Embryo Banking Support Thread / PGS wait

[ForeverAintEnough]

Hi all, I’ve just name changed but I’ve been on here loads and chatting to many of you under different user names ( irrational fear of being outed!). I wondered if there was interest in a ‘no transfer happening’ group? So those doing embryo banking or PGS or whatever.

I’ve just done one round of embryo banking and found the normal threads difficult with discussion of hoping for a Christmas pregnancies etc.

We are unfortunately taking the long way round with 3 rounds and no transfer. It looks like my first transfer might not be until June 2021.

If anyone wants to jump on feel free!

About us: Me 34, DH 36, TTC 3 years. Both male and female issues. x3 rounds of IVF all failed. Moved clinic to Lister for 3 rounds of embryo banking and PGS. One round of embryo banking just finished with x3 blasts sent off for PGS testing.

@InvisibleDreamer the thing is it's not just one day they don't do PGT-A, its three. If you base off my last cycle, I'd fall on Sunday, and they only do PGT-A Weds-Saturday. So it'd mean moving it forward, which is rarely a good idea. For the sheer amount of cost, effort, trauma (I have to be sedated for every single monitoring blood draw due to a SEVERE phobia and horrible veins, so each cycle involves a lot of trauma) to othen get sub-optimal results because eggs were collected a day earlier than they should have been...is not great.

I did talk to the nurse on the emergency line today and she advised to to start my stims tomorrow evening at the dosage planned as cycles can vary enough naturally that its too hard to predict how it will actually fall. She hinted that they might be able to get in extra staff for me if its really necessary but clearly didn't want to make any promises. I do feel a bit better after talking to her though!

@tulipsandsnow how are you getting on with stims? Did you get any answers about the PGTA testing on the days they are closed?

I'm due to start "meds" such as they are today for my FET. Just antibiotics today then start daily scans on Saturday. Did a PCR yesterday as feeling rough but negative. Giving me more confidence that I may have escaped Omicron over Christmas but have to do another for the clinic next week so not certain.

Hope you're all doing well

Xxx

@Janefx40 good luck with your cycle 😊 I started with spotting today so am waiting for full flow to be able to book the baseline scan - which I think will be on Sunday. Looks like I am behind you in schedule. How long do daily scans last and what is the approx transfer time? Fingers crossed we manage to avoid covid.

@Sarahk20000 ooo good luck. How are you feeling about it?

Daily scans start on Saturday and booked until Thursday but probably won't have to do them all. In the mock cycle we skipped day or two when I wasn't close to ovulation. ARGC was easier because I just did OPKs and went in when it was positive. Not often you can say that ARGC is the less intense option!!

If I am in on Sunday it's around 10am so get in touch if you're there too and want to say hi x

@Janefx40 thanks for asking! Took 4th night stims tonight, clinic have confirmed they have moved to being able to PGT-A testing for all collection days of the week so that is a relief. I hope they still have just as experienced people doing it every day, as I know it was a staffing issue reason to only do it on certain days...as obviously its only a low risk thing to do with a highly skilled embryologist!

Should be having egg collection weekend after next, sometimes can't believe having to go through this all again but hey ho. Good luck with your FET, are you transferring a euploid? x

@Ivfhoper

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. On New Year’s Eve I went around to visit my Dad for his birthday and I was afraid he was having another stroke. It turned out to be suspected TIA but had to call 999. Life has been stressful since his massive stroke September 2020.

I’m sorry to hear the treatment did not go ahead. The wheatgrass powder is cheaper. You can get it from Holland and Barrett. I think it’s called Naturya.

@SarahK20000
@Janefx40

Good luck with your FET cycle. I’m starting to panic about the next round as I’ve had to wait since end of November to start again. I’m starting norethisterone on 11th January so I’ll be stimming very end of January/beginning of February.

@SarahK20000
When I last had scans, they were quite quick, but sometimes weekend appointments involved a lot of waiting around at busy times. When I had my fresh transfer March 2020, I had to wait quite a while for the procedure and had to have a full bladder which was difficult!

@tulipsandsnow oh that's great news about the testing. You must feel relieved. Sorry you're doing this again but at least you get another go at that lovely sedative! I'm going to miss that !!

@2021ivfagain sorry to hear about your Dad. You must have been so worried. Hope he's ok now.

