PGS testing all abnormal, what happens next?

[AmyK18]

Hi, we are in our second cycle of stimulation, haven’t attempted any transfers yet.
We got 19 eggs in our last cycles, 11 mature enough to use, 8 fertilised but only 2 made it to blacosyst stage and have now been frozen.
I had 3 early miscarriages before we started this process so my dr had suggested that we do pgs testing on any embryos we get this time around.
First of all I am worried about the damage this will do to the eggs, we don’t have many to play around with.
Secondly what if they all come back abnormal? Then what happens and what does that mean?
Has anyone been through this?
Thanks

[Hodgewell1]

It’s a difficult decision. I’ve just had pgs on my day 5 embryos before they were frozen. I get the results in one month and if there are any normal embryos we can do a fet. I decided I wanted to do what I could to reduce the chance of getting pregnant and then miscarrying. There is so little control in ivf I wanted to grab any I could find. It’s a very personal decision. If I don’t get any normal embryos then I will be asking my consultant what the next steps are and take it from there. I think you’re in a slightly different position that your embryos are already frozen and so would need to be thawed and the re frozen. If that’s right then I would ask the consultant for information on how this will likely affect the embryos. It might be a small risk or a material one and that will guide your decision. Good luck

[SteamedBadger35]

I don't want to give you more to think about, but I wanted to share my thought process as I was all set to go ahead with it next week but after doing quite a bit of research, I decided against it.

Firstly, mosaicism (where the cells in the embryo are different - some normal, some abnormal), means that cells selected for testing might not be representative of the whole embryo. So you could end up discarding a mostly healthy embryo and keeping a mostly abnormal one. Mosaicism is more common as you get older (surprise surprise!) and at 39 MOST of my embryos - if I'm lucky enough to get any - are likely to have this problem.

Added to that, it is possible that abnormal embryos can self-correct early on in their development. I recently read a story about a woman who implanted an abnormal PGS-tested embryo as it was her last chance after several cycles of IVF, and ended up with a healthy baby (however I accept that's just one story and doesn't mean it's representative - I'll try and dig it out though as it's really interesting).

When I talked to my clinic about my concerns, they did tell me that an 'abnormal' embryo is most likely to just not implant, or result in a very early miscarriage, so the risk of giving birth to an unhealthy baby or having a late miscarriage is low. And that's what sealed it for me really.

Secondary (but not unimportant) considerations were cost, and time! It's 3k at my clinic, and you have to freeze all the embryos to wait for the results to come back so lose a month in the process.

Here's the HFEA's take on PGS:
www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/embryo-testing-and-treatments-for-disease/pre-implantation-genetic-screening-pgs/

[SteamedBadger35]

This is the one:
www.thecut.com/2017/09/ivf-abnormal-embryos-new-last-chance.html?fbclid=IwAR1uFGS9VQ89G6Yl6iBZBWmpf4A3fks8p3PU9twfqCKu5HkKEopLtrRXz2U

[Ajak]

Hi All - i am new to this but hopefully someone can help. We had PGS done and all 8 embryos came back abnormal. The clinics policy is to discard them. I was wondering whether anyone has experienced something similar? And if so, would you go ‘again’? My concern is that if they were all abnormal this time, the same will happen next time (despite the doctor stating that every menstrual cycle is different). 37 old.