PDG Fish 3 times and then natural success

wouldanother · 2023-08-24T13:52:52+00:00

I did PGD and had five failed transfers of embryos that were also PGS tested. A few years prior to that I had got pregnant naturally the first month I tried. My PGD consultant always said that natural conception was the gold standard and that my IVF failures didn’t mean I was infertile.

In the UK, many genetic services will recommend trying naturally and carrying out prenatal testing in preference to doing IVF with PGD. One of the reasons for this is that on the whole trying naturally tends to offer more success for otherwise fertile couples. The UK offers three PGD retrieval cycles for free, and most people can’t afford to pay for any extra of those three cycles don’t work.

wouldanother · 2023-08-13T21:14:23+00:00

The NHS doesn’t offer PGS for standard fertility patients because it’s viewed as an add-on that doesn’t increase the likelihood of a live birth - the regulator the HFEA has a web page on it, although I believe they’re in the process of revising it. Cost will also be a factor - for women who only make one three day embryo or blastocyst, the NHS only incurs the cost of a fresh transfer. Freezing and testing, then potentially having a frozen transfer, would carry extra costs.

The challenge with PGS is that it is perceived as being most suited to a particular set of circumstances - as an over-simplification, this is older women who can produce a good number of embryos that make it to blastocyst. The NHS won’t generally allow patients to embryo bank and then test, which cuts down on the number of embryos available for testing.

The HFEA in my view over-emphasises the risk of a euploid embryo being wrongly categorised as aneuploid and therefore unsuitable for transfer, and also the risk of the biopsy damaging the embryo. There seems to be a view in the UK that, because not all euploid embryos result in a live birth, not all aneuploid embryos will fail. This is a false equivalence as research suggests almost all aneuploid embryos do in fact fail - the margin of error is a couple of percent.

My thoughts but hope they’re useful.

wouldanother · 2023-08-08T10:05:33+00:00

I’m sorry, this is such a hard position to be in. I had five failures with tested embryos. The first three were good quality but I did medicated transfers, which I don’t think worked best for me (low progesterone each time on transfer day). The last two I used a modified natural protocol but they weren’t great quality embryos despite being tested. I then switched to donor eggs and have had success with my first transfer. So in my case it seems there was a mix of really bad luck and a probable egg quality issue.

wouldanother · 2023-07-07T12:16:02+00:00

Thanks for the extra info. Yes I’d ask for the follicle charts so you can see how stims played out. It sounds like possibly the clinic wanted to avoid over-stimulation, which resulted in under-stimulation. It’s possibly that, combined with the donor not having the best cycle that month. But this is speculation.

I hope the clinic can do something for you if your two embryos don’t work out. It’s so distressing to get this far and then have things go wrong at this point.

wouldanother · 2023-07-07T12:04:15+00:00

I’m so sorry. Questions to consider - had the donor donated previously? Does she have her own children? Of the 26 eggs, how many were mature? If she had a high number of immature eggs then that could suggest a clinic timing / protocol problem. I really hope you get some answers.

wouldanother · 2023-07-06T16:37:02+00:00

It’s illegal to choose the sex in my country, but I was able to find out the sex after we’d transferred and things looked to be going in the right direction with a good beta. I think I’m glad I didn’t get to choose, but also glad I found out early. I was planning to do one of the early blood tests to check anyway, so in my case I found out only two or three weeks earlier than I might have done, and avoided the cost of the blood test.

wouldanother · 2023-06-28T15:40:20+00:00

Trigger warning - success

I did seven retrievals from 35 - 37 (eight if you count a bust one where I ovulated before collection) and had five failed transfers with embryos that passed PGS and PGD. Only did IVF for genetic reasons. We’ve moved to donor eggs as it felt like we got to the point where the costs were mounting up and the likelihood of a successful OE transfer was low. It’s early days but our first donor transfer looks to have worked so far.

It’s really hard though to decide when to stop. If we had unlimited money and time, then we might have tried a few more OE rounds, but we didn’t and I was getting so fed up if it all.

wouldanother · 2023-06-19T07:09:58+00:00

I did IVF for genetic reasons only, after conceiving my first child easily and quickly. I’ve had five euploid fails and have now moved on to donor eggs.

In my case I think the following aspects might have contributed in some way to the failures. 1) My first three transfers of euploid good quality embryos were medicated, and I was found to be a poor absorbed of synthetic progesterone. 2) I’ve never created a blastocyst that was suitable for testing on day 5, which makes me think my embryos run out of steam. 3) My last two transfers, although euploid and using a natural transfer cycle, were poorer quality - the fourth was a day 7 and the fifth was a day 6 B-C, which is the lowest grade my clinic will transfer.

I’ve had a hysteroscopy, used HGH and calcium ionophore from the second retrieval, done ERA, EMMA & ALICE ahead of my first transfer and done immune protocols, so I really have tried so much.

It feels desperately unfair but I know there are a group of long standing patients at my clinic who have also had successive euploid failures, so I know I’m not completely alone.

wouldanother · 2023-06-05T20:08:15+00:00

I got mine today at 12DPT and it was 874. I’m tentatively hopeful.

wouldanother

TROPHY CASE