Xxx

@Janefx40 I actually can't have IV sedative for IVF or anything else, I have one of the most severe needle-in-vein phobias a person can have to the point where I can't tolerate an IV even for a second let alone minutes. I black out and panic and not even to save my life could I leave an IV in my arm. So for egg collection I have go under General, and they have to knock me out with a breathing in mask. I then wake up from the general completely panicked and in a lot of pain. The whole thing is one of the more traumatic things I've been through! Even for my routine blood draws they have to give me oral sedatives and put me in a dark room and time it just right when warm bottles etc as my veins are bad the adrenaline from the terror I feel collapses them and no one can get blood out. So every time they take monitoring bloods I'm at the hospital for hours just for that and experience trauma :(

I had over 20 failed blood draws in my life before I started IVF from general practice doctors/nurses, as the veins would collapse the second they tried because of my terror. I'm really thankful I've found a clinic that is willing to deal with the complexity of getting blood every time and that is happy to do General. Without their compassion and patience I'd have no way to do IVF!

@tulipsandsnow oh you poor thing. That sounds so traumatic. You are absolutely amazing to be doing IVF. As hard as it is you must be so proud of yourself for going through it with that additional barrier. Us IVF women never cease to amaze me with the resilience we all show! 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

@2021ivfagain it must be so much harder to navigate iVF cycles with your dads health in the background too. Wishing you the best for your upcoming cycle. Hopefully it will come round quickly.
@tulipsandsnow that sounds so very traumatic and so much harder to go through. Kudos to you for pushing through as you are.
@Janefx40 I forgot to ask you before but do you know the grading of your eulploid embryos. Does your consultant also hold the belief that the grading isn’t as important as the fact that the embryos are PGS normal. I am very paranoid since the consent forms have clearly mentioned that those with lower than B+ grade embryos (even if PGS tested) can choose to transfer 2 at a time, which implies they have lower potential. I think I will stick with transferring 1 for now (my remaining two are day 5 and day 6 B-B- grades) as I am too scared of multiple pregnancy but I did wonder. Saying that our B+B+ embryo wasn’t successful so suspect it really is all chance. Hardest part of ivf seems to be the acceptance nothing is in control or certain.

Hi all, I'd like to join the thread. I'm going to start embryo batching with CRGH next month - three back to back retrievals. I'm doing IVF for genetic reasons, and sadly have had three failed transfers using NHS funding. The funding has now run out, which is a shame, but it does mean we can now move to batching and do PGS and PGD testing at the end.

Across my three previous retrievals I produced nine blasts, with three of those being suitable for transfer - i.e. passing both PGD & PGS. I'm hoping to produce similar this time, but conscious I'm more than a year older than I was when I started - I'm nearly 37.

Nobody can find any reasons for the failed transfers. I've done an ERA, EMMA and ALICE, a hysteroscopy and I've done immunes. I have an existing DC, conceived naturally and quickly. I had a second opinion last month from a consultant outside of my clinic, who believes I've been unlucky and, as long as I can keep producing the blasts, should just continue. I'm going to set aside the ERA next time (hoping there is a next time!) and try a natural transfer. I don't know that it will ultimately work, and I can't help feeling there's some underlying problem yet to be discovered by science, but I feel I have to try.

Hi @Rosemarypots welcome. Sorry about your long journey. I hope you have more success this time. Just for your information, I am doing a natural cycle FET and had a natural cycle ERA in preparation for it. So you don't necessarily have to ignore the ERA to do a natural cycle.

Best of luck x

@Rosemarypots welcome! Sorry to hear about your failed transfers. Fingers crossed for your batching cycles - they take a lot of patience but a good way to reach a good number of blastocysts. I did the same at CRGH with 3 batching cycles after a first cycle that failed to reach any blastocysts. I am old than you at 41 now. Do use us if you need any info etc as some of us have been with CRGH a while. I am on the 8th cycle with them (4 egg collections, 1 failed transfer, 2 mock cycles for ERA, EMMA, ALICE and now a FET transfer). Good luck with it all.

Aaah thanks @Janefx40 and @Sarahk20000.

With the ERA, mine was based on a medicated cycle, so I'd need to repeat it but in a natural cycle instead. Not sure I can face doing that, but I will bear it in mind.

I've been with CRGH throughout, so sadly I'm a bit of a veteran as well. I appreciate the offer though, as I know how daunting it can be getting to grips with their processes and playing the appointments system! I did consider changing clinics after our third failed transfer, but I've decided not to as CRGH have come up with a stims protocol that seems to work for me - it's been getting the blasts to stick that's turned into the hardest bit. I'm glad though that I got a second opinion on this after my third transfer.

