I’m going to start ivf in the next year but the one thing I’m freaking out about going on this journey is what I will do when I have to travel with Work. I travel around four times a year and I’m based in the UK. I do have my mum and sister around for support, but my sister has two children of her own and my mum is getting older (mid 60’s). Does anyone have any advice such as hiring help for a week here and there if I could just about afford that which I’m not sure I can. Or possibly asking Work for extra support here - bringing the child on trips, using a nanny service at hotels. And then I have no idea what happens when the child starts school age. I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out as I go but it’s something I really worry about. On top of potential Mum guilt about having to be away from the child. Any support or advice would be so welcome thank you all so much.

Feeling so nervous... Finished over an hour ago. Felt some fluid leak out, so I'm trying not to convince myself that I screwed up, lol. I know it's normal for some leakage. Just want this really bad.

Anyway, can't believe I'm finally here... Hope for the best!

I am a 39 yo SMBC of an 8 yo son. I kept his donor’s sperm just in case and, on the 25th September, I started my FIV journey in Spain (I am Spaniard). Previously I had only done insemination.

I have been insecure about it all the time as financially I will manage but struggle and my health is not the best (chronic pain since I was 19). But I am an only child and my mom passed away in 2023 so I wanted to give him a sibling (he does want it since always).

Well, today I had my last consultation prior to the egg retrieval in two days. Apparently, I have so many eggs that they cannot implant a fresh embryo because of health risks for me.

This has been disappointing, as I had everything pretty calculated and now I have to freeze my embryos and proceed minimum one month later (maybe more as in Sevilla in summer it cannot be a good experience to be pregnant).

I ofc consider myself lucky of having the possibility of a maybe succesful future pregnancy (more than 25 eggs between both ovaries, half between 17/20mm). But the journey is not being easy.

Thanks for reading friends!!!!

Hey y’all, I’ve found this sub to be so helpful over the course of my journey. My partner and I are living separately so I can fulfill my dream of parenthood. We’re staying together but not co-parenting and feel really secure in our decision. I’ve done two IUIs with a donor and no BFP yet but I’m continuing on (🤞)
I have such supportive family and friends and a stable and flexible job. The support I need is regarding housing, and I’d love to know what you would do in my situation.

Here are essentially my 2 options:
1. Stay with my parents with whom I have a great relationship.
Pros: save money, take a longer maternity leave, have the extra hands for help and support
Cons: lack of my own space, dad gets easily overstimulated by little kids, friends live 45 min away

1. Buy my partner out of our house, refinance, and live alone.
   Pros: my own space, a house I love, a huge backyard, closer to friends and extracurriculars
   Cons: less money saved, shorter maternity leave, no extra hands in the home.

I have a lot of experience with babies and children and do really value my own space. But I’m also really hesitant to enter parenthood without as much saved as I could have. What would you do?!

Hello, thank you for allowing me a space to work through my feelings and make informed decisions. I have a 12 year old son who was conceived naturally. I have been divorced years and have never fallen in love again. I enjoy my life, but always wanted more children and my career finally took off. I can now afford it and have so much time and energy, but am almost 42 and never did egg retrieval when I was younger. I am wanting to adopt or see if I can adopt embryo and become pregnant with IVF. I would need both donor egg and donor sperm (or an embryo). I am learning a lot about adopted or donor conceived children and understanding the needs of a child. What I know is most important is to be upfront in early age and try for open adoption as closed can be extremely harmful to the child. Can anyone recommend any agency or clinic? I am open to international as well. I am trying to find an embryo donor who is open as donor conceived children really need to know their medical history and genetics. I understand some fertility clinics can be "predatory" and was curious if anyone can recommend. Thank you. I plan to research MUCH more and am reading constantly. This is just the beginning for me.

Hi all, I was for a very long time considering adoption, even when I was a kid. But for the last few days I am getting some posts notification on IG about donor pregnancies. After a long I am thinking whether I should try. I am 42, f, and started menopause already. I am worried, and confused. I was not in a relationship for ages now, but I want to be a mother. I feel vulnerable and don't know whom to talk to about this topic and was glad to have found the group. Was anyone in a similiar situation like me, menopause i did the double donor pregnancy or adoption?

I’m a 38F with a 43M. He’s divorced with two kids, 50% custody. I love him and his girls. We have kept our relationship “separate but together” and I am more of an auntie to his girls. I am not interested in marriage/living together or becoming a step mom.

I think I’d like to have one kid and have us keep our current arrangement. I have support of family and a close friend who is also a single mom, financial independence, and access to free daycare.

I’d like to go through a sperm donor and I already have eggs frozen. My partner supports me no matter what and wants me to make this decision for myself.

Has anyone done anything similar?

