Please help me help my sister

[FergusSingsTheBlues]

Recently my sister told me that she's been trying to conceive for seven years. We've always been close and she's godmother to my elder son so I was shocked and upset about it and really want to help (official story has always been that her dh didn't want kids).

She's tried IUI
And has her first IVF appointment in two weeks time. She wants to cancel it as she can't go through with the disappointment of it not working....we've both just listenined to a programme about this on radio four and both feel quite disheartened.

Her gut instinct is that this will not work and she'll have to face yet more disappointment...I really want to help her. I've been pregnant three times, each time without trying and the last time was last year when I was 38. My family is complete and I know I'm lucky (had terrible endometriosis which spontaneously cleared up)

I want to give her some eggs, I've read about this and I e been thinking about this too as I understand it increases chances of success. Apparently she has v short luteal phase...doesn't this mean that she is not producing matured eggs?
Would egg donation help in this situation

[Peppapigisnotmyname]

Try not to lose heart - it took me eight eight years. I has four attempts at IUI - it failed every time. I then went for IVF - nothing fertilised. So the I had ICSI - worked first time! DS was the result. Thought we were done - couldn't face any more treatment, the dd was conceived spontaneously :)

I thought for a long time that I would never get there, never thought I'd have a baby of my own but I did, twice.

I don't know if egg donation will help, ask at the clinic. The main thing to is have no regrets. Good luck with whatever you and your sister decide to do x

[DontCallMeDaughter]

You might be too old to donate eggs, generally the cut off is 35 but some clinics do make an exception for ladies with known/proven fertility and you're also a family member that would help. So its defintely worth looking into.

Egg donation is fine from a physical point of view, I did it last year anonymously and had no problems at all.

Short Luteal Phase generally means that her body is not producing enough progesterone to support a pregnancy - the cyst where the egg pops out of should become a Corpus Luteal Cyst which produces progesterone until the egg has implanted and starts producing its own progesterone. If the Corpus Luteal Cyst isn't functioning properly, it doesn't produce enough progesterone to maintain the lining of the uterus which starts to collapse before the egg has implanted.

When you do IVF, you always take extra progesterone after the egg has been put back anyway, so this would help combat your sister's short luteal phase.

Get her to speak to her IVF clinic about egg donation, they should be able to tell her if its worth considering going straight to that instead of trying her own eggs first.

Bloody good luck to her though, I'm recently pregnant after 12 months of trying and I cannot imagine the pain of 7 years.

[eurochick]

It would be unusual to jump from IUI to donor eggs, but of course fine if this is what she wants to do.

I completely understand being scared of IVF not working, but I was more scared of reaching menopause without having tried.

How old is your sister? If she is younger than mid 40s, she might want to think about having a go with her own eggs first. You would both need counselling before going down the donor egg route anyway. I'd suggest she bites the bullet, goes to the appointment and finds out what they advise for her before making any decisions.

IVF is a tough road, no doubt about it, but it does work for many women. There is a lot of support online if she wants to access it - on here and on sites like fertility friends. I know this companionship and the ability to talk frankly to people who are not invested in my rounds in the way that friends and family are has been enormously helpful to me.

[FergusSingsTheBlues]

She feels like her whole body is faulty....I suggested donation in desperation, I can't believe she's waited this long and now won't be going to the appointment :(

I can't stand the thought of her not giving it a go....If egg quality was a factor in her case, I'd be in a better position to talk to her about it. But it so ds like carrying a pregnancy would be the biggest hurdle

[DontCallMeDaughter]

She does sound really sad, and not surprising really. See if you can talk her into keeping the IVF appt even if its just to talk about options. If she decides not to go ahead afterwards then fine - but they could find out what the issue is and be able to help. There are a million success stories out there.