Anyone starting egg donation July/August?

[Leala20]

We maybe starting our egg donation treatment (first time) July/August and I thought maybe there’s anyone here that would like to join me. Ive found this forum very useful and supportive and thought I would reach out as I cannot believe it is so soon and getting a bit nervous. We had a year of rollercoaster of trying for many years to being finally told my amh is too low and I wouldn’t qualify for IVF. We did our research and found DCN very useful and are really excited about it.

@Cleozeta mini hols sounds like a great idea!
@tikha yes we also went for 10 that gave us 4 embryos and now left with three so I hope this will suffice. I was worried it was too low number as many didn’t make it but I was told they are good quality except for one that just made it. There’s 95% chances of thawing embryos successfully, it’s the average but we know it’s a chance as much as it’s with the whole process and success. I have an appointment middle of the month so will be looking into mid September transfer if all goes well.

I will be following your journey and wishing you both all the best.

@Leala20 so sorry to hear that it’s a BFN for you too 😔 3 embryos in the freezer is three more chances though and every time there is more chance of it working. I have to go through the whole thing again. I’m not sure if it I’ll be with the same donor or a new one. Not sure about other tests but we will obviously do whatever the dr recommends.
@Cleozeta congratulations on the move. That’ll keep your mind of things! My clinic test everyone for Covid before doing the transfer. I can’t believe there are clinics that are making people pay for the test! Good idea to make it a mini holiday!
@tikha What day do you test? Try it to drive yourself mad about symptoms. I know that’s easier said than done though!

Aaaaahhhhh! CD1 today, but it's not starting properly (more spotting than flow iyswim) that never happens. Why now?! So I can't call the clinic yet. Aaaahh what do I doooooooooo 😂

@Cleozeta I had the same with my last cycle. The shortest and weirdest ever! They said not to worry and start the medicine as then I had the 2scans to check the lining and all was fine. Good luck you will be fine!

@Cafeambllet thank you. I had hoped for a sibling one day but now I will be happy with one from these embryos. I hope all goes well for you too and we stay in touch.

@Cleozeta Should be ok to start the medications. Good to get going isnt it.
@Leala20 I am really hoping it works out for you in the next cycle. FETs can add up. How do they choose the best embryo? At this point, being 41 and working in a busy job I think I would happy with only one
@Cafeambllet my test day is the 9th of August but that falls on a Sunday. I guess I can just use First response.
I have reach peak packing today. As the clinic adviced me not to do any strenous work, my poor DH is doing most of it.

Thanks, maybe I will just call them. I never 'spot' before AF, it always goes straight to full flow, so typical its doing this now!! Never straight forward! Hope you ladies are all doing OK?
@Leala20 do you have to wait a full cycle to try again or would you be allowed to straight away if you wanted to?

Next problem. Just tried calling the clinic and got a message simply saying the clinic is closed and to leave a message or callback during opening hours. These things are never simple are they?!

Hi ladies,
I have also started DE process at IVI London.
I am soon to be 44 and we previously had 4 IVF/ICSI cycles (2 fresh and 2 FET). We are not sure if there was implantation issues or poor egg quality or both that caused failure . Only the 4th one end up in pregnancy. But tragically it end up with still birth at 29 weeks.
Earlier this summer we were about to start one more round , however had to cancel. My AMH virtually undetectable and from having 6 follicles in Feb I went down to 3 in a few months time. So we decided to proceed with the donor egg.
We still don't have a donor match. So I was curious how was a matching process for you? We (more me than my husband) finding hard time. We were offered so far only one donor (frozen eggs) who matches on 1-2 of our criteria. So we are not sure shall we wait for a better match or proceed with this one. Was hoping to hear if any of you had similar experience and what help you to make decision.
What success rate were you given at your clinic?
Any methods to insure the lining is healthy and suitable for transfer?
Any advice on frozen egg vs fresh?

@cleozeta I also had unusual spotting and couldnt differentiate was it first day or not and they told me not to worry.
I have a followup appointment the week after so will review then but was told better to have normal cycle before and start with the September one so hopefully will be one month behind you.
@tikha i think next time I will do first response already day 5 and do it daily till test date to set right expectations and also track it and normalise it. Take it easy and enjoy the move, it’s a year of new beginnings! I must say since we moved I have been happiest ever as it’s so exciting to be in a new place and make it your own with time. I am almost 39 so hoped these would help us having another baby but now I need to focus on first step!

