Bus 9 - Donkey Cart departing soon, all aboard with ivf, pcos, endo, sub/unexplained fertility jump on

[Marvellouslymadmum]

New thread 😊😊

Oh @Misty84, I’m so sorry to hear that. Not sure if this helps now, but I’ve been hearing good things re fertility acupuncture and massage, for both sperm and eggs. Maybe go all in for natural, with help from a person who specialises in this?

Thank you @Sunbird24 and @OrangeBengal. I’m so weary!

I am looking into starting acupuncture again now that it’ll be my only expense (plus the supplements). The cheapest I can get it for around here is £40 for 30 mins.

I’m not going to be able to convince my partner though, however at least he’s seeing a urologist specialist. So it’s not like we’ll be doing nothing. Unfortunately this tiresome journey continues!!

@Misty84 I’m sorry to hear the update. Are the odds poor because of both issues, I assume? I think it’s good they’ve been honest with you. It’s hard to know what to expect from a private clinic. The positives are that you did conceive naturally so at least you know you can and it could happen again, if you can work on the sperm even better.

This whole thing sucks. I think there’s people ivf works for first and second time and they’re a big proportion of the stats. And then there’s the rest of us who have EC, ET or FET problems and it really does feel like it might not be the answer for lots of us. I’m not sure there will be an answer, but ivf sure isn’t the cure all it feels like it could be when you start.

I went on Facebook yesterday to join a Chinese medicine group. Thinking more about my eczema that has coincided with my infertility really. No one ever looks at what’s causing this for me, they just treat it. I’m grateful for that but it’s never really gone away. So I’ve started thinking about if I can try that for it. I dunno. I guess I’m hoping fixing or improving my immune issues might help. Obviously while I was there I saw possibly my only friend without kids had had her baby. Sigh.

I definitely am still in dog planning mode! I applied for two jobs at work, would have been three but ran out of time yesterday after working late. Need to balance any dogs with future jobs!

Can't remember who said it but I'm nhs and they offer embryo glue but tell you it's red on hfea as not studied much yet. As for 2 embryo transfer, it's worth go as doesn't always result in twins besides, in my job we come across twins alot as they tens to come slightly early but most we don't see, patents always worry about managing and they do great! You just adapt. @Misty84 I'm so sorry, they told my sister the same and she's now moved on and training to be a midwife of all things.....hearing your news must be awful and it's something we dread, thinking of you

@kerrym87 i think @OrangeBengal was asking about embryo glue. My place barely want to give me a progesterone test 🙃.

Ok I’ve had my scan, lining is 7mm and triple layer as usual, two lead follicles at 12 and 10mm, Cyclogest on order. I’m back in on Friday for another scan. I’ve booked Pilates for that morning before my next scan, I haven’t been since pre-covid. I’ll try to do some exercise today I think, need to do something like that to make myself feel less shit. Got a funeral later so it’s a weird day.

I wrote 2 embryos on the consent form so it’s done now. The odds are not in my favour, poorest quality ones might not even survive the thaw so two it is.

Apologies if I’m misunderstanding, but I think PGS (if that’s the right one????) is flawed because embryos can self-correct. So I suppose they can’t be sure the “bad” embryos will remain bad, hence why it isn’t green? I might be getting mixed up though, my brain is foggy as hell today. @OrangeBengal

Morning all. @thislittlebird, I think there is still disagreement between fertility specialists, but generally I think it’s agreed that mosaics could self-correct, but potentially blastocysts are more fixed?? Logically to me it would depend on what data came back. Clinics don’t discard ‘abnormal’ embryos, so depending on the clinic and what the abnormality was they could potentially still be implanted. For me it seems unlikely that something like Tripoly (a abnormality which results in 3 sets of genes, that usually results in miscarriage), if found, would be correctable.

I’ve never done PGS as there’s that risk each time you defrost and refreeze, plus like @thislittlebird said the results aren’t definite. They may collect cells with abnormalities from an embryo with mostly normal cells and vice versa. I know that at least one of my miscarried babies was chromosomally perfect, so it doesn’t guarantee anything. I will just take my chances.

Had my chat with the dr this morning about the final one (my day 6 runt fighter) and I’m going for it next month

Yeah i think I’m still in the take my chances gang with you @Sunbird24. At least for now, if I got 8 embryos or something I might test.

I actively chose to do a double transfer so we didn’t have to pay the nhs for a final transfer. Got a shock just now when I received a bloody invoice for £1600 and an email saying I had an email saying I had until 12.30 to pay it! I rang them and said ‘erm, what is this?’ And explained I couldn’t have my natural transfer, I’ve only had two. Anyway, he was fine when I explained and has cancelled it but I was like jfc, I don’t need more bills from these people.

@Sunbird24 just saw your last line of message. Yes, go for it, I’m glad you have one remaining. Fingers crossed for the fighter!

