I cried. (See my journal for more info)

But, I am curious. Even if you knew it was coming, how did you feel when the doctor first told you about needing IVF?

I didn't go for tests for a long time, as I was worried that I would be told that something was wrong. As it happens, me and DH are both normal and there is no reason why we won't get pregnant normally - but after more than 4 years how much longer do you leave it? I did a lot of research before deciding to take the plunge - and now that I'm less than a week from egg collection, I wish I'd done it sooner. So far, I've found the treatment to be incident-free (except for one injection into my vein) and hope that the rest of it continues in the same way...

xx

When we got DH's results and realised that ICSI was our only option i cried - i was gutted. Then after about 15 minutes i started googling and trying to find people in my situation who had IVF/ICSI and who it had worked for. I found other boards like fertilityzone which aren't as chatty as this board but are good for technical stuff re IVF and there is another board in the UK for the clinics so you can chat to people who are in the same situation and who are at the same clinic.

Don't get me wrong - it sucks. It is unfair that we have to go through this when so many other people don't BUT nobody has told us we can't have kids so there is still hope. There is always hope hun

I kind of knew it was coming, but when he told us I was in complete shock. I held it together when I was in the doctor's room, but as soon as I stepped out I completely broke down and was inconsolable. It took a while to feel any different, but now I think the same way as Rachelle. We haven't been told we will never have children so there must be hope.

I'm the same as Maz - because there isnt anything wrong with us I am now desperate for IVF just so that we can move on from here and was relieved when the dr said I can have it (although have to wait a bit though).

I think it must be hard when you are told it is your only option - whereas I haven't been told this but told to have it as it may help seen as we cant seem to do it on our own.

This time last year if the dr had told me i probably would have cried - but another year on I am now begging for it.

Bx x x

I don't think I'll ever forget that day no matter how many children we'll get. I was expecting a low count but when the doc said "zero, no sperm" I thought I misheard. I asked if that means nothing can be done and he said "of course not" so my mind started racing to remember all the alternatives I had incidentally read about in our TTC journey. He was nearly in tears but entered another room for his blood tests and meanwhile I called my mother and almost spitefully told her "well there, we are infertile!" and burst into tears. Came back to my senses by the time he came out of the room and remembering some thread on a forum or other, thought of the following historic sentence to console him:

"It's okay babe, I can get sperm somewhere else, we can do donor"



Even if I was in shock and had no clue about things like surgical retrieval or ICSI or even genetic profiling and assisted hatching at the time, I still cringe at the memory of what I said.

That was that day, but being that I am more of a "problem fixer" than most guys, 24 hours later I was a mini expert on Male Factor, registered on every infertility forum and reading my eyes out. Within the next week we were already booked for a private ICSI go in a foreign country and they surgically removed sperm a month from that infertility diagnosis on the dot! So I reacted by being silly and then springing into action I presume.