@ksusha20 welcome! I am so sorry for your loss. This must have been so difficult for you. I didn’t even try ivf with my own eggs as was told the chances were so low due to low amh So we focused our emotions energy and finances on donor eggs. I have used the London egg bank as you are able to view some basic information about the donor and maybe even get a note that helped me to ‘connect’ with the donor. Also no waiting. I have heard fresh eggs have slightly higher chances ( a few % I think) but when freezing they choose mature eggs so you only may lose some when they thaw or not If you’re looking at fresh I was earlier on considering altrui but it can take 6 months for them to match you. However the process is very thorough on their side and with London egg bank you choose and call them. The ladies there are super helpful. I hope you make the choice that you feel most comfortable with.

@ksusha20 welcome to the group. I went with donor cycle after 5 cycles of IVF which included a cervical ectopic and chemical pregnancy and just couldn't bear going though another IVF cycle again with low probabilities. Went with LWC as they offer mature eggs. You can get bunch of 6 or 10 and they give you the odd ones if they are any left over. These are mature eggs. Some of the earlier studies may have shown a difference between frozen and fresh cycle but at this point due to advancing technology there is no difference or maybe a 1% difference but with a fresh cycle you are not guaranteed the number of eggs. The other thing I like is that I could go through the profiles and choose someone you feel a connection with. Good luck on the journey. I am currently waiting to see if my first tranfer worked.

@Leala20 Thank you. Yes, it is something that will always stay with us. Our lives had been changed forever , we just tried to find new normal.
And i am sorry to hear about your BFN. It is so devastating that we have to go through this.
I am at IVI London. They opened their UK branch in 2016 only and dont have that large database of donors like LWC. So we have been waiting so far for a match. And Covid 19 did not help with donor recruiting. So it might take another 4 months or so. They are in the process of getting permission for getting eggs from the bank in Ukraine. We put a lot of hope on that. I'm originally from Ukraine and thought it would be easier to find someone who might even resemble me in certain way. But original estimates of 2 months changed as it appeared not to be easy to establish this process due to Ukraine not being in EU.

Has anyone thought about doing PGD on embryos. i know that the changes of chromosome abnormalities are low in younger women. But i was thinking that there could be still some abnormal embryos even though donor is super fertile women.

@tikha
Thank you and wishing you BFP.
We went for an open evening in LWC but for some reasons we did not feel like that is "our clinic". I wanted some smaller clinic when one doctor follows you. Even though now not sure if IVI London was the right choice. What attracted us was that they give guarantee for 2 blastocysts and that they could ship eggs from Ukraine, which appeared not an easy task at the moment.

Hi @ksusha20 sorry to hear about your stillbirth. I had a stillbirth too, in April at 33 weeks. Is so heartbreaking especially when we have tried to hard to get there in the first place. We did not do IVF but it took us 3 years and countless sessions of acupuncture, Chinese herbs, so many suppliments I rattled etc. I have high FSH and low AMH so it was a miracle we conceived in the first place. Did you ever find out the reason for your stillbirth? Ours was apparently due to an underlying undiagnosed genetic condition. I am convinced it was due to egg age, hence now deciding to opt for donor egg (I'm 43).

We got matched very quickly and we chose our first option, as it did fit a lot of our criteria, although to be fair we aren't that fussy, as long as it's not someone outlandishly different from us. We are with Manchester Fertility and they have a very good frozen egg Bank. We chose frozen as matching is much quicker, and the process is much quicker. Statistics are slightly lower than fresh, but not so much so that we would've willing to wait.

@Leala20 it sounds like you have plenty to focus on with your new house, so September should come around in no time.
I am hoping with our staggered treatments that we can all learn from each other in this process, it's been very helpful hearing about your experience, and it's good to be able to support each other with our failures and successes, as I guess its not something we discuss with many people around us in real life!

AF now in full flow for me. I hope it won't be too late to start treatment tomorrow on what will now be cd2. Bloomin typical for AF to turn up on a Sunday!!!

@Cleozeta. My heart goes out to you and your family. What was the name of your baby?
We were never given the explanation of our daughter's death. At 13 weeks scan they found out micrognathia (which appeared to be mild afterwards) and we did chromosomal abnormalities and specific genome, MRI and multiple scans. All was coming back clear. But one morning when we went for routine scan , there was no heartbeat. And the day before i had midwife appointment and all was fine. Postmortem did not reveal anything and they could only assume that there was some genetic issues which existing test cant identify yet.