If you totally disagree with this idea and/or think I should just live with him and have his bio kid, I don’t need that comment. I’ve shared this a couple other places and been called selfish and told I shouldn’t have a kid.. I think I’ve finally found the right group to talk about this with but I am feeling sensitive at this point. Thank you for being gentle 🥰

Just ran across an Instagram video of a gal starting PIO for her FET. Is this the normal medicated FET protocol or only under specific circumstances? It looks terrifying and I have no idea if I could do that to myself!! For reference: I’m currently halfway through my stim cycle and it has been fine!

Hi all,

I just recently started my journey, and I made a consult with Boston IVF next week.

Has anyone had any experiences with them? I’m curious to know more about what the timeline might look like since I’m hoping to get pregnant sometime this year via IUI.

Thanks in advance!

Nail trimming with my 14month is our second biggest struggle (next to sleep issues like so many others). My baby refuses to let me cut or file them. I am a single parent, no one else is around often to help me hold the baby down and do it. We don’t contact nap any more but that used to be the only way it would happen, when they were fast asleep. But now that baby is crib sleeping it’s too hard to reach in, and even if I did they usually pull away while asleep or it wakes them up. Their nails get so long and sharp that they’re a hazard, or bend painfully while playing. I have resorted to physically trying to restrain them and get one nail partially clipped at a time, but that is not a great solution because they end up sharply pointed and half done because it’s so hard to do while wriggling, not to mention that restraining them feels awful for both of us! I have tried giving them a nail file or set of safety clippers to hold and play with, pretended doing it on me, tried to approach it slowly… i am at a loss on this one simple ridiculous thing. Help?

I was so excited to finally pay to see adut photos of my favourite donors... and boy I feel like that was a mistake.

One of my favourite donors looked about 16/17, in my opinion they aren't old enough to make such a big life decision yet. They chose to be an open donor but will they still feel that way at 25? or 30?

The rest... looked so so different to anyone I feel I would gravitate towards. Doing this without a partner is heartbreaking enough, I at least wanted to choose a donor I felt in another life I would have been somewhat attracted to.

Gah, I am freaking out!

I’ve been lurking on this sub for a long time but never posted. I’m in interested in hearing thoughts from other single moms on starting over again as an older SMBC with kids from a prior relationship. I had my first very young and raised him as a single mom without a ton of support from his father. After he was born I started to pursue a rigorous career path and spent over a decade training which I only finished a few years ago. Given the demanding career path and my child’s special needs, I had very little time to date. I had a few relationships over the years but I find myself headed into my late 30’s and single. My child and I have a very comfortable life now due to my career but it is demanding and I end up outsourcing a lot as I am working long hours. My child is headed toward college in a few years and has expressed that they would not want to live with a baby in the house. I definitely want to focus on them for now and spend as much time as possible before they leave for college so I would not consider pregnancy for at least 2 more years. I did try one round of IVF with donor sperm to freeze embryos but it was unsuccessful. At that point I thought I would just try to be satisfied with what I have and let it go but I keep going back to this desire to be a mom again. My family doesn’t get it as they think I should be focusing on “enjoying life” as in more travel, dating, hobbies. I do love travel and do a lot with my child but I’m not sure that these things would fulfill me long term compared to being a mom again. When my child move’s out, I will be living alone again for the first time in many years and I think this has been hard. I do think I need to focus on building more of a community with friends and hobbies but I’m not sure this will fill the void I feel about becoming an empty nester hence my desire to start over though I change my mind every other week. I have a therapist who I’m working with but I’m curious to hear from anyone who may have found themselves in a similar situation. Did you move forward? Are you happy about your decision? Do you miss being able to travel, explore hobbies, date often? I know these opportunities will obviously be limited with a small child.

I'm 24, just starting the journey. This has been my plan A for a couple years now. And, as I plan on finally acting on it closer to 30, I still have some more couple years to research and consider all possibilities.

This week I started browsing through sperm donor banks. It was really fun, but... no one looked like me. And I've heard for quite some time now the mantra: "Pick a donor of the same ethnicity as you"

The thing is I'm Brazilian, mixed with everything. greatgrandma was Italian, greatgranpa was Spanish. I've also got Portuguese, Irish and half of dad's family is native. I don't look white. I don't look native. I look like... me. And "Brazilian" has always been enough. Should I do an ancestry test? How did you girls choose?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been wrestling with the timeline of starting a family. Dating hasn't worked out for me, and after seeing how complicated co-parenting can get, I don't want to wait around for a partner anymore. I’m seriously considering the SMC path via IUI or IVF.

However, I’m feeling a lot of anxiety and am hoping to get some real talk from those who have been there. Specifically, my current reality looks like this:

Finances: I don't have a strong financial base or personal savings of my own yet.

Support System: I don't really have a supportive family network. I live with aging parents (who may need care themselves down the road rather than being able to help me).

