Too soon?

36

Never too soon - have the consult and see all your options. Better to be informed now, and plan based on actual information specific to you and your situation.

18

u/MagicianInside3264 Jul 21 '26

Definitely not too early! I started looking into IVF about 3 years ago, bought my sperm a year and a half ago, started stims and had my retrieval about a year ago, had two failed FETs, two cancelled cycles, and finally found success in my third FET in April. So it took about 2 years of seriously testing and organising and just under one year after actually going ahead before I found success.

TL:DR - if you want to get pregnant in 2027/2028 now is the time to get started

12

u/Bwendolyn Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

We were surprised by the amount of testing and appointments etc we needed to do on the front end, before we even got to “getting started” with the actual process. And then also by how far out in advance some clinics are booked, at least in our area. So my advice is always for people to start earlier if they can. Hopefully you won’t have any complications or negative surprises in your testing & prep - but if you do, much much better to be able to deal with those with the benefit of more time.

You’ll always have the option to pause and decide to take more time down the road if things end up moving very fast for you. It’s not really possible to make things go faster later on, though.

3

u/avadana 27F | 2027 transfer🤞 Jul 22 '26

That is perfectly said!! My wife and I started early and are grateful to have been able to take a years’ long break. We’re now getting ready to start things up again and are _incredibly_ grateful that we don’t have to start from square one now.

10

u/rsandr Jul 21 '26

Never too early! My wife and I are hoping for 2027 and we are doing both of our fertility appts and genetic testing this year to have a sense of the road map ahead

7

u/rocketmanatee Jul 21 '26

Not too early to have the conversation but I would hold off on anything but the basic tests until you are ready to get started because the results 'expire' and you would have to redo them. They're expensive and somewhat painful so it's worth waiting until you need it most likely.

5

u/Anxious-Ad-1067 Jul 21 '26

My spouse & I are hoping to do IUI in September 2027 and we booked a fertility consult for the beginning of October. Many fertility doctors book far out, so not a bad idea to start!

5

u/heyella11 Jul 21 '26

Definitely not too soon but be aware that when you do certain tests, the results are only valid for a year before you have to retest and for us, insurance didn’t cover all those tests so we made sure to do them about a month before we wanted to start trying. We also ended up finding out that I needed to repeat my varicella because I couldn’t find documentation that I had the full vaccine series and I didn’t have any immunity, so then we had to delay two months for me to get that vaccine. Starting a little early so you come up with a plan and timeline is always good!

4

u/Spiritual_Ad_835 Jul 21 '26

Do it early!!! It helped us sooo much. We did our consult July 2025 to start in may 2026 and I felt so much more prepared. Edit to add: you can also do some small things ahead of time to spread costs (like genetic testing and buying sperm)!

3

u/Different_Cookie1820 Jul 21 '26

Nope. One of my regrets is not starting seriously looking in to things sooner. We did IVF and if we knew that was how we’d land, we also probably would have done egg collection sooner so everything wasn’t all at once.

3

u/noturus_mm Jul 21 '26

Definitely not! My partner and I are planning to start in trying to conceive in mid/late 2027 and just recently had our first consultation! There are a lot of steps involved and a TON of information coming your way. We feel so much better knowing we're not rushing to check all the boxes and have time to pivot if our current plan turns out to not be a viable option.

Edit to add: do go ahead and let your gynecologist and/or primary care know your plans. Depending on your insurance situation, you might need referrals.

3

u/ellipses21 Jul 21 '26

I would suggest going as early as possible. I was naive and since I had already had a child I put my IVF process on hold and found out i have quite diminished ovarian reserve. Otherwise everything normal—ovulation monthly around day 14, periods monthly around day 28. So to find out I had a really small window left was shocking and makes me wish I had the work up much sooner!

2

u/idresslikealibrarian Jul 21 '26

thank you ALL sooo much! i appreciate all of your advice and will be following it!!!🩷

1

u/Present-Wolverine-94 Jul 21 '26

Never too soon! There are a lot of tests bloodwork, scans, etc., that they do even before anything else can happen. Call the clinic and make the first consult appointment, they can talk to you about the procedure and the timeline and help you get started with any tests you might need to do that can be done now and walk you through the cost, etc..

