IVF Cycle Three: A Medicated Approach

I had been sitting on the fence about whether to attempt another cycle before 2025 came to an end. Part of me thought, let’s just wait until the New Year and revisit it then. I had just started a contract role in September that might extend after Christmas, and maybe it made sense to focus on settling into that first. But another thought kept returning — could I really afford to delay?

IVF really does create holding patterns. There’s a lot of time to think, rethink, and run through every possible what-if.

In the end, I decided to move forward with another IVF cycle before the year was out. As mentioned in a previous post, this time the plan was a medicated cycle. Rather than relying on natural ovulation, hormone medication — estrogen and progesterone — would be used to prepare the uterine lining and carefully control the timing of the embryo transfer.

I chose this approach because when I attempted another cycle after my previous miscarriage, my hormone levels weren’t where they needed to be for a transfer to go ahead. This time, I wanted to reduce the chances of another cycle not going ahead, removing as many potential obstacles as possible.

The medication itself was fairly straightforward: three progesterone pessaries each day alongside estrogen tablets, with regular blood tests to monitor how everything was progressing.

On 8 December 2025, I had my third embryo transfer. I went to the appointment on my own, feeling a mix of hope and quiet nerves. Like the previous transfers, it was over quickly. One minute I was lying down, and the next it was done. Walking out after the embryo transfer, I remember thinking, here we go again, as another two-week wait began.

The wait felt familiar. Every twinge made me wonder if it might be a positive sign. Some days I felt hopeful; other days not as much. I tried to keep myself busy, spending time working on the IVF journal I had been developing, but distraction only works to a point. By the end of the two weeks, I was more than ready to know the outcome.

On Monday, 22 December 2025, I received the news: I was pregnant. It felt like an incredible way to end the year. I knew it was still early, and I had been here before, but I allowed myself to feel happy.

Because this was a medicated IVF cycle, the medication continued afterwards, along with weekly blood tests. After a while, I started to feel like a human pincushion, but it was simply part of the process. I became a regular at my local pathology clinic, and the staff there were always kind and reassuring. They made the experience as pleasant as possible.

As Christmas and New Year passed, my internal protective shield stayed firmly in place. During my previous pregnancy, I miscarried just shy of twelve weeks, and as I moved closer to that same point again, I found myself waiting for something to go wrong. When my seven-week scan arrived, I felt cautiously hopeful. Seeing the baby on the screen was incredible — and deeply reassuring.

There is still a long road ahead, but I feel fortunate to be walking this path again.