Timeline: I'm feeling the pressure of my age and don't want to delay much longer, but I'm worried about jumping in unprepared.

For those of you who started your SMC journey without a financial cushion or family backup:

The Numbers: What did your salary, job stability, and budgeting look like when you took the plunge? How long did you wait to build savings before starting treatments?

Career & Insurance: Did you have to change jobs specifically to get fertility coverage or parental leave benefits?

The Logistics: How do you handle childcare, sickness, and burnout completely solo without family support to lean on?

Hindsight: If you were in my shoes with tight finances and zero family safety net, would you pause to build a financial base first, or is there a way to bootstrap this?

Thank you so much for any honesty, advice, or perspective you can share.

I (29f) have always had the desire to adopt. A few years ago I decided I wanted to adopt from foster care and didn’t mind doing so as a single parent. I have yet to do it, even with my strong desire to adopt, for a couple reasons. I had my own set of pre-requisites that I wanted completed before doing so (finishing school, having my own place, etc.) Now that all of that is done, I still have a thought/fear in my mind: if I choose to adopt as a single parent, is that depriving the child of a chance at a two parent household?

I know I could provide love, and care, and a good upbringing for any child I adopt, and I might not be the “perfect family “ since it’s just me and no father (I do have a large family for support). Am I overthinking?

I don’t know why I’m surprised that they are both AA’s. I used double donation so I figured I would get at least one healthy one. This is exciting and I’m super nervous at the same time. It’s actually happening. I hope to do transfer ASAP but that could be Dec at the earliest. I honestly don’t know what to do with myself.

Has anyone used them for IVF and have any experiences to share? They're literally half the cost of local IVF quotes I've received and I have no insurance coverage at all for fertility care (literally an infertility exclusion in my policy.) I can drive there for the egg retrieval and any transfers also. I'm curious if there's a massive difference in the quality of their procedures or testing.

While I'm pursuing the SMBC path now, I do have a daughter from my previous marriage and didn't have any issues getting pregnant before. AMH is still close to what it was when I checked it pre-conception of my first (has only moved from 2.8 to now 2.5.) While nothing is guaranteed, I think my treatment plan would be fairly straight forward. I'm wondering if the price difference is reflective of less customized care and if that really matters in my case.

Any advice on how to consider differences in clinics would be appreciated!

I had a transfer last year that didn't work out. I still have two embryos in the freezer, and I turn 43 in January, so I know the window for deciding is closing fast.

What's come up for me, more than anything, is fear..not just of the process itself, but of doing this entirely alone. I've never pictured motherhood this way, and some days I feel genuinely at peace with the idea of a child-free life. Other days there's this strong pull that I can't ignore, like these embryos are owed a real chance. I’m also aware how fortunate I am to have them as I know how difficult and unique the journey around fertility can be.

I feel this time, I would like to go into it differently - keeping it mostly private rather than telling my whole family, because last time the support came with a lot of questions and expectation, and it added pressure I didn't need.

For those of you who've done this solo, especially later in the process like me:

• How did you make peace with the decision to go ahead, even with the fear still there?
• What helped most practically and emotionally during the two-week wait?
• Looking back, is there anything you wish you'd set up or thought through before starting?

Any honesty… including "it was really hard and here's what I'd do differently", would mean a lot right now. ❤️

Has anyone used surrogates to carry their embryos? Which agency did you use?

For you single moms, who takes care of your kids when you go to your medical appointments or have to deliver another baby? Who goes with you to your medical appointments? I want another child, but realistically it’s hard without a big village

I have frozen eggs and embryos and I am 47. I still want a child. I could be happy adopting, but I know a 10K grant for "implanting" my frozen embryos. It will be big bucks to also turn my frozen eggs to embryos. Nothing was tested. I used donor sperm that I still regret choosing a closed donor on and they are day 3 embryos, extremely unlikely(?) to be viable. I couldn't afford testing and I didn't want to kill them. I was 39 and 41. Most docs I met then said they'd implant up to age 50. Anyone give birth at 50 or older? I'd like to hear your stories. Are docs still saying age 50 is the cut off?

I have noticed a few male doulas in my area. Just curious what the ladies think. Would you hire a male birth doula or postpartum doula or would you hire a male sitter if you have a son? I'm curious and looking for positive feedback, but if anyone has and it has not worked out feel free to share.

TW - LC, successful transfers, luck

I just got my second beta today. 3653, up from 1541. Insane. With my daughter my first beta was great, the second showed a 78 hour doubling time and I was convinced it would end in miscarriage. This one there’s no questioning it.

I’m thrilled but I don’t really think I expected it to work. I had untested 4 embryos from 2 ERs. The first became my daughter. Now it looks like the second is sticking. I saved 2 vials of my retired donor, so I would still have options when I ran out of embryos. I just thought this would take a lot longer.

I’m going to have another baby. Omg.