On bonus episode 4, we are discussing 10 ways to prepare for a transfer. I created this list based off of research, my experience of two transfers and ways that guests have shared from their stories. If you are like me, you are searching the internet on how to make this transfer successful. You might feel like the more you do, the higher the chances are of it being successful. I suggest doing what feels good to you from this list. Because you can do all of them and it work, and you can do none of them and it work.
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT medical advice. I am not a doctor, so talk with your doctor about doing any of things.
If this is your first time here, I’m Jamie Massey and the host of the podcast. It took us 3 years, 5 pregnancies, failed IVF, and a failed embryo transfer to have our first baby using donor eggs at 43 years old. You can go here to learn more about my story.
Resources:
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20 Journal Prompts during TTC: https://over40fabulousandpregnant.com/20-journal-prompts-while-ttc/
5 Better Questions to Ask during TTC: https://over40fabulousandpregnant.com/5-questions-to-ask-yourself-while-ttc/
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Bonus Episode 4 Transcript:
Welcome to over 40, fabulous and pregnant. I am your host, Jamie Massey, and you are listening to a bonus episode. If you’re looking for pregnancy stories of women over 40, typically you’ve come to the right place. But today on the show, we are discussing 10 ways to prepare for a transfer. I created this show because I’ve had so many questions on how to prepare.
While we do have many IVF stories, you may not want to listen to all of them to prepare for your transfer. I get that and that’s kind of how I created this show. I created this list of 10 based off of some research, my experience of two transfers in ways that guests have shared from their stories.
I’ve had two transfers. One was in July of 2023, which ended up being a chemical pregnancy, and the other one was in October of 2023, which turned out to be my baby that is sleeping in the other room. How do I want you to take this show? Because if you’re like me, you are searching the internet, how to make this transfer successful, and if you feel like the more you do, the higher the chances are of it being successful.
I did that too. I suggest to take from this list of 10 what you feel good about. Only do the things that you want to do because you can do all of them and it will work, and you can do none of them and it will work. And I hope this list is helpful for you. I did almost all of them. But sometimes it doesn’t matter and I will let you know what I didn’t do.
But please let me know what you think of this show by leaving me a five star review on Apple. And if you don’t wanna leave me a five star review, please let me know why. Before we get into the list, I want to give you a disclaimer that this isn’t medical advice. I am not a doctor, so talk with your doctor about doing any of these things on the list.
I also want to assume a few things on the list before getting in the show. One, I want to assume that you have at least three months to prepare for this transfer. Now, of course. Feel free to do them if you have less time, but I think the more the better. And two, I want to assume you’ve had testing done and you know what minerals you are deficient in, so you are on the correct supplements like vitamin D, et cetera. We won’t be discussing that, nor will we be talking about medications, which I assume you’re already taking. Maybe like progesterone or estrogen as prescribed by your doctor. Ugh.
Enough of that, and instead of doing listener feedback, today we are shouting out to the ladies that have transfers coming up. We have Carla. Sharon, Allison, Jessica Ook, and Ruth, and what is super fun is that two of these ladies are over 50. I love it. Amazing. Ladies, baby us to you and everyone else preparing for a transfer. Please keep me updated. I love hearing about them.
I also wanted this to go out yesterday, but. I’ve recorded the show a few times and the audio was missing in a few places. So here we are again. I hope I will get this out today. And with that, let’s get into how to prepare for a transfer.
Number one, make sure you are healed from previous disappointments. Now I can probably guess that this transfer is not your first procedure. It’s not your first stop along the way of your IVF journey. So please take this time and heal from our journeys because I know it is a tough one. And we go from just procedure to procedure, just trying to get through this journey to where we wanna be. And I think if any point during your journey that you step back and you really think and process these emotions of this journey that bring us from the ups and downs, I think this is a damn good time to do it. ‘Cause we’ve been through this stuff. So let’s process our journey. What we’ve been through before we go into this transfer.
Number two, let’s call it something else other than a transfer. Like what? Like that sounds ridiculous, but when you say, I have a transfer. It sounds so heavy, and we put so much pressure on ourselves. Just that word alone could be stressful. So what else could we call it other than a transfer?
