My partner (35AFAB) and I (34AFAB) have been trying to conceive with a known donor for over 2 years. After some failed attempts at home insemination and much waiting, we finally did our first egg retrieval in May 2026. I quit cannabis in preparation and focussed on eating whole foods and taking a million supplements. I responded horribly to the stims and developed severe insomnia, found myself in extreme emotional distress (i have pmdd and am sensitive to hormonal fluctuations). We had a really hard time with the hormones and then in spite of my follicles looking great, they retrieved only 6 eggs. 2 progressed to blastocyst and we had 2 failed transfers.

In august i geared up for another egg retrieval. I started another round of stims and found the hormones not as bad - they switched up my medications. I stayed off cannabis the whole time, i was even doing acupuncture and taking so many herbal supplements. I then contracted viral laryngitis and my egg retrieval procedure had to be cancelled 2 days before it was planned to take place. All those eggs lost through natural ovulation! We were devastated & burnt out. I stopped all my supplements and immediately started having an edible every night to sleep. I felt like all my good work had come undone! Had to wait 6-8 weeks to start another round of stims. In the background, we seemed to be having heaps of bad luck in our personal life. I also got scabies after recovering from the (severely bad) viral laryngitis.

This month we went for round 3 - aiming for a freeze all round to take a break for a laparoscopy. No acupuncture, but i did get a particularly intense thai massage in the first week of stims. I barely took any supplements and i had a couple puffs of a joint TWICE during the 2 weeks of stims. I had totally lost steam and just wanted to get it over and done with. On alternate nights i was having drowsy antihistamines to help me sleep. Drinking excessive amounts of coke zero and eating whatever my heart desired. Did karaoke til 1am on the night of my trigger shot. Well, whatever i did worked. I got 21 eggs and 16 fertilised.

I just post this to share that it really is out of your control sometimes. Its a roll of the dice! I hope someone out there reading this having bad luck feels reassured that sometimes the egg retrievals are just random and it doesnt mean that it will be the same number for subsequent rounds. And don’t beat yourself up if you’re having trouble following all the whole foods, supplements, acupuncture, microplastics etc. it is overwhelming. Hoping our bad luck is over now!

hi! this space was so helpful to my wife and i during our conception journey and we’d love to be able to give back. we have leftover ganirelix, menopur, and gonal-f and would be happy to coordinate an in-person meet (due to the refrigeration requirements).

Men

Cet

Gon

Nyc

If this is not allowed please remove!

Third round hoping this time is it!

My first wife and I used a friendly known donor for our two kids (each carried one). 9 years and an amicable split later, my second wife and I are planning to have another. I didn't know if our donor would be up for donating, so we talked to a few people. Turns out my kids donor would be happy to do it again, but we can't quite decide 100%. For one thing, he's now well over 40. For another, my wife has a few friends she would be excited about building community with. On the other hand, we all know known donors have some risks built in, so it's nice that we know my kids donor wouldn't get weird and try to get custody. And it would be really nice for all the kids to share a donor. But current wife has some hesitations about making a decision that is based on a decision I made with my ex.

How would you make this decision? Any considerations we haven't thought of?

Hello! We did our first FET last month and it wasn’t successful. (My husband is trans so these are his embryos) I am going to try a modified natural cycle this month as last month my lining grew very thick but didn’t reach trilaminar. For some background, we have a 2.5 year old from our first try at an unmedicated IUI.

My question is this, they found a small (what they believe to be) calcification on my ultrasounds. It is 2-3 mm in size but located in the center of my endometrium. The clinic recommends all findings be removed before transfers and we declined last time but now I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to pay thousands of dollars to investigate something that may be an incidental finding, but I also don’t want to waste embryos trying when that could be an issue.

Does anyone have any advice?

Hi all!

My wife and I (both cis females) are about to start our third month of ICI with frozen donor sperm! We are using two vials per cycle timed apart.

Does anyone have advice for timing the inseminations? My LH typically rises very quickly (- to + in less than 12 hours, peak 2 hours after +, then it starts steadily decreasing).

Does anyone have any tips/tricks they feel really helped them be successful?

Thanks in advance!

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Matching with a surrogate is a major milestone. But what happens next at the fertility clinic? For many intended parents, the medical side of surrogacy can feel like a series of decisions happening behind the scenes.

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Together with Global Fertility & Genetics, Pineapple Family is co-hosting hosting a free webinar on Thursday, November 5, with Dr. Melvin Thornton, Reproductive Endocrinologist & Fertility Specialist to walk through the medical side of a surrogacy journey.

