PGS testing?

[Steenac7]

Hi all,

Would really appreciate anyone’s help with information on PGS testing and if it’s worth it / it works. Due to a vaginal abnormality I’ve been told there is no way I could have a natural birth so if we do get pregnant (IVF/ICSI for male factor) I am very worried about miscarriage and in particular a late miscarriage as I wouldn’t be able to just have a normal procedure to remove the miscarriage. Im worried I may need surgery instead which then would damage my womb and uterus. My consultant has suggested we do PGS to reducer chance of miscarriage.

Is it worth doing? I have this fear all our embryos will be abnormal... I’ve read stories about how it can lead you to disregard viable embryos also.

Has anyone done it and found that their embryos were ok / it worked / it didn’t lead to miscarriage.

[LillyLeaf]

I'm so glad I did pgs testing, it has saved me from many possible miscarriages. From my first round of IVF I had 2 MCs before pgs testing the remaining 3 embryos, all were abnormal. In my second IVF I tested 6 embryos and only 1 is normal (I'll be transfering next month). Without the pgs I would have transferred all those abnormal embryos which either won't implant or will miscarry. Obviously I haven't transferred this normal yet so it still might miscarry but at least I know it's normal. I hope that helps.

[itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted]

I've just done PGS on my second round of IVF

I did it due to a history of recurrent miscarriages for which all testing came back clear so chromosome testing was our last hope of you like to try and get some answers

I only got 2 on my second round to day 5 blast and of those 1 came back complex Abnormal and the other a low level mosaic. I'm 36. My clinic has agreed to transfer the mosaic probably because they know that I can handle another miscarriage if I needed to.

I had my doubts about doing it. but the cost for me was £950 plus £400 freezing for the first embryo and £700 for each one after that that they test. A transfer would cost more like £2k incl drugs so it was worth it financially to test first rather than not transfer something that had zero chance of success anyway.

The stress of waiting for results was almost as bad as the wait to find out what blastocysts you get to day 5 though. And immediately after they were biopsied I did have a wobble wondering whether I did the right thing. But at least I know going into the transfer what my odds are

Be aware though that you could still miscarry a PGS normal embryo - the test only takes cells from what will become the placenta so it isn't 100% accurate

You will also need to think about if you didn't get any normals and only had mosaic like me whether you would risk the transfer

[Maggie272]

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted
Is that a good result? I'm not familiar with mosaicism... Hope you are ok xx

[itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted]

@Maggie272
It's not a great result but at least we have something that the clinic will transfer......mosaic just means that in the cells they tested they found mostly normal ones but some abnormal ones too. But as they only take a few cells as part of the biopsy and only from the outer ring of the blastocyst which goes on to form the placenta we are prepared to risk a transfer as PGS is still a relatively new technology and the cells which make up the baby could be perfectly fine. It either won't implant, miscarry before 8 weeks or be a perfectly healthy baby - so no different odds to ones we have transferred before/conceived naturally

Chance of success is maybe 40% compared to a completely normal embryos which is about 80% but lots of people still miscarry/don't implant PGS normal ones so to be honest it's all just luck anyway!

Hope you're ok x

[Maggie272]

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted yeah look at us! I actually got a high five from one of the nurses the day of the transfer, cos the embryos were so good...oh well...

[Steenac7]

Thanks for the information! I think I’m afraid we will biopsy the embryos and none will be normal - I guess if that happens it’s better than putting them back in not knowing and then them not working. Hopefully it’ll be something that decreases our chances of miscarriage although not completely reducing it! The whole thing is a minefield!!!!

Wishing you all luck on your journeys!!

[Violet180]

Just my two cents.
I did PGS testing for the first 2 IVF rounds and ended up with all aneuploid embryos and one no result embryo that is currently frozen. This is out of 7 sent for testing. 6 destroyed embryos and one frozen no result.
My clinic will NOT let you transfer any Aneuploid embryos. So it means we were putting 100% belief that PGS was correct even though it could resolve itself during pregnancy. Cells could be from the placenta and embryo turns out ok. (some studies have shown people who transferred Aneuploid embryos that were perfectly normal babies.)
We were running out of money and cycles to try. Never having gotten to a transfer, we want to at least try a pregnancy before giving up on a baby altogether. So we have opted NOT to do PGS this round and we will see what happens with the embryos as we always had good numbers of blastocysts.

But this was a hard and measured decision.