PGT-A after recurrent miscarriages

[CrazyAboutFurBabies]

Hi all,

We are currently thinking about going forward with PGT-A IVF after 4 miscarriages all under 10 weeks, 2 of them being chromosomal abnormality miscarriages. No problems actually getting pregnant.

Has anyone done this? What was your experience? What is the timeline?

We are currently at a private fertility clinic self funding. All tests came back good, TSH, AMH all good, scans all good, full blood count good, Karyotyping showed no genetic issues with either of us, Morphology was the only low one for my partner which was at 3% so considering the threshold was 4% doctor wasn’t concerned, but after the heartache and 2 surgical operations, we have both decided not to try again naturally.

Any stories would be really appreciated! X

Yes I did after: loss at 20 weeks, ectopic, miscarriage at 8 weeks. I know it's controversial but I found it helpful.

At one point I had 12 embryos. After the last miscarriage. All came back abnormal with the pet-a testing (took about 10-14 days) and we honestly thought we'd never succeed as we'd had all the tests you could think of which didn't throw up any reasons.

I read the Rebecca Fett "it starts with an egg" book and followed as much of that (lifestyle and supplements) as possible - it was a little overwhelming initially. Then we carried on with IVF and despite getting older, my egg quality seemed to increase with each collection - I did 2 more collections. 1st 25% were normal. 2nd round 50% were normal.

I'm incredibly lucky to have 2 amazing kids now (youngest 9 months).

Thank you so much for replying!

I'm really sorry about your losses but so happy you got your babies in the end!

How long was the process for you? Did you ever find out if you had any problems that were causing your losses?

Yes I have that book and currently reading it, i personally think some of it is so overkill!! So I won’t be stressing myself out over every single plastic thing I have in my house .. but i have started to follow the vitamins advice! I don’t drink alcohol anyway.. maybe once or twice a year! And only have 1 coffee in the morning so that parts easy!

Willing to try anything though at this point!

Thank you, and I'm sorry for your losses. I know how isolating and consuming it is.

I have pcos and can't conceive naturally. The only times I managed to get pregnant without ivf were as a result of using clomid and the trigger shot.

We never found out the reason for the losses, although regarding our first loss we now strongly suspect my cervix opened early as this happened on fourth pregnancy with my daughter between 20 - 22 weeks. I had an emergency cerclage but she ended up being born at 24 weeks (you'd never know if you saw her now).

We had similar testing to you - karyotyping, hysteroscopies etc. we even did an ERA (pathfertility.com/what-is-an-endometrial-receptivity-array-era/#:~:text=An%20endometrial%20receptivity%20array%20(ERA)%20is%20a%20type%20of%20test,implantation%20failure%20following%20embryo%20transfer. ) to try and gauge the optimal time for implantation. I actually don't think there was anything else we could have done in terms of testing which is why we opted for PGT-A. Also as I didn't want to run the risk of the emotional/physical toll of further miscarriages that could be avoided.

In terms of timing we were privately funding and so timing was more or less on our terms. once we were ready, the embryos were sent off and the results took about 10-14 days. Thereafter we just went into the ivf rounds when we were ready.

After the initial blow of 12 embryos being abnormal I had to take 9 months out to process the various losses and results.

Once we were ready to go, it was a case of just cracking on with the ivf round. I did "long" protocols so each round was circa 6 weeks from the start of a period. I was lucky that out of 3 rounds, 2 stuck.

Re it starts with an egg. I agree, it was a lot. I did the intensive supplement regime - I found the MyOva supplements quite helpful although I did need to take a few different ones to get the correct dose. The lifestyle choices I made were to reduce plastic in the kitchen. So I moved to glass food containers, only glass/ceramic in microwave etc. used cleaning products that were allegedly mkre environmentally friendly. I also didn't get my nails etc done which was frankly annoying! At that point it was in for a penny in for a pound and so I also did acupuncture and reflexology. Ate more of a low carb diet as I'd read somewhere that might help with people with pcos (I totally fell down the rabbit hole 🫣).

I can't say any of it helped, but in reality given my age (last egg collection was a week before I turned 40) the quality of embryos should have declined. Instead it improved from all abnormal to 50:50 over the course of a year - covid delayed treatment as clinics had to close.

I really hope things go well for you!

Meant to add that in terms of the morphology, if you do opt for PGT-A then your clinic will likely recommend ICSI because it is thought that this can reduce the risk of sperm DNA from multiple sperm "sticking" to the outside of an egg and contaminating the PGT-A sample, as a single sperm is injected directly into the egg. Of morphology is low, they'll likely recommend icsi anyway.