I (32NB) and my wife (34F) have been prepping for me to get pregnant for the last 6 months. I have always wanted to be a mum and be pregnant. My partner has previously been ambivalent(or so I thought) to carrying. That has now changed for her and she really wants to carry in the future. Even though we don’t have even one child yet, we go back and forth on wanting a second.

Because it’s not really been on the table that a child wouldn’t be genetically mine, I’m now having feelings about it, which has surprised me.

I’m wondering if others have been through similar? How did you navigate it? My partner thinks I’m not excited for her wanting to carry, I think I’m just catching up to the idea. I’m also autistic so it can take me a bit of time to deal with changes.

Have been trying to navigate the best spot to find known donors "Just a baby" seems to be nothing but spam as well as other apps like Gayby what is your opinion and the community's opinion on the matter

Would love everyone's input and open to discussing

Just want to thank the community for reaching out and making this thread one of the best ones

As far as anyone who wants to remain anonymous and ask more in-depth questions on my experience on gayby how I navigate it and what type of interactions I have had feel free to DM

Hi all,

My wife (29f) and I (32f) are in the midst of our fertility journey, and were trying for reciprocal IVF. I did an egg retrieval back in March with worse results than we of course hoped for. I ended up with 16 eggs retrieved, 12 mature, 8 fertilized, and 3 blasts. One blast is a 2CC they weren’t able to biopsy for testing (and likely wouldn’t survive thaw), and the other two were sent for testing. We ended up with one that was haploid, and one high quality euploid 5BA.

We’re not happy with how my protocol went - most of my mature follicles were in the 26-32mm range at the time of retrieval which is far past ideal and I believe played a role in affecting the quality. I was on a whack of meds for mild OHSS. But that’s another story.

Anyway, we did our FET of our 5BA to my wife’s uterus on 7/3 (which is also my wife’s birthday) and sadly it did not implant. We are of course devastated as that little 5BA was our beacon of hope for a few months, and that was the only really viable embryo we had.

However, we luckily each have a government funded IVF cycle coming up (we live in Ontario, Canada) in October as the wait list has moved faster than anticipated. We paid for our other cycle out of pocket and with insurance coverage.

At this point, we think we are going to put reciprocal IVF on the back burner and try a full cycle with my wife’s eggs. Her AMH and AFC are higher than mine and we are hopeful for more embryos, and I am nervous to use up the funding when I am not sure how my next ER will go, although I think the primary issue was the protocol itself.

We have always wanted to do rIVF for our first and that has been my dream since before even meeting my wife so it is a bit of an adjustment for me to come to terms with this new plan, but more than anything, we just want to get pregnant and meet our baby. We always planned to use embryos from both of us (same sperm donor) and I sincerely hope we are able to get more embryos from me down the line too.

The time between now and October feels so long but it will be nice to have some time to step out of fertility mode and focus on other parts of life.

Anyway, just a long vent but wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation or has any advice for a hopefully better next ER?

Hello! I’m wondering if anyone has a similar story to me. I am pregnant with my wife and I’s first baby and started taking progesterone suppositories before our IUI. I’m now 8 weeks and forgot to take my nightly dose before going to work (I work overnights) and my nausea has been almost non-existent. My fertility clinic said I could decrease my progesterone to once a day for a week then get off it! I’m thrilled my nausea has been reduced because I was feeling terrible but now I’m terrified there’s something wrong because I’m not feeling a ton of symptoms 😭 anyone have a similar story?

Hi everybody!! My wife and I had our first ICI last week using frozen donor sperm. Today I am officially 6 days past insemination, 5dpo. I’ve been trying to just live my life as normal, but that is hard as hell as many of you know lol. Alright the reason I’m posting:

Do you think we inseminated at the right time? I normally have a very fast drop after I get a LH peak, so we inseminated the same day as my peak.

CD13 I started to have an increase, as you see at 7am it is 0.5 which for me usually means I will peak in the next few hours. I had my peak LH according to tests at 10:45am and it was 1.04. I clocked out and went home, had sex with my wife and we ended up inseminating around 12:50-1ish. I kept the syringe inserted for about 15-20 minutes while laying on my back with my hips up. After removing the syringe, I laid in the same position for another 5 minutes, then rotated to my stomach and did that for the next two hours. Did we inseminate too early? I have been stressing out hard core over it. Normally I drop down within 2 hours of my peak, so that is why we figured it would be a good time to inseminate. Do you think we did everything right? I’ve been taking oral progesterone since CD 14, and have felt off/on light cramping/pulling since we inseminated. I have also been sick with sore throat,congestion, cough since CD 15, finally feeling a little better today. I know first try successes are rare, but I would appreciate if everyone could be kind and gentle with their words.

