PGS testing at ABC/Create

[Zamzam21]

Hi everyone,

So I am 35 and I have just finished egg retrieval last week. I am currently in the all consuming (can't think of anything else wait) to hear how the embryos are progressing.

Reading statistics online, I have seen that at my age 50 percent of embryos are abnormal. I spoke to the clinic and they said as I am an ABC patient they do not offer PGS testing and it is only for Create.

Is this someone else has thought about. 50 percent is quite a large figure and I would have thought there would be an opportunity to test if we needed to.

What are everyone's thoughts on PGS testing?

I did PGS testing on a cycle with Create last year due to history of recurrent miscarriages when I was 36....managed to get 2 blastocysts to test....both came back with chromosome issues. So for me the 50% wasn't true.

I would only do it if I had 5+ blastocysts and I was over 40 when the expectation is that less than 13% of eggs are "normal"

In the U.K. clinic are not allowed to transfer abnormal embryos so you could end up with nothing to transfer and the whole cycle would have been lost

I did PGS testing on a cycle with Create last year due to history of recurrent miscarriages when I was 36....managed to get 2 blastocysts to test....both came back with chromosome issues. So for me the 50% wasn't true.

I would only do it if I had 5+ blastocysts and I was over 40 when the expectation is that less than 13% of eggs are "normal"

In the U.K. clinic are not allowed to transfer abnormal embryos so you could end up with nothing to transfer and the whole cycle would have been lost

Hi, this is something I'm quite familiar with. It's such a complex area and there is so much to weigh up.

If you get a good number of embryos then it seems pgs can be worth doing in order to identify the ones most likely to result in a baby. However, in this scenario if the first one or two transfers fail then you should have other embryos leftover to try as you got a good number.

If you get a lower number of embryos, then the risk of a healthy embryo being misdiagnosed is more of a concern, as with lower numbers you are more likely using pgs to be told that you have no embryos that are suitable to transfer.

Having thought about this quite a lot, it seems to me that the key benefit of pgs is that it improves the likelihood of actually having a baby if you transfer a 'PGS normal" embryo. Without using pgs, it seems you're more likely to miscarry or have an embryo that fails to implant. I imagine most women would rather know if an embryo definitely won't be viable ahead of transfer, to save the pain and time taken for a transfer that ultimately fails. However, again the challenge is in the grey area - some embryos might not 'pass' pgs but could potentially have resulted in a viable pregnancy.

I'd suggest reading some explanations from ivf clinics that do and don't use it, and the impact this has on their stats. In addition, for most people cost is also a factor. The problem we all face with ivf, especially from our mid-30s, is that the outcomes can't be reliably predicted, so to an extent you're rolling the dice and keeping fingers crossed whichever option you go for.

Wishing you all the very best.

I agree with previous poster it's a very personal decision specific to how you respond to each ivf cycle - if you get lots of blastocysts or not and whether you can mentally and emotionally go through a miscarriage (I've had 5)

I didn't bother PGS testing on my next cycle as what was the point really if i was prepared to transfer mosaics anyway

I'm currently 7 weeks pregnant with twins - both untested embryos - heartbeats seen on Monday.