Why not straight to donor eggs? [confused]

[ohbigdaddio]

We've had 3 failed embryo transfers in our 1st cycle of IVF and now have no embryos left.

I am 40 in December, we've been TTC nearly 3 years, I have never been pregnant and we have unexplained infertility. So far, so shit!

We desperately want a child and have spent over £8,000 on IVF so far as we don't qualify for free NHS cycles.

My deep feeling (and I know I'm not medically trained!) is that my eggs are crap quality. I know our consultant will advise that 3 IVF cycles are needed to see if I can get pregnant but as we are not entitled to any financial help, this will cost us around £24,000 with absolutely no guarantees of getting a BFP.

I did this IVF prediction calculator w3.abdn.ac.uk/clsm/opis/home/about which SteamedBadger35 mentioned on another thread and it said it would take me 6 cycles to have a 60% chance of having a baby. This would cost us around £48,000. Which we don't have.

What I don't get is why wouldn't we go straight to donor egg now? And has anyone done this? If we pay for 2 more cycles of own egg IVF and it doesn't work, we won't have any money left for donor egg IVF. We went to the Fertility Show and talked to various clinics, none of whom suggested donor eggs at this stage.

But surely it would make more sense if we really want a child to use donor eggs now while we still have the money? This is all so unfair and stressful, if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear from you x

I had one cycle with my own eggs, then started a second one (which was cancelled because I didn't respond to stims). Then I tried at home for a while (I'm single, so I was ordering sperm from Denmark for those) and actually got pregnant twice but miscarried both times. That, to me, was quite a lot of evidence pointing towards my eggs sucking, so I went back to my clinic and told them I wanted to talk about donor eggs, and they were happy to go with that - but whether they'd have immediately recommended it without me giving them a shove, I don't know.

That said, if you were in a position to do three transfers from your one cycle so far, it went a heck of a lot better than my own-egg attempts did. So in your shoes, I would probably be tempted to take another crack at own-egg before thinking about moving on. But I do appreciate the cost implications of that.

I know someone who went to a spanish clinic and they went for donor egg and sperm on the first round, there was never any pressure not to do so - might be worth looking into if you aren't getting NHS funding anyway.

I'm 35 now moved to donor eggs at 31 due to POF party for financial reasons, I had failed own egg, cancelled own egg (high FSH) which led to me losing my NHS funding, I was lucky to live in an area that funded 3 cycles so it was pay to use own eggs with a 5% chance of success or use the funding for donor eggs which was what I decided to do, the 2 NHS donor egg cycles were a BFN then a MMC but a private funded donor egg cycle did finally work. I was only ever going to produce a couple of eggs and never had any to freeze like you so it was easier for me to make the switch, ultimately my need to be a mother was greater than my need to have a bio child and I don't regret my decision one bit. I guess it comes down to how much you want to invest in own egg treatment from an emotional and financial point of view

I went straight to DE. I have POF, amh of 1.2 and never more than three follicles at any scan!

Finances were our main concern as well. If we’d tried OE ivf then we wouldn’t have had the money to go to DE if unsuccessful. To be honest it was a no brainer when the odds were so stacked against us anyway.

It worked first time and I now have 14 week old twins. I love them more than I thought it was possible to love anything and the fact we aren’t genetically related means nothing. They are my babies.

I wish you luck with whatever you decide