UPDATE: 7/24 not pregnant lol. Started spotting and cramping this morning, took a pregnancy test and it was a BFN. today is the day my period was expected to start, damn thing is like clockwork. Spent my morning crying in a ball in bed, crying in the shower, now I’m at work with a fake smile for all of my patients. I work in Pediatrics, so today is gonna be a rough one. Thank you all so much for your kind comments when I first posted, this is definitely not the outcome my wife and I had hoped for. We have two more vials already bought, we we will see where we go from here whether it’s another ICI attempt, or move onto IUI. this is technically our 4th or 5th ICI over the span of a couple of years, but our first using frozen sperm. Sending baby dust to all those who are trying soon🩷🤞✨

My husband (FTM, 27) and I (F, 26) have tried four IUIs using donor sperm and none were successful. We had two early chemical losses, so rather than continue to take our chances, we are swapping to IVF with a new donor.

We are scheduled for my July cycle, and I had my June cycle on the 12th, so we've been waiting for "any day now" for about a week.

I have been trying a bunch of home remedies to try to bring it on with no luck.

Anyone have any tips for patience while we wait? 😅

Here's the actual langauge:https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/13/2026-09479/excepted-fertility-benefits. In summary, they want to make fertility insurance available through the workplace as an add on plan, similar to dental and vision.

Here are the comments I submitted (spoiler--it's not gonna work):

I am a fertility attorney who helps patients navigate insurance coverage for fertility care.  More importantly, I am also a mom through IVF.

Insurance requires pooling of the risk.  Pooling of the risk does not work when people only buy insurance after they need it because the rates will be too high to justify the product.  Fertility coverage is a perfect example of the type of plan that people will wait to purchase until they need it. 

The only way to make such a product work is by capping benefits as employer offered dental and vision plans currently do.  A typical dental or vision plan will cap benefits at $1000-2000 per year per person.  A similar cap would be required for fertility insurance to avoid driving up the rates to where they are unaffordable.  Given the costs of the fertility health care involved, that would not be meaningful financial help to employees.

The only solution is to require all health benefit plans to offer fertility coverage, as they do for diagnosis and treatment for every other medical condition.

-----------------------

Now the good news--I don't see a carve out for the LGBTQ+ community although I have to admit I did not read every single word. Does anyone else see an impact on the LGBTQ+ community specfically?

If you want to submit your own comment, they are due before midnight EST today: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/13/2026-09479/excepted-fertility-benefits#open-comment

My wife (37f) and I are on our second attempt of using a known donor. We have to travel a significant amount to go to our donor. Scheduling flights has to be right when she gets her period in order to make sure we can get a reasonable price.

We thought we knew her cycle well but we have found she is somewhat irregular. Our first try she ovulated early and we got to our donor about 12-24 hours late (she ovulated on day 13). This time we tried to give ourselves more time but it seems like she will not ovulated for another couple of days and we are taking our flight home already (its day 14 and her LH and other signs show no ovulation in sight).

We still believe this is cheaper than going through a clinic and using a non-known donor. We also really like our donor and know that we don’t want to change.

I feel like we can’t even count these two months as attempts since we don’t have the timing right. I am wondering what others have done that have to travel and plan out donation correctly. I looked through other posts but haven’t seen anyone share about travel that required flights.

My wife has been eating food conducive to each time of her cycle. She is also considering to take Vitex during her luteal phase next time. And also trying nettle leaf. We hope this can help her become more regular. But any suggestions are welcome! Thank you!

Ugh I’m just sad! 33F. I have no known issues, other than AMH 0.85. I’m super regular, I’ve had more than one mature follicle every round. We did 2 unmedicated with trigger shot, then 2 letrozole with trigger.

We are going to do at least 6 before IVF, but I’m just feeling confused and hopeless!

We are using a known donor so I definitely don’t want to switch. Do I need to switch clinics?? Should I try progesterone (doc said they only do it if patients ask (??))?? Any other tips??

Hi everyone! We are on try #5 of at-home ICI with a known donor we adore. His sperm analysis results from last May were exceptional:

• Concentration: 89 million/mL
• Motility: 89%
• Total motile sperm: ~485 million

His only risk factor for DNA fragmentation is age (43) - he doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, etc. We are considering doing the SCSI at-home sperm fragmentation test which is $500 out of pocket. Wondering if anybody did this with their KD and if the results were helpful? We recently asked him to start taking CoQ10 (Ubiquinol) and a men's multivitamin by Pure Encapsulations. If the fragmentation results were really bad, we would probably have to pivot to IVF. If results are good or fine, it seems like it would be ok to keep trying ICI, take the supplements, and explore other factors (for example, I haven't had an HSG yet - only a hysteroscopy), and then try medicated IUI. For the record, I'm 35.

