Egg harvesting at 38 for future pregnancy

[KatyS36]

Hi all,

This is a very first toe dip in the water for me, and I'm hoping someone can give me some advice.

I'm 38 and consider myself incredibly fortunate to have a beautiful DD ages 10 months, concieved naturally after only 4 months.

I would love another baby (in tears at the thought of it) but during my pregnancy I had severe PGP and ended up in a wheelchair. I'm much better than I was but not yet fully recovered and still having ongoing physio. I was really fit and healthy prior to pregnancy, and considering what happenned I don't want to put my body through another pregnancy until I'm fully better.

I'm happily married and would only want another child with my husband.

In an ideal world I'll recover completly within the next 6 months to a year and concieve again naturally. However, in the back of my mind I know this won't necessarily be the case on a fertility front, but also a full recovery might take longer and I would then be in my early forties.

Would it be worth me considering having the egg collection stage of IVF undertaken now, so that if we do need IVF when I'm in my early forties we have eggs from when I'm 38, or is this unlikely to make any difference? I'm sure I've read about how egg quality rapidly declines in your late thrities.

Obviously I'd really prefer not to go down this route, but I'm wondering if its a really pragmatic step to take now. We would be able to have this treatment undertaken privately.

My husband has very limited knowledge on these things (doesn't read mumsnet!) but has already said he would want to try the IVF route if we couldn't concieve again naturally.

Thanks

Katy

hi

I have eggs stored. I am 40 and had them stored when i was 35. When i had it done, the technology was quite new. So, when they are thawed, there is a pretty high chance that they wont work. I knew this at the time I had them taken but went ahead anyway.

Things have changed since I had it done. And the technology is better. BUT from what I understand, you are still better off to have embryos stored rather than eggs- more people have embryos stored and there are a lot of success cases with FET and few with using frozen eggs. If you have a partner (which you do...) and you arent against creating and storing embryos- then I would also look into this option if I were you.

There is a company in the US called Extend Fertility. They have a lot of info on egg storage. I had mine done in the UK but I also looked at them at the time.

Good luck.

Thanks lateatwork,

Probably used the wrong terminology here. I'd be perfectly happy to create and store embryos with my husband. I would only want another baby with him. I'll have a look into that company.

I was wondering if embryos created and stored with 38 yr old eggs had a significantly better hope of successful IVF than those with 40 yr old eggs.

Hopefully we won't need to go down this route, but we want to maximise our chances of a second child.

Thanks

Katy

you sound like a planner like me and i think you are totally correct to look into this. the thing is, it may take you longer next time to have a baby (or it may not...).. so 40 might be 41 or 42 before you naturally conceive and yes, things decrease a lot year on year at that age. Try fertilityfriend for actual stats. I think its good to have a back up. A plan B. You will need to consider what you would do with the embryos though if you havent needed to use them... but that decision would need to be made if you used IVF anyway.

good luck with your research!

oh... another thing to add, is that age is only a guide to how fertile you are... there are other things at play too... someone who is 30 may have the fertility of a 25 year or the other way around. So, the clinic you chose will do some basic blood tests to check your hormone levels and AMH level. That will also give you an indication of whether you have time to 'wait' or not.