increasing protein before and after retrieval to 150+ g per day 2) increasing water intake a TON. 3) my provider gave me some Rx medication I was extremely bloated for a week or so after retrieval, but was able to pursue a medicated transfer the following month and it was successful! Good luck to you - I don’t know anything about a “natural” transfer cycle, but do know that medicated cycles are significantly more successful

I just watched 3 YouTube videos on it too. No injections instead pills to “feed” what i already have instead of trying to “force feed” what i already have making them go into overdrive the doctor obviously explained it better lol