We have a male factory plus the fact we decided to start a family when i was late 39 was not helping. So we went straight for IVF, but wasted almost one year for NHS.

It is great that you matched so quickly.
Were you paying much attention on some other characteristics? In terms of appearance, was the clinic trying for your match to have similar face structure and body type (etc)?
I know at the end of the day the only thing which matters is healthy baby. But I am still tormented with all these questions.

@Cleozeta
we were told by the genetic specialist that egg poor quality is responsible for the chromosome abnormalities. in terms of gene issues they observed that it is usually caused by man advanced age/sperm.

@ksusha20 that is so interesting, your experience sounds so similar to mine. They found nothing wrong at the 13 week or the 20 week scans, everything looked perfect, then at a private 4d scan at 27 weeks they discovered polyhydramneous (extra fluid) which suggested there may have been a problem, but all tests, amnio, microray, extra detailed scans etc all came back clear, but at 33 weeks I went in with reduced movements and his heartbeat had stopped. The post mortem showed subtle signs of a genetic condition. For example a palm only had one crease, and his eyes were slightly wider apart than normal and slight retrognathia. We are having more tests done on his DNA to see if they can diagnose anything.
We named him Harley.
What did you call your daughter? How long ago did this happen to you?

It is interesting that you say about man age for gene issues. Our geneticist didn't mention that. They said it wasn't a chromasome issue, and that was caused by old eggs, but nothing was said about male. My husband is 46. I hope this does not cause a problem with our DE attempt too! Although saying that, didn't some racing car bloke become a father at age 89 recently?

For our matching, they asked us to send them a list of our preferred donor characteristics, we said hair & eye colour, height, education level, and personality trait I think. They sent us 2 choices from that, and most were matched in the first choice.

Let your little angel Harley rest in peace.
We named our daughter Vivienne Nicole. We lost her last October. I cant believe that in a few months there will be a year already.
You mentioned about one crease on the palm and slightly wider position eyes- our daughter had the same discovered on the postmortem. But these where subtle and considered of no significance. So would be curious to know if they discover anything for you with DNA tests. Because for us they ran checks on all the genes that were known/reported to be linked with micrognathia. But nothing abnormal was found. Maybe you will get some answers.
I guess different specialist have different opinions because human reproduction and genetics advanced a lot in recent years but there is so much unknown. They even suggested to do double donation.
But my husband was 43 at time when embryo was created, so not of advance age. If Bernie Ecclestone managed to farther a healthy child at 89 (and his wife is 44 yrs, not that young in fertility world) , then i think my now 45 year old husband can do as well :)
But they had billions on their side though :)

Hi, delighted to discover this thread as I’m currently one week into 2WW. This is my first cycle with DE after 3 stim cycles with my own eggs resulted in one viable embryo after PGS. I stupidly tested Saturday as was 6D post FET with 5D blastocysts: it was negative but too early to be conclusive. However now I’m even more nervous....

Hi sharpster1,
Congrats on 2WW! 6D post transfer is too early. With my last year pregnancy I personally was showing all negative on home tests and had some spotting, cramping the day before beta. So I was sure I was out. But to my surprise my blood test came back positive.
Don't you mind me asking was your transfer with PGS test embryo not successful? if not , did they give any explanation on why? Because my clinic says it is over 70% chance of success if embryo is chromosomally normal.

@ksusha20 that is so interesting that your little girl had the same traits. Harley's were also very subtle, and they did say independently they wouldn't mean much, but as there were a few subtle signs, pieced together they may indicate a genetic problem. We are with Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, and they are renowned for their research there, so they do seem to be taking an interest in our case, so hopefully we can get some answers! I will let you know, as it sounds so similar.

@sharpster1 welcome and good luck!

I am currently going through all the issues in starting treatment! Called up at 8am this morning to tell them it's its CD1 (or cd2 really as started properly yesterday afternoon) they took my details and said they would send to the nurse. Not heard anything back yet though. Do you think I should just start using the patches now?? Did you all get instructed to start and told what to do?

@Cleozeta as far as I remember I only started progesterone a week before the transfer and the other pills 3x a day on the cycle day or 2.
I will respond to others in the evening as in work now but do not worry Cleozeta and call them if anything. I am sure they are used to us calling them more:)