Anyone doing ivf at 40+

[lucieloos]

We're considering doing a couple more rounds of ivf at 40.5 years old. We have 2 children already but still feel someone is missing.

Is anyone else starting or already having treatment at 40+ and would like to share the journey?

Between all 6 of them I am ranging from 15mm to around 8mm, think maybe trigger shot on Wednesday...

@Anxiousbuthopeful great things are moving in the right direction!
ET was ok and had two high quality five day blastocysts transferred on Saturday - now the wait begins!!

@dragonfly1978 wishing you all the best!

Hey all been so hectic and intense , sounding similar to you @Anxiousbuthopeful and have 4 good follicles with two which are micro and doesn’t think will catch up . I’m didn’t get measurements as stresses me out too much . Am on Day 8 . Wish I had like 8 follicles ! Feels like numbers are too low x

Noooo! Don’t worry @Sunshinelove8! As @lucieloos says, in the end it may not make that much of a difference. I had 8 eggs first time and 6 the second time, and 4 fertilized both times so it made no difference at all. Yet I lost so much sleep over the lack of the two follicles! I am trying to stress less this time around (although obvs still hoping they all grow!) and hope I simply get lucky!

@Anxiousbuthopeful @Sunshinelove8 I know it's hard but really try not to stress over numbers. My best ever cycles which resulted in my daughter and son were stressful but it worked. It only takes that one golden egg and you never know which one it will be. With my son I only got 3 eggs collected and 2 fertilised. I was devastated. We were going for day 5 blasts and I though how the hell am I going to get to blasts with only 2 eggs. By day 3 one was 7 cell and one was only 4 cell so that was us pretty much down to one embryo but it made it to blast and became our son! You really never know and I used to worry and stress over scans so much but at the end of the day it was always the 1-2 best embryos that came through for me. I never had any to put in the freezer. With my daughter I had my most ever eggs collected - 8 in total and 7 of them fertilised but by day 3 we were down to 2 maybe 3 good ones. By day 5 we were down to one half decent lonely blast. I resigned myself to that one not working but luck was on our side again. I really don't think the numbers are that important and I'm not convinced that stimulating to get high numbers results in eggs that are that great quality. I think it's better to try for less eggs but better quality.

Hi both , thanks so much for your reassurance, it means a lot 💜 I find scans so traumatic after recurrent mc and just feel all I get is bad news and it’s tough. Unfortunately, I’m on the highest stimms possible I think ! I do need quality as I can get pregnant and to a certain stage but I think they all had chromosome issues so we wanted to pgs test and I think I read it’s like a 1/10 chance of normal egg at 40. I know I just have to try and relax 🤔 somehow and it does come down to luck a lot of it . I hope I get lucky it’s been a shocking two years and it would be nice to have something nice happen for once! Thanks again for being so supportive . I’m crossing everything for us all to get our happy outcomes xx

@lucieloos how far are you now and how do you feel? @Anxiousbuthopeful they reckon ec may be Friday or sat do you think you’ll be same time ? X

Hi @Sunshinelove8! Yes me too Friday or Saturday. How nice that we are sort of at the same time, we can stress (and hopefully celebrate?!) together.

Ah lovely , yes it will be nice to have some company 🥰 I’m looking forward to having eggs out as at least I’m not responsible from that point , however, weird that seems ! There’s kinda nothing we can do after that point x

@Sunshinelove8 @Anxiousbuthopeful that's so nice you will both be around the same time. Will be crossing everything for you this time.

@Anxiousbuthopeful I'm 8+5 today and still feel really rotten. I know I shouldn't complain but it is very hard feeling constantly sick and with 2 toddlers to look after as well. I have another scan with my nipt test a week on Friday when I will be 10+1. Im very anxious about the outcome of the test given my age but not a lot I can do about that other than hope all will be ok.

@lucieloos it must be sooo tough with two toddlers ! Wow ! I can’t believe how far along you are already , time is flying . Roll on more lovely scans and successful nipt test , crossing everything xx

@Sunshinelove8 thanks so much 😊

Yes @lucieloos! It is all going so fast! Have everything crossed for you. Also your story gives me hope as I don’t know whether I will be able to do much more IVF if this round fails, and I sort of hoping we might get lucky the old-fashioned way....

@Anxiousbuthopeful I think I worked out that the odds of a natural conception at my age following 6-8 months of trying equalled that of 2-3 rounds of ivf. We couldn't afford anymore ivf so it kind of made me feel better. We were fortunate in a way though that no real problem had been identified with us and then my husband had his op on his water works and that seemed to improve things for us and was probably the cause of all the issues all along.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with us either as had a cp trying naturally last year, but if we stop doing IVF I will try to get everything tested just to make sure. Anyway, ANOTHER scan tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the slow-growing team!

@Anxiousbuthopeful Well hopefully you won't need to try naturally after this next round but sounds promising if you had a chemical. Good luck with your scan.

Hi! Update from me. Scan this morning, 7 follicles of which 3 are 18,16,16 and then a 12, 10, 9 and 7. The 12 and the 10 seem unchanged compared to Monday, and my doctor reckons we might only get 3 good eggs. Am hoping she may be overly pessimistic. Anyway one or two more days of stimms, EC Saturday or Sunday. Does anyone have a clue why this is taking so long, and if longer stimms are correlated with adverse outcomes?

@Anxiousbuthopeful I think the top 3 are your best bet. The others seems a little too far behind now but fingers crossed for one or two more. I think sometimes it just goes like that and they take a bit longer to grow. How much longer will you have been stimulating but trigger day compared to usual?

I usually trigger quite early I think (CD 12, 13). This time it will be CD 16 or even 17.

@Anxiousbuthopeful I read a few places that it doesn’t make a major difference but will now to anyone with actual experience of ivf ! Are you on the same stimms day as me? I’m 9 she thinks trigger tomorrow, I have similar to you with three larger and rest behind . I’ve been taking Fostimon (450-600) but switched today to 600 Meriofert, anyone know why? Also once you trigger do the follicles still keep growing ? X

Am on day 13! Hoping for slow and steady continued growth... and yes, I think follicles keep growing post trigger. Fingers crossed for a good egg in there for us both @Sunshinelove8

I know , we need some good luck don’t we? had enough of these bad and failing eggs ! By the way not sure how you’ve done this twice in a row , I’m exhausted! I’m back to work Monday and everyone will assume I had a lovely holiday 😖

I know what you mean @Sunshinelove8. Am completely exhausted too and also have had a hellish couple of weeks at work. Although maybe that’s a good thing as I haven’t had as much time to think and worry (although I have packed in a fair amount!). I do wonder whether my slow stimms response can partially be put down to stress, though.

My ds was unwell the week b4 and I had the highest fsh I ever had at 9 compared to 6 Last two times . Then during fireworks someone was setting them off fireworks up till 4am ! So I lost a night’s sleep . My ds was up 3x last night. I’m sure it doesn’t help x