Finally had IVF/ICSI risks pretalk, have some questions for outsiders (esp freezing)

[mawinter]

On Thursday we finally met with the clinic to have our IVF/ICSI risks pretalks, etc.
The clinic strongly recommended due to our situation, esp given my age (mfi, low ovarian reserve) that we freeze whatever eggs we can per cycle in case our medicated cycles do not work.

We were lucky to find an insurance which fully covers 3 cycles and after this we are on our own.
To give a bit of a back story for those not familiar with my situation, I have two blood clotting disorders (lipoprotein a and factor v leiden) a history of miscarriage, endo, obesity, as well as a blocked left tube. My husband suffers from mfi and during his ultrasounds they also discovered some white spots (will recheck in 6 months) and believe it is due to prolonged inflammation due to some infection or injury. I am sure there is a whole bunch i am leaving out, but you can guess the picture from this somewhat.
Freezing will be out of pocket naturally and we do not have a problem with that, but what we are mainly wondering is if it is really worth it with such low odds for someone of my age (38)? We have decided that one child is all we really want, so if a medicated cycle works, whatever is frozen if at all will be destroyed in the end (i would donate them, but it is forbidden in Germany), which is kind of heartbreaking in itself.
We were thinking of maybe trying out a medicated cycle first and if that does not work, we will do freezing with the next cycle.
Oh they also recommended mainly due to my clotting disorders and weight that we should only put back two embryos at a time.

Your name sounds familiar mawinter. Just wanting to get some clarification on your question. Your clinic wants to freeze your actual eggs after collection - not embryos. So they will just inject one or two with sperm and then freeze the rest????

shellster52 Yep, you know me. :) I posted a lot a few months back, i took a bit of a hiatus to let everything sink in.
The clinic feels given everything in our situation they will at max collect 5 per cycle even on high dose of meds. Whatever does not get used during the cycle will then be frozen.

So they think the maximum number of eggs that will be collected will be 5. So basically what you are saying that they will transfer two embryos and if any embryos are left over, they will freeze them in case the transfer does not take. That sounds like pretty standard procedure.

But still a bit lost with what your actual question is? Are you wondering if you should bother paying the extra for freezing, since you only want one child?????

From my personal experience and from chatting with others on here, it seems that not all of us are really that lucky to even have any left over to freeze. If you do have left overs, it seems a safe bet to pay the extra for the freezing. If your medicated cycle doesn't work, you will be so grateful to not use up another of your 3 funded cycles. I wish you the world of luck.

When are you starting?

My DF found she reacted very badly to the ovary stimulation drugs and was very greatful for her frozen embryo, because she would never have tried again.

That 'embryo' is almost a teenager!

I would go ahead with the freezing, because even if you get pregnant, there's still a long haul till an actual baby. So freeze in case of miscarriage, thinking practically. Also, you won't know if you are pregnant at the point when you have to freeze.
A frozen cycle is also a lot less invasive and demanding than a fresh one, should you be lucky enough to have any to freeze.

Shellster52 Yes, that was my exact question. Is it really worth it. When looking up on other boards trying to find a percentage of FET cycles actually having resulted in a pregnancy I did not find many good results. However most of these were American forums and everything can vary medically Country to Country, so I figured it was worth asking here. Then of course there is the whole bit we only want one child to toss in to the mix.

All of this, just makes me want to scream some days, it really is a lot to take in.
Provided another small medical issue is taken care of finally when it is supposed to at the end of the month (surgery) and they do not cancel on me again, we will begin the whole IVF/ICSI process in October.

You sound like you've got a lot of questions racing around in your head. The hardest thing - or at least for me - with the whole IVF process is all the unknown. There is just absolutely no way of telling if you will make 2 good eggs or 10, and then if 0 will fertilise or all of them. You just have to give it a go and see what happens, then just do what feels right at the time.

I am now in the midst of my 8th IVF and I have never once had any embryos spare to freeze! Last cycle I started with 19 follicles and at day 6, 15 of them were growing. Great, I thought. But then some took the lead and I only got 5 mature eggs. So this cycle, the Dr said to up the meds to get more growing. I had even read a story form another lady who said that she too had dominant follicles and once they upped her meds, it never happened again. But todays scan revealed that all that has happened in my case is that the few strongest have hogged all the extra meds so now I have even less follicles. I have been in tears all day at another failed cycle. The point is you just don't know.

Before my first IVF, I recall thinking exactly like you - what would I do with excess embryos. Could I morally just discard the excess once I got pregnant. But after a failure or two, I realize how desperate I am for this to work and I could only dream of having too many embryos rather than my current failures from not being able to make enough/any viable embryos. I have watched many other women on here go through IVF over the last several months and it really seems to be the norm that not many women make 'spare' embryos.

We are here for you all the way. October isn't far away and I hope that your other issue gets taken care of so you can just get on with it all instead of all the waiting and wondering.

Mawinter!

Hello! Glad things are moving for you, I agree with the others on freezing, will reply more tomorrow just wanted to bookmark

Oh for f*cks sake. :/ Felt a cold wet feeling a few moments ago at my shirt. Seems my prolactin levels are off again as I am leaking from me left breast. :(
I bet this will set us back again.

I had a high prolactin level at the start of my ttc tests, it was 998, I think that's high they said it was? Anyway after that it went down and I read Sleeping tablets and nausea meds could affect it, I had been on those for labyrinthitis