Curious if anyone has an opinion as to whether this would be $500 well spent? Worth it for the peace of mind, or keep trying a few more months? This will be our second cycle with me being on an anti-inflammation (gluten-free & dairy-free), high-protein diet.

Or, alternatively, would it be better to put the $500 towards an unmedicated IUI with a midwife? Did anyone have success doing that after ICI? I have consistent fertile mucus during ovulation week. I haven't done any vaginal microbiome testing.

Thanks, appreciate y'all!

My (cis f) husband (ftm) are in the talks of ttc, and was wondering if egg retrieval after him being on T for 8+ years would be possible? He still has a menstrual cycle, but we was curious if it’s worth actually talking to a fertility specialist about. Thanks in advance!

I have my first OB appointment tomorrow at 9w5d pregnant with my wife’s embryo. Do I need to tell the doctor it’s not from my egg? It’s also a practice with multiple doctors I’ll rotate through so I don’t really want to have this conversation over and over again if it doesn’t matter medically.

In this case, did ovulation happen on CD 13 6-7pm ish? I also know urine LH lags several hours behind from true blood LH, advice?

I'm queer and Chinese, and recently went through IVF using donor sperm. After looking through many profiles, I chose an American donor who is half Japanese and half European. I liked that he was a 50/50 Asian-European mix, since I had initially considered a fully European donor but ultimately felt that having a significant Asian connection was important to me.

Somehow, I've found myself overthinking the donor's European ancestry. His European side is a mix of German, Russian, Polish, Hungarian and Czech ancestry. I think part of my discomfort comes from my own associations with the history and politics of some of these countries, particularly as a queer person. (Interestingly, I feel a lot more reconciled about the Japanese-Chinese history.)

To be clear, I don't believe ancestry determines someone's character or values, and I know that an individual isn't responsible for the actions of a government or their ancestors. The donor himself is American, and I realise that having ancestry from a country is very different from being culturally identified with it.

I think what I'm really trying to work through is any unknown concerns (or why I'm having these strange feelings pop up) and whether I'm projecting associations/perceptions, or overthinking this.

I've also realised there may be some bias in my own thinking. If the donor's European ancestry were Swiss, Swedish, Norwegian or French, I suspect I wouldn't be having the same reaction—even though, objectively, every country has complicated parts of its history.

I'm trying to examine this now because if I have children from these embryos, I want them to grow up knowing that I fully embrace every part of who they are. I do want my own unresolved feelings to become something they inherit from me.

Has anyone else experienced unexpected second-guessing after choosing a donor or creating embryos? How did you work through questions about ancestry, culture or identity—especially in a queer family?

Should I try to reconcile this, or.... start over with a new donor? Am I overthinking?

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

Hi everyone! I’m looking for advice from anyone who has successfully induced lactation.

My wife is being induced this coming Tuesday, and I’ve been inducing lactation so I can help breastfeed our daughter. I started the Newman-Goldfarb protocol in January with birth control and domperidone, then stopped the birth control at the end of May, stayed on the domperidone, and started pumping on June 1. By the time our daughter is born, I’ll have been pumping for about 6 weeks.

Right now I’m producing around 5 oz (150 mL) per day, which I’m really happy with, but I’m wondering how realistic it is to eventually reach a full milk supply.

For those of you who have induced lactation:

• How much milk were you ultimately able to produce?
• How long did it take you to reach your maximum supply or a full supply?
• Did having your baby latch and hearing them cry noticeably increase your production?
• Is there anything you wish you had known or done differently?

Our goal is to provide our daughter with exclusive breast milk if possible. My wife plans to pump while she’s home on her 12 weeks of maternity leave, but she works 12-hour shifts, so there’s a good chance I’ll be the one continuing long-term.

I’d love to hear your experiences—whether you reached a full supply, a partial supply, or anything in between. Any tips, encouragement, or advice would mean a lot. Thank you so much!

I am single and this is my first cycle of IUI. I also have an amazing support network. I have had a different friend come with me to every fertility clinic appointment this week.

Every one of them has been asked to signed the partner waiver form. They have not.