@Sarahk20000, do you know why the embryologists prefer to freeze on day three and then defrost and grow to day 5/6 at the end of the batching, instead of growing to day 5/6 on a cycle by cycle basis, taking a sample of each blast and freezing the sample for submission at the end? I keep meaning to ring them up and ask them at some point. Thank you

@Rosemarypots ah so you know crgh well, that’s handy! I also sometimes think if the current transfer fails maybe I should think about a different clinic for a last round - but then I think it’s just luck at the end of the day as they seem to be a clinically good enough place. Sorry, I don’t know why they choose to freeze on day 3. I found this frustrating but was told there wasn’t a choice (though I did find there was some comfort in facing the number of normals at the end rather than being disappointed if one cycle didn’t go as well). They charge for up to 8 embryos to be tested but I don’t see why they couldn’t just test per cycle and grow each embryo to day 5 biopsy and then freeze. I even worried about the freezing and then thawing and re freezing of the day 3s with the last batch but they assured me that wasn’t a problem. Maybe someone else on the board knows why they take this approach, strangely I didn’t think to ask. It’s good you are doing back to back cycles which will be quicker, I had one cycle break each time as my consultant preferred that and feel like it’s taken a long.

@Rosemarypots I think the day 3 freezing is just because of them charging for 8 at a time. There isn't any science behind it. It put me off a bit but ultimately I wanted to come to their clinic so I didn't have much choice. It can make it hard to make decisions though - we were choosing between 2 or 3 banking cycles but it was just guess work as we didn't know how many would make blasts. I'm glad we did the 3rd though as it got us another euploid.

@Sarahk20000 sorry I missed your question before. My blasts are 6B+B- and 6B-B-. They were both day 5s but I think hatching which gives them the 6. Not perfect but they didn't seem concerned.

Xxx

@Sarahk20000 oh and personally I wouldn't switch clinics because the only clinics with better results for over 40s are CRGH and ARGC. ARGC is great but very intense and expensive (I was there before) so personally I'd stick with CRGH unless I was wanting a totally different approach.

@Janefx40 I think it was whether I should go a different approach and a fresh transfer with ARGC. I am not as concerned about the cost as it seems a last shot really with my age. Will first see how this one goes, if this doesn’t work may just transfer my last euploid after this and call it a day.

Thanks @Janefx40. I understand why they don't PGS on a round by round basis given the cost, however in some ways it would be good to know how many blasts I get on a round by round basis. I say this because I've tended to do really well on day three, with most of the fertilised eggs developing normally, but then having a big drop off by day 5. I know this is relatively normal, but it's still disheartening.

My consultant has told me they don't grow to blast, thaw and then biopsy at the end because they've found it's trickier to biopsy previously frozen blasts when compared with growing previously frozen day 3s to blast and then doing the biopsies.

I thought I'd heard about other clinics freezing blast samples on day 5/6 following each retrieval, which are then all sent off to the lab for testing following the final retrieval. This way, all the testing would be done at the end, but you'd know how many blasts you'd produced on a round by round basis. I mentioned it to my consultant and she said CRGH doesn't offer this, but couldn't tell me why.

@Sarahk20000 if you haven't tried them yet and can afford it then why not try ARGC. They will throw the kitchen sink at it so you'll feel you've left no stone unturned. But hopefully this transfer will work and there will be no need!

Am I right @Janefx40 and @Sarahk20000 that you each got two euploid blasts from your banking? Shows the benefits of the banking approach.

I got three from three retrievals that passed both PGS and PGD - would love to get the same again, but I'm conscious of time passing.

@Sarahk20000 thanks it is really hard, nothing else in the world could give me the courage other than the desire to be a mum!

re: euploid embryo quality, there are at least two studies that said that better graded euploids have significantly better chances, but it wasn't a big difference in the 'middle area', mostly just that 4AAs/5AAs were way more likely to work than CBs/BCs. So comparing the highest quality to the lowest quality that gets frozen

@Rosemarypots I got one from each of rounds 2 and 3 so am glad I did a third. Who knows whether they will work though? As you know only too well, a Euploid is no guarantee. But at age 44 I have gone from a 5% chance to a 50% chance so that's something at least x