I called it whenever I was going through my transfers, I called it a procedure. And for one, it’s way easy to like. Talk about it with your work that you’re just having a procedure. I’m just having a procedure. I mean, you could be having lip injections, if you’re calling it a procedure, and I think just the weight of that is so much lighter than calling it a transfer. It’s so much of a big deal when we say it’s a transfer, so consider calling it something else. And that’s number two.
Number three. This is what I was saying. This could be medical advice, but do additional testing like the Alice and Oma test. This is testing for inflammation and lacto basc. It’s a bacteria, a good bacteria in your uterus. I think, this is more of a peace of mind than anything else because after I did my first transfer and it failed, I felt like I needed to do something before going into the next transfer, and this is what I did. Was number two successful because I did the testing, probably not. And that’s why I kind of say do this test for peace of mind because my inflammation was fine, but my bacteria was low. Like it wasn’t super low. It was like borderline okay. So all my doctor suggested that I do is take probiotics. So could you bypass this all the testing and do. Probiotics, maybe that might be an option for you.
Number four, journal. I know I say this quite often, but if you only did one thing on this list, I think this is the best one. And I suggest writing down 10 thoughts that help you believe this transfer will work, and make sure these 10 thoughts, they are thoughts that you actually believe. I actually don’t believe in affirmations because affirmations are thoughts you may or may not believe, and they’re someone else’s thoughts. Think thoughts that you already believe or that you can almost believe and put those where you can see them all the time and just think them over and over again. Another thing I like to suggest doing the journal prompts. I have 20 journal prompts. Oh yeah. I did 20 journal prompts while trying to conceive, and this is so, so powerful. Answering these questions I just think will not only get your mind off of the transfer and just start thinking bigger picture. Not just laser focused on this one procedure because the goal of is the baby, right? One of one of the examples is a letter to a letter. To your future self as a mother, tell her what your struggles were like. Talk about how stronger you are for them. What things did you overcome in your journey to motherhood? Another one, which I did myself several times, is a letter as you are already a mother talking to yourself, going into this transfer that will blow your mind. So write a letter as if you’re sitting in the nursery and you’re rocking your baby because she’s fussy and you wanna describe what’s going on and what does the nursery look like. And what things are happening around you and tell yourself what it’s like to be a mother and tell yourself it’s worth it and it’s going to be an amazing time to stay strong and to do this transfer. It’s oh, so amazing.
Another one is write a letter to your baby. This one seemed too heavy for me, and I think that can happen if it’s too heavy. Whoa, cautious. Another one is, why do you want to become a mother? And I think this is, this is a good question. If you’re not into writing things down and journaling like this could be a good one to write down in the shower or on the car ride somewhere. 10 reasons why you wanna be a mother. Another one, which I think is super powerful, is how do you wanna think, feel an act if you don’t get pregnant with this transfer, but also give as much time to, how do you want to thank, feel an act if you are pregnant with this transfer. Doing those two things almost give you a blueprint into what to do after you get the results. And I did this after I did my second transfer and like everything fell into place and I just remembered how I wanna think, feel, and act when I wanted to get pregnant. And it was just like, here’s this blueprint. It made things also just easier of course. There’s more celebration to being pregnant, but also if you’re not pregnant, if you don’t get pregnant with this transfer, it’s another blueprint of how you wanted to think, feel, and act, and it’s super powerful.
It’s really good. Another one will say is, and this will be the last one, is list 25 things you want and 15 of those things should be things you already have. Also, like super powerful to want things that you already have. I wanted a husband, I wanted a dog, I wanted land, I wanted chickens. All these things, whenever you want. It’s, it’s so different wanting something that you already have and it feels so different. So give that one a try also.
I’ll leave a link to all these journal prompts. I’ll leave it in the resources and the show notes. So that one is number four, journaling Thinking. Having 10 thoughts that help you believe this will work. All of all of that, I’ve kind of lumped into number four.
So number five is holistic therapies, and this is another one that I wanted to lump all in one, because having these. Out. Seems silly to me. So holistic therapies like acupuncture, yoga, massage, meditation, do all those really as much as you can, like once a week if you’re months out. I think once a week is a good way to just get into some habits. But if you can do these daily, like the more the better with these.
I hear some people that acupuncture is not for them, but acupuncture is for me. I go into an acupuncture session, super tense, super like in a hurry, and I leave, like my body is just, it’s heavier.