Hey @Sunbird24, yes definitely a personal choice. I was worried about testing after the fact too, but after being reassured by my clinic we went ahead and everything went well on Monday, embryo now safely refrozen. And the first time round (post EC) all embryos tested well and so far each tested embryo has survived the thaw, with no drop in quality and has been successfully transferred. For me, abnormalities is just something less I need to worry about.

@OrangeBengal im glad yours have all made it through, fingers crossed you get good results!

Thanks @Sunbird24, hopefully with the data from the ERA and the endometrial scratch the conditions will be finally be right for implantation! Just waiting for treatment plan confirmation and my period to start.

I’m absolutely terrified about abnormalities but also worried we’ll have no embryos left. They don’t say there’s something specific wrong, do they? Just euploid, aneuploid or mosaic?

I’m very scared of twins and not being able to test properly for abnormalities but lbr, I’ve never had a BFP so it’s very much cross that bridge when I get to it for me. Most likely outcome is BFN again.

To be honest@thislittlebird, I’ve not really investigated post hearing ‘abnormal’, however the guys on the podcast found out exactly what abnormalities have been found, so that information must be available and of course you have a right to it. After all of the this I just wanted to give myself the greatest chance of enjoying it if / when it happens rather than always thinking about a miscarriage maybe happening. Of course, there are no guarantees and I’d probably still think about it, but hopefully not as much.

@OrangeBengal I haven’t listened to it, but I’m assuming they did PGD rather than PGT-A/PGS? I know some people on the infertility boards who have had to do that for genetic conditions.

I got my microbiome results. I have some issues that aren’t exactly a surprise, hopefully it’s something I can work on improving over the next couple of months before our private transfers.

Hey @thislittlebird, no I believe it was PGS, same as me. PGD, you do if you have a specific inherited condition you want to check for. There are only specific conditions that the HFEA allows this for too.

It’s good in a way that there are some answers and something to focus on as weird as that sounds!

@OrangeBengal interesting. I’ve never heard of people getting specific info from PGS before, only the aneuploid/euploid/mosaic outcomes.

They’re in Scotland @thislittlebird, so maybe that’s the difference?? I considered asking about my abnormal ones since we’ve been chatting about this, but actually I don’t want to know.

@OrangeBengal what were you thinking of asking?

I just posted my microbiome results on the ERA thread and now I’m panicking and feeling overwhelmed. This whole thing, this extra layer of infertility is making me reassess everything. I went to a funeral yesterday, he was 56. I don’t know if I want to spend more years doing this, doing all these tests, putting myself through all this shit. I feel like I’m going to commit to the two more private rounds and call it a day, I don’t even feel like I want to do those right now. But if I say I’ve done three rounds then at least I’ve given it a try.

@thislittlebird I like the ERA thread, but I think it’s also possible to test for too much, if every woman tested I’m sure they’d be something. Most of which doctors probably wouldn’t know much about.

I think for well-being purposes we need a cut-off too, just not sure what that is yet. I thought it was these frozen embryos, but then I thought, I have a list of names, what happens to them? So I’m not ready yet. I’m trying to stay more in the moment though, that’s what my acupuncturist is trying to get me to see.

PGS-wise, I don’t know, to see if it was a condition that was age-related.

Hi All, Do you mind if I join? I've been following along for a while. I'm 37, my partner is 39. We've been TTC since Jan 2020 and started IVF in January this year. From our first EC we had 4 embryos - 2 reasonable quality, 2 lower quality. We did a fresh transfer and frozen transfer of the two good ones which both failed. We then did another EC, which gave us 3 embryos, all ok quality. We sent all of them (remaining two from round 1, three from round 2) for PGT-A. 4 came back euploid, 1 came back aneuploid. With the aneuploid one they were able to tell us which chromosome the problem was on.

@OrangeBengal yeah I agree and think I’ll probably keep away from the thread for a bit because it’s worrying me more tbh. Not that I’ve been there lately but I was hoping to ask people who’d had the same tests what they did but it’s all very overwhelming.

I wanted to focus tests on things I am fairly sure I have a problem with (bacterial flora/fauna and immune issues, I know this is an issue because of my history with eczema, IBS etc) but I can’t do this continuously. I can’t move on to more tests, and I don’t really want to do anything too invasive on a whim.

How many embryos did you get on your first cycle? We got four so I knew that wasn’t enough tries to me to feel like I’d had a good crack at it, especially at 38/39. I will get the two cycle package with Access and hope it’s enough attempts to make me feel like I’ve done what I can.

The name thing tortures me tbh. These names, one in particular, are my imagined kids. But I’m increasingly coming to terms with that not happening, hopefully I can name the different embryos, get a dog and try to move on.

@zizzybdub welcome! That’s interesting that they can tell the problem. Do they always do that or is it extra? Four euploid sounds really good.

You have similar timings to us. We started ttc October 19, started IVF January 22.