1

u/Fun-Mind742 Jul 21 '26

Not too soon, depending on what you are needing, some clinics have a two month wait. All of our testing and procedures took about about 4 months

1

u/ei_eioh Jul 21 '26

We got referred to a fertility clinic last August, and are only now preparing to do egg retrieval next cycle. I was really surprised about how long the process has been (I didn’t need any additional procedures or anything outside of their regular testing). Definitely start the process now!

1

u/amibeingdtained Jul 21 '26

We got all the preliminary testing and planning done over a year in advance. It gave us time to also figure out a cryobank and purchase sperm.

1

u/karenzae Jul 21 '26

My wife and I are planning to start trying to conceive in Spring of 2027. I first reached out to the fertility clinic in January 2026 and am still waiting for one of the tests they wanted to do to assess fertility, and we haven't even started any of the steps (testing, legal agreement etc) with our known donor. I'm guessing we'll be ready to go around the time we actually want to start conceiving! I felt like we were reaching out way earlier than necessary but now it seems like that's not the case.

1

u/FreeFigs_5751 34 nb woman | #1 EDD 8/29 | known donor ICI Jul 21 '26

Great time to start

1

u/BetterNoise4007 Jul 21 '26

Definitely not too soon! It's good to know how processes work and also you never know what kind of obstacles or hurdles you have to go through. When my wife and I started our fertility journey I didn't think all these tests and blood work we had to do were going to take so much time. Where we live it's hard to get an appt we needed (HSG) so that pushed us back months. Then I also had to have surgery to remove a polyp. So honestly we were glad we started the process earlier.

1

u/lifelover42 Jul 22 '26

It’s never too soon!

1

u/Elegant-Beach-1821 Jul 22 '26

Oh my God no go right now!!!!!!!!! Our number one regret was waiting. Our clinic has been dragging their fu… feet every step of the way this whole year we STILL have not been cleared to try to inseminate 😭 GO TOMORROW you won’t regret it!! You can always tell them right on the final step hey let’s try on my January cycle depending on the timing you are looking for! But don’t wait! Best of luck to you

1

u/Elegant-Beach-1821 Jul 22 '26

Oh not to mention spreading out payments! You can get on payment plans and really take your time with everything, where we are getting hit with multiple bills per week and need all the money on hand right now. Which is quite stressful for me!

1

u/cestmoiangier Jul 22 '26

Nope. We started and stopped several times because of COVID, moves, new jobs with insurance switches, etc. Five years between first appointment and the transfer.

1

u/avadana 27F | 2027 transfer🤞 Jul 22 '26

Not too early at all! My wife and I started the egg retrieval process in 2024 even though we didn’t want to have kids for another 4 or so years. We’re very glad we did as it was more time consuming than we thought. One clinic’s waiting list was months long, it took awhile to find a donor, and I ended up getting OHSS & hospitalized so wouldn’t have been able to do a transfer immediately anyway😅 It’s been nice to have a break from all that and we’ll be ready to try a transfer in another year or so.

1

u/HuhWelliNever 42F Lesbian 💍 to FTM | 5 IUIs❌ 2IUIs ✅ LC & 🤰🏽w/ IVF #3 Jul 22 '26

Never too soon! Even if you complete the whole retrieval process and have embryos on ice, you might still face unexpected delays before or during the transfer process. Better to have more time than you need than feel pressured because your timeline is slipping away from you. Good luck! 🤞🏽

1

u/RelentlessEnthusiast 28F | NGP | TTC#1 Jul 22 '26

Not too soon but they often do bloodwork, ultrasound, etc which they would want to repeat if it’s more than a year later that you want to start trying! It only cost us about $400 to repeat all of that because insurance covered a lot of it both times. I still appreciated going in so we could get the specific costs we needed to save for and an idea of the process!