Refund from IVF clinic

[Francesmalin]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to ask for your advice as I just had my first IVF cycle and it was a complete failure: we collected 10 eggs but 9 were immature. I think my clinic messed up and they triggered me too early and I want to understand if there is a way to prove they made a mistake and get a refund from them?

Hi - I have been in a very similar situation many times, several cycles with 1 and sometimes no mature eggs, so I know how horrible it can be, you have my sympathy . I hope you are doing ok and looking after yourself.

However, I'm sorry to say that you won't get a refund because of this. This is one of many bad outcomes that is possible in a cycle and you will have signed something before starting along the lines of 'I understand this is not guaranteed to work, you may not get any eggs' etc etc.

Most people who have cycles like yours go on to have mature eggs after a protocol change, however some, like me, won't, due to having inherent problems with the egg maturation process. It's because of this that the clinic will say it's not necessarily their fault, and that you may just have problems maturing eggs ( although I very much hope that isn't the case for you).

Agree with previous poster unfortunately getting them to admit any kind of liability will be impossible - the first cycle is often used as a tester round to see how you and your eggs respond but no clinic really wants to admit that you could sink £10k into your first round as a "test" x

We had two (!) similar cycles on two different protocols. My second was gutting - 8/9 immature and the mature egg didn’t fertilise normally.

Unfortunately some people do produce mostly immature eggs and it is usually linked to egg quality. The first round is unfortunately a (very expensive) test - not everyone reacts in a textbook manner and some people just don’t respond well.

We’ve since gone on to a third protocol with the same clinic and managed 90%+ mature eggs in two subsequent rounds and a reasonable number of frozen blastocysts.

Hello everyone thanks for your answers. I am pretty sure the clinic won't admit they messed up but was curious to ask.

In youe experience do you know if the immaturity of the eggs depends from the injection?

How do you get to increase your egg quality?

Did you girls manage to get good eggs and embryos after changes of procedure?

For me they did a few things. The protocol that finally worked for me was something called agonist/antagonist conversion with estradiol valorate priming. We had failures on the short and microdose flare protocols.

I also took human growth hormone for 2 months before and during the round and used a double dose of trigger along with a huge final, double dose of stimulation drug on the same night.

This vastly improved maturity from

@Francesmalin - as I understand it, for the majority of people maturity is based on the following things:

• size of follicles, usually circle 15-22mm at time of trigger, although some people might need slightly bigger in the case of previous cycles of immature eggs
• you may be slightly resistant to the trigger and may need more of it - with a history of immature eggs you may be (really should be) offered a double trigger (either Ovitrelle x 2 doses or 1x Ovitrelle and 1x Buserelin, or similar.
• timing of trigger. 36 hours from trigger to egg collection is standard but some people take a longer time to mature eggs so this can be increased to 38h (or even 40h, but then you risk ovulating before egg collection)

The above may be suggested in conjunction with a protocol change as outlined by @Francesmalin

I'm sorry to derail the thread, but it's very rare to find people with multiple cycles of immature eggs, and even rarer to find those who have fixed the issue, so I hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of questions @Porridgeislife !

Interestingly my clinic also has suggested an agonist antagonist cycle as my next 'last chance' cycle, so it's good to know you've had success with it! I haven't yet spoken to my clinic for the details, and it is SO hard to find info for this protocol online, so please could you give me a brief overview on how it worked, which medications when etc? Did you start on first day of period etc? Did you get more eggs with this protocol or similar to your previous cycles?

Thank you in advance for your time! :)

Hi OP, sorry that you had such an experience.

Have they said if they're going to change your protocol for the 2nd time?

Hello girls! I spoke with the consultant today about the failure of my cycle and my case it's really rare. It happens to only 1%-2% to get good number of eggs but all immature. Although they don't know why this happened (all my blood test are normal + the hormones during treatment were right, etc) the good thing is that next cycle should be back to normal and I should get mature eggs. It's a bit annoying not to know what happened cause I was hoping to hear they messed up but this not the case. It might be the vaccine messed up with my body but it's a correlation I am making and not scientifically proven!

I will need to wait 2-3 months before starting a new cycle but finger crossed it works next time.

Well at least you have an answer. Not a good one - meaning you still don't know exactly what happened- but at least you know the chances are very slim.

Are you feeling any better? Try to keep busy those 2-3 months or maybe plan something fun, so they pass by quickly.
Good luck!

@isabelherna I feel fine, ups and downs but not much I can do. I have all summer ahead to enjoy and that's good cause I have loads of holidays booked. I am still recovering from ER cause I was at risk of ohss but it's getting better!

@Francesmalin That's good news. Relax, recover and enjoy your holidays. Wishing you all the best!