Failed Frozen IVF

[Drew1978]

Hi hoping there's some hope out there. I am 43 and just had a frozen cycle come back negative. I have 2 eggs still left, grade AB and BB. I was not sure about the medication - felt it was far too strong causing all sorts of problems. Can I have my eggs taken to another clinic? What clinics is everyone using with good success rates? We are at Boston Place. I just feel deflated.

Hi @Drew1978 by the medications being strong, do you mean in your frozen cycle? What was your experience?

You can always transfer your embryos to other clinics, but I think you would need to be clear about the issues with the first clinic in order to make an informed choice on if the new clinic will be better.

@Drew1978 Also I'm sorry about your recent cycle, I'm in the last few days before OTD and it's quite clear this FET has been unsuccessful for me too and it sucks.

I think the cyclogest pessaries gave me a really bad tummy. First with a UTI then with diarreha. I guess I want to learn if other clinics offer alternative medications. I am looking at Create St Pauls and Evewell.

Sorry to hear you are finding this challenging too. Which clinic are you with? Is this your first round too? Sending you positive healing vibes x

@Drew1978 so for a FET you can do medicated or unmedicated. In unmedicated they will monitor your cycle and transfer the embryo at the appropriate point, this can be done with or without progesterone. It's called a natural FET, you will need regular cycles and you should find a clinic open 7 days a week (or your cycle could be cancelled if transfer day falls on a day the clinic is closed) and that do this type of cycle regularly.

In medicated FET you will always need progesterone, there are several options utrogestan, which is a vagina pessary (you will have a lot of discharge), cyclogest which you can use vaginally or rectally, lubion which is a subcut injection and progesterone in oil (this goes in the muscle and I hear is difficult to administer yourself and is painful). You may well find that side effects from progesterone happen with all of these options. It causes constipation.

You may have been unlucky because I'm not sure how the cyclogest could have caused a UTI. The loose stools could have been overflow diarrhea from constipation as it's unlikely that progesterone would cause diarrhea. If you took antibiotics for the UTI then that is likely to be the cause of the loose stools.

This is very helpful, I am looking into unmedicated natural IVF now. Reading up already sounds more suited to me. Thank you for the advice.

@Drew1978 that sounds like a good plan. There are a lot of people who believe that natural FET should be prioritised for all women who have regular cycles, as long as certain criteria are met e.g. there would need to be a good lining thickness in natural cycles. A lot of fertility clinics prefer medicated because it allows them to control timings which suit them with scheduling a lot of patients as they can stagger them.

Do some research and find out which clinics prefer natural FET, they will be able to advise if it's an option for you :)