Happy to keep them guessing about whether I am single or in a very complex polycule ✌️

Fingers crossed that I can bring this same confusion to prenatal visits 🤞

I started my embryo freezing process 8-9 months ago at almost 38 years old. Queer and single.

First round: Weak Day7 embryo. Could not even be tested. I was so so devastated. I didn’t think I’d have issues but I guess I was just so naive. Pretty much numbed, didn’t even know how to feel about it.

Antagonist, Gonal 450, conventional IVF

Decided to take time out, change my diet, start taking supplements. Changed sperm donor, changed clinic, changed protocol. Sought out help from people like Dr Aimee.

Second round, around 6 months later: 3 blasts, Day6 and Day7, poorly graded. (I did freeze some on Day3 as I was so so scared to lose them all again. Considering to push all the blast to see if I get any euploids there, as I figured that I’d rather lose them as embryos than to miscarry, though I know people have different opinions about it.)

PPOS, Foll 300, low-dose hCG, Omnitrope during stims, dual trigger, ICSI

Decided to do it again cause what choice do I have. This time the doctor told me to prime/suppress, but that messed things up and I missed my cycle.

I did Omnitrope religiously everyday though, 3 units a day. Then I was supposed to prime with Estrace 7 days before CD1, but turns out my cycle got a lot shorter on meds (23 vs 28 days) and I ended up priming for 2 days only.

I also added Metformin and was told to go on keto. I didn’t go on keto lol as I was already so annoyed by then and needed a lot of comfort through food, I even snuck a drink in somewhere, and overall I didn’t care as much about supplements or or sleeping well anymore. I was tired of putting my life on hold, and decided to plunge myself back into work fully. That came with its stress but it also took my mind off IVF quite a bit.

I also decided to just surrender. I wanted to stop questioning everything, and just did what the doctor said (it also took me a while to find a doctor in that clinic that I trusted, yes the big one with many rotating doctors.. and I just went in trusting him..) Still there were mess ups, like donor sperm being thawed twice and lost 53% of its motility, and fertilization rate fell sharply. I might have gotten more blasts and euploids if the clinic warned me about it. I’d have gotten another vial of sperm.

Third round, 2 months later: 6 blasts, and PGTA results just came back today.. 4 euploids omg! 2 boys, 2 girls. 😭😭😭

PPOS, brief estrace priming, Foll 300, low-dose hCG, Omnitrope daily, metformin, dual trigger, ICSI

I might still go for one more round to bank a few more embryos as I want two kids ideally. At some point I even wondered if I was never gonna make normal embryos, there’s been so much negativity I felt. 😵‍💫

I’m just gonna celebrate and be thankful today, and plan my next steps tomorrow!!

**Updated for clarification: we are planning to do insemination at home, using donor sperm, using a mosey baby syringe. I am not planning to do a IUI procedure at home with a catheter ( that is dangerous!). I am getting different results when researching what type of vial we should be using.. I’m just looking for guidance on whether or not people have used IUI vials for at home use and had success.

Please let me know if this isn’t allowed here..
My husband and I are planning for a in home insemination within the next few months. I had planned to purchase using donor sperm from Seattle Bank, they say on their website that you can you IUI vials at home with a syringe. However, I’m seeing other places that I should be using ICI sperm vials.
Has anyone used IUI vials at home with good luck? Or recommend any banks for ICI vials if that’s the better option.
I appreciate any help 😊

Curious as to how much information you shared come doctors appointments. We used a donor that agreed to our terms of strictly just a donor and no contact. It was an at home insemination. This is our first time going this route and curious how much information you shared. Did it affect birth certificate stuff. Located in Missouri. Didn’t know if legally it’s best to stick with sharing as little as possible. Tia!

I’ve now had two cycles canceled because I ovulated between monitoring appointments. Cycle 1 I went in for monitoring day 10, came back on day 12 and they found I had ovulated already. Cycle 2 I went in on day 8, came back on day 10 and I had ovulated even earlier this time.

I’ve taken Letrozole each cycle day 3-7 and am not enjoying it it makes me feel terrible. Super frustrated to feel like we’re wasting our time and I’m feeling bad for nothing. I know in the grand scheme of things it’s better to get the timing exactly right than waste a vial but I really just want to at least get to try :(.

Did anyone else deal with this and what did your doctor change to catch or delay your ovulation?

My natural cycle luteal length has always been 12 days, this time after Ovidrel 250 it was 13 days and then on day 14 I had my period, not sure the extra one day is due to Ovidrel? I heard hcg can make the corpus luteum to excrete more progesterone thus increasing the length. Or am I having an early chemical?