He'll be covering topics like:

• What happens at the fertility clinic after matching
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• What the clinic evaluates before proceeding
• How the embryo transfer process works
• What happens between transfer and early pregnancy
• Which medical decisions are made by the clinic

There will also be a live Q&A, and questions can be submitted anonymously.

It's Thursday, November 5, at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET. Registration is free, and both intended parents and gestational carriers are welcome.

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Obviously one is cheaper than the other.

We were set on rIVF and then, while in an appt, it was suggested we do IUI (to begin with) as my medical history supports the success of IUI, and the IVF process could actually be harder on my body than expected due to various health conditions.

So I technically have PCOS, however, I’ve been on Metformin since puberty and thus ovulation is going well.

I’m worried IUI will be a waste of money, and also me and my fiancée felt it would be special to carry for each other.

Now I’m full on panicking?

I thought we had things figured out and our doctor has me all wigged out. I dunno.

We have couples counseling on Thursday, but has anyone dealt with this? She’s happy either way, but I’m literally worried about FOMO 🤦🏻‍♀️

Has anyone seen a good book where an egg or sperm donor is an actual person the child knows well, like a family member or good friend?

Egg retrieval day was today and we didn’t get any eggs, the follicles were empty😔
I know there’s ’always next time’ and we can always ‘try again’ but I’m still devastated.
Not only because we didn’t get any eggs and had my hopes up; but watching the person you love the most in the world go through all the hormone changes, the bloating, the bruising, the needles and feeling so helpless is so hard. And now we have to do it again??
It wasn’t meant to be this time around, and I’ll believe that more in time, but still in it right now. Back to the start we go!

I may know where you can get 3 vials of Follistim (exp 2028) in Sacramento! Available to someone who does have a prescription for Follistim. Being intentionally vague and will want to communicate over Signal due to the nature of the matter. This will be in person only since refrigeration is required.

Hi! Our clinic is submitting a prior authorization request for my wife's egg retrieval. We hope to do reciprocal IVF. Our understanding is that we have pretty amazing health insurance coverage. My state employee insurance in particular is known to be top notch. Our insurance includes same sex couples in their definition of infertility, covers IVF, and explicitly does not require IUIs before IVF, but the clinic billing coordinator keeps saying our request will likely be denied because IVF is not medically necessary and we don't have sufficient evidence of infertility (i.e., failed IUIs). This does not give us confidence that they will advocate for us in the initial submission or in the event of a denial and subsequent appeal. We kind of wonder if she just doesn't realize how inclusive our insurance is compared to most.

To complicate matters, we selected a known donor whose sperm would not be suitable for IUI. We love our donor but are feeling a bit silly that we chose an IVF-only donor, thinking insurance coverage for IVF was a guarantee. We are panicking a little bit. Has anyone else been in a situation like this? Thanks!

I am cycle day 6 of my first unmedicated IUI. My wife and I weren’t nervous at all during the cycle tracking phase etc, but now that the time is here I’m anxious leading up to it and having to wait to test afterwards 😅 any tips or advice leading up to our first try would be greatly appreciated ✨

This is my fourth FET. Until now, we’ve only done fully medicated, but we decided to go for a modified natural this time with some additional PIO support. Today I am 5dp6dt with a day 6 embryo (fully hatched). My symptoms have been pretty unremarkable, despite high progesterone levels in labs, but last night I had some tightness/poking/cramping under my belly button near my pelvis and I’ve had some very noticeable back soreness since late 3dpt. It almost feels like pre-period level back pain. I don’t recall ever having this happen to this degree with other transfers. Could it be that this one finally worked? Or am I just desperate & delusional? I don’t test at home until the morning of beta so I won’t know anything definitive until then, but I can’t stop thinking about this. We only have one embryo left after this one and we all know how expensive starting over is, especially when there’s no taking a break to “try naturally”.

EDIT: these got taken! Thanks all!

Hello! We are getting ready to welcome our baby and cleaning out the house.

We have a bunch of leftover meds from 2 egg retrievals and transfers. Would love to donate them to people who need them! If no one claims them, we will just throw away.

- Crinone (exp Aug 2028) - 2 boxes, one partially fulll

- PIO (exp Dec 2028) - 1 vial

- Gonal F (exp March 2027) - 2 boxes, one 450 IU, one 900. kept refrigerated

- menopur (exp Dec 2026) - 2 vials

- tons of syringes, needles, alcohol swabs

must take all!