One good story that I had from the guy that that I went to. He said that this woman, she was in her forties and she said she couldn’t get pregnant and he kinda warned her a few times, like, I urge you to get on birth control, just in case. And she says, I have PCOS, I have endo like here are all the reasons I can’t get pregnant. And he says, okay…
someone is, is waking up.
Okay. So sure enough, she ended up pregnant. She was also in her forties, which is super fun. So acupuncture, I am a super fan of acupuncture. And then. Go as much as you can. Go once a week to going before the transfer. The day of the transfer, the closer it gets, the more I think you should do these.
Number six, we are kind of still talking about some mindsets. So let’s get into the mindset of already being pregnant. And so maybe we can cut out some habits that we may or may not be doing whenever we get pregnant. So like, cut out alcohol, which it seems obvious, right? I stopped drinking alcohol like four or five years ago and like I never looked back.
Caffeine. That was one that was important to me to cut out like my doctor did not care whether I cut out caffeine or not. This was something that was important to me and I cut out caffeine like six months before I did my transfer, and that’s just because I got addicted to one cup of caffeine. One cup of coffee and I was like hooked if I didn’t have that one cup every day. And that was just something that I didn’t want to take into pregnancy. I know some doctors, I’ve heard of them limiting the amount of caffeine. Not having fast food, you know, what habits, bad habits, we could say, could we change?
So number seven, also on the mindset. How are we going to kind of, what are we gonna do? If we are pregnant, how are we gonna act differently? You know, diet and exercise. Here’s two of them. I have been experimenting with diets for a very long time because I have hemorrhoids. I blamed it on my diet.
I had been vegan for a year. I was vegetarian for a year. I have been carnivore. And I really just listened to my body. What gave me more energy? Was I less hungry? I just listened to my body to figure out what diet is best for me. I. And really the carnivore diet I feel best on. It’s just as hard as any other diet, but that’s really, I found is the best diet for me. So experiment what works for you.
And exercise. It might be an obvious one, but also thinking of the bigger picture, how do you wanna go into birth? For me, I think I went into birth not being very strong and I look back and I, I kind of hated that about it. I didn’t lift weights, which I wish I did. I wish I just worked out more during pregnancy. Working out and exercising before pregnancy makes it much easier to do whenever you go into it.
So more obvious things are sleep and water, like getting sleep is, it’s important to our mind also, but. Even when you’re in your third trimester, it’s really hard to get sleep at that time. So try to get as much sleep as you can, whatever is the right amount for you.
And then water is also an obvious one. And I think sometimes we just need these little reminders of, don’t forget these little simple things we can do, and we’re going to need a lot of water whenever we’re pregnant. We’re gonna need even more water whenever we’re breastfeeding. Like, oh my gosh. I was like, oh. Drinking water 24 7 whenever I was breastfeeding. So these are also just good habits to get into before getting pregnant and during pregnancy. So that’s number seven.
Number eight, who? It doesn’t love being told to relax, so I’m not saying relax . In this one I’m saying de-stress daily. What things help you de-stress? What things work for you? Is it walking? Is it reading? Is it gardening? Is it putting on a face mask? Is it taking a bubble bath? Is it brunch with girlfriends? Are movies more distressing to you? Get those good hormones going. What are they? And then try and do them daily.
And I think the biggest thing to this one is schedule them, schedule the brunches with the girlfriends, the date nights, even walking like you’ve seen on Instagram that I am walking every single morning in between like a certain time period and it’s just so good to get that in.
And number nine, I want to give you permission to do nothing. That’s right. One thing I am recommending before your transfer is to do nothing because I think as women we have this mindset and we think if the more I do, the more this transfer will be successful and that may not be true. We could do all of these and it could work, and we could do none of these tips and you could be pregnant. So just give yourself permission to do nothing.
And number 10, do all of the traditions. And to me. This is more of a fun one to have fun with and not be superstitious about. McDonald’s fries, I refuse to do the, to do this. I actually did really none of these of IVF traditions and no, you don’t have to do these traditions to me these are fun. The McDonald’s fries, like, no and no for me. But how many women do go to McDonald’s after their transfer and get the fries? So do it. If that feels good to you. Eating pineapple core, I. Do it.
Lucky socks. Now, if, if I were to do one of these traditions, I would’ve done the socks, like these are the IVF socks that on the, on the foot of, on the bottom of the foot, it says, good luck. And as a pineapple usually, and Happy Transfer Day. I think that’s super fun. I was gonna do this, but then I thought about it too late, and then I ended up not doing it at all. So super fun one. And another one is like, drink lots of water before your transfer, which I think water is like a cure of everything. If I ever feel bad or any ailments in my body, I’m like, I’m just gonna drink water. So that one will never hurt.
And then, so those are the 10 things you can do to prepare for a transfer. Now along with that, I’ve kind of broken it down what you can do the day and night before the transfer. And then I also have another one of things to do the day of the transfer. And a lot of these are just like, Hey, reminders, don’t forget because y’all, when I am going through something hard and emotional like this, my brain like totally turns off and I forget everything.
So a lot of these are just like total reminder and the day before the transfer, let’s do as much holistic therapies as you can do. Go to the acupuncture appointment, do your meditations, practice your thoughts, do those the night before and do them as much as possible. Also do what de-stresses you. This is a great time for a date night. It’s a good time to talk with your girlfriends and have all the laughs and not talk about this transfer at all.
Don’t talk about it because it just becomes so heavy and then your mind just starts going and it’s like, no, no, no. We’re here for a fun night and day before. Also, eat a really good healthy meal, drink lots of water.
Another obvious one, get a good night’s sleep. Also obvious. Can you sleep before the night before a transfer? Maybe? Hopefully. I actually slept pretty good. The night before my transfer, so it is possible.
And then as number 12, I have what to do the day of the transfer and do your holistic therapies. I went straight for my acupuncture appointment straight to the fertility clinic. As I wanted those appointments to be as close together as possible. Like you have to work backwards and think about how long it’s gonna take you to get to the fertility clinic without being in a hurry. But other than that, did those appointments back to back? Practice all your thoughts. Do your journals reread what you’ve already done? It should be almost automatic. These are the things I’m thinking of at that point. This is what I believe will make me have a successful transfer.
And another thing is wear loose fitting clothing. Like, Hey, let’s be comfortable going to this transfer. Let’s wear the cute, comfortable clothes going into this transfer.
And another thing the doctor will probably recommend is to go with a full bladder. I’m sure if y’all already know this. My doctor told me that whenever your bladder is full, it moves the uterus a little bit so they can get the embryo in the correct spot.
And then. Number four is do not wear perfumes in deodorants. Please don’t get hung up on this one. My doctor did not recommend this. This is a recommendation coming from a guest on the show, and I wanna say Sam is the one. Her doctor told her in Australia not to do this, and I haven’t heard from any other doctor, I’ve just heard one do this. So it’s really like a suggestion. And I think that’s just because we have so many perfumes and artificial stuff in a lot of our products.
Also be early to your appointment. Like I know it’s obvious and I think we could be like hours early to our appointment if they allowed us. But don’t forget about traffic and just being there early so you’re not rushed and you can drive slow and you don’t have to be in a hurry. More so I think I’m talking to myself because I’m always in a hurry to do everything, so I’m projecting that onto you.
The last one for the transfer is have a date after the transfer. I know some doctors are like, you can go back to work just fine but I took that day off. I had a date with my husband and we just ran errands and went out to eat and watched movies. It was a really nice day.
Number 13 is bring your questions to the transfer, like. When are they gonna recommend that you can have sex again? Exercise. Are they gonna recommend exercise after the transfer? My doctor said to not do any exercise until my beta. I know I’m stuck on Sam’s episode, but I think her doctor. I don’t know if her doctor recommended exercise, but she worked out during her two week weight and she got pregnant. I relaxed and didn’t do any exercise and mine worked, so I wouldn’t get stuck on this one either. ‘Cause it could work either way. And also make sure you have all of your beta appointments. Before you leave that building, you should have times and know exactly what days you’re going for your, your beta testing and ask if it’s okay to go back to work. Like I mentioned, my doctor was like, yeah, go back to work. And I was like, no, this is a great excuse if you have the time to have a nice day and de-stress the rest of the day.
And also, what me do you need to continue? What medication do you need to continue? How much for how long? And I think having all that set before you leave and having your little mental checklist of what you need before you leave there, it’s gonna be a lot of peace of mind.
So I hope these are 10 tips plus a little extra. I hope they are helpful to you. Remember number nine is you can still do nothing and everything work out just fine, and I wish you all the baby dust. Please let me know how your transfer goes.
Happy transfer day.
And thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week and I will see you on the next one.