We have completed an egg retrieval and now have embryos in the freezer. Only a handful of close friends and family know we are going through IVF, mostly because we don’t want to have everyone in our lives constantly asking for updates. The support has been helpful and we don’t regret it but we know we will still need to educate our parents specifically as we go through this process.

We are currently in the thick of deciding if we want to share the final number of embryos we have. Our families have already been asking, but we worry that sharing will come with more questions regarding how many kids we’ll have in the future (if any) and things like that.

Did anyone share the number of embryos they have with friends and family? Did you regret it?

Hi all,

My partner and I (both cis women) are starting TTC in the U.S. We are well aware that we should consult local lawyers directly and have already done so for the state we currently live in (GA). We will definitely have attorneys support us with a donor contract prior to insemination.

I am burnt out from dealing with the medical system, and it's expensive both financially and energetically, and if there's a chance we can do it ourselves at home without them, we'd like to try that. If we are able to conceive this way, we are open to relocating to a state where the laws are more favorable before giving birth.

So, we're turning here to seek stories of personal experiences (rather than advice per se) from those in any U.S. state/territory (especially GA, MD, DC, MN, AL, or CO, but really, anywhere!) (whether states who have passed the 2017 revision of the Uniform Parentage Act or not) who have conceived this way, with no medical/cryobank involvement, with a lawyer-supported donor contract in place prior to insemination. If this is you, are you open to sharing what state you live in and what your experience was like navigating both ensuring that the KD has no parental rights and ensuring that the non-gestational parent has full parental rights?

We trust our KD deeply and have been close friends with him for many, many years. While it is important to us to have as much legal protection as possible (after consulting with our GA lawyer, we will definitely get legally married before insemination and definitely pursue second parent adoption (even if my partner is already the legal assumed parent in the state law due to our being married), we are not worried about him nor either of us becoming litigious. So, voluntary legal processes we could pursue are also a secondary option, outside of automatic state laws around parental rights. We are, however, worried about the larger legal and social landscape and protection from unexpected issues down the road.

So, if you'd like, we'd love to hear about how this process has been for you. Thank you!!

Please limit your pregnancy celebrations and pregnancy test photos to this thread.

My wife is going through an egg retrieval sometime this week. The process so far hasn’t been too hectic, but it’s definitely taken a slight toll on her. What are some things I can get ready for her/do for her in the few days after the retrieval? What did you find helpful or useful or would’ve loved?

Day 9 post-IUI (second attempt, unmedicated IUI) for my wife. Is cramping and light bleeding a good sign or is it just a very normal thing to expect (ie not a sign of pregnancy)? Last time she had mild cramping but no bleeding and obviously no resulting pregnancy

My wife’s egg retrieval is tomorrow morning (Australia)!

So incredibly nervous, anxious and excited all rolled into one. She’s at a risk of OHSS so they’re doing a freeze-all cycle (which lowkey sucks because we wanted to do a fresh transfer but can’t now, but also glad they’re taking the steps to look after us - another dip in the rollercoaster that news was).

What are some things that helped you post retrieval? Any tips??

Anyone else doing egg retrieval tomorrow and going through the same timing?

Xx

I have one unopened box of cetrotide that will expire on 10/31/26. It has been refrigerated since I got it. If anyone is in need and can pick up in NYC (Brooklyn or Manhattan pending time) let me know! Giving for free.

My husband and I have been looking for a sperm donor for almost a year now with no luck and I’m losing hope. We started the search for a donor early because we wanted to have that locked down asap. Our plan was to do at home insemination starting in January 2027, but it’s the end of October and we still haven’t found a donor. We were hoping to find a known donor near us but it’s starting to look like we may have to use a bank. I’m hesitant to use a bank because we live in Texas and I’m fearful that even if we go to the bigger cities, we may still face challenges since we’re a queer couple. I’m also afraid that we’ll pick a “bad” bank and won’t get the sperm we think we’re getting. It feels incredibly unfair that we have to work so hard for a baby that we’ve wanted for a decade now. I know life isn’t fair but I wish it was just a tiny bit easier. I keep finding myself wishing there was an underground donor system for queer people, something that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars. Just queer people wanting to help other queer people build the family they’ve been dreaming of.

If you’ve had to use a bank because you couldn’t find a known donor, what was your experience like? Any red or green flags to look out for? Any positive stories? I just need some hope that it’s still possible, even if it won’t be the way we’ve hoped for.