ERA/ALICE/EMMA testing thread 2

[seven201]

Link to the old thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/infertility/4187520-era-testing-after-multiple-implantation-failures-anyone-had-it-done?msgid=110302437&utmsource=mentions&utmmmedium=email&utmcampaign=2020-10-19&utmmterm=You+have+been+mentioned+in+a+post&rei=438192#110302437

Welcome to the new thread. Anyone welcome.

@Gardenlady543 that sounds incredibly stressful and adding in extra complications that seem unnecessary. I'm sorry you're feeling unwell on the meds too - I think clinicians forget that you're a real person ❤️

Thanks @VenusStarr unfortunately there have been a few occasions like this at my clinic. My specialist is very nice and some of the nurses, like the one that scanned me today are really kind. But others seem to lack compassion. It makes you wonder why they'd chose to work in this area. When I mentioned how it was planned last time the response I got was "well this time we're doing it like this".

I'm just feeling so vulnerable right now, I couldn't deal with being this ill on the meds all for nothing :(

@Gardenlady543 I think it's pretty common sadly. I find next steps really do depend on who you see on the day. Sometimes you get someone who will book you in but other times you get sometimes who seems to want to make life more difficult, despite the conditions being the same as last time. I really think they underestimate how important it is to us to have things booked in early. Any appointment I request off from work goes down like a lead balloon and it's a million times worse when it's short notice and has been refused before. So then my stress levels and bp go up. Some nurses are absolutely wonderful though.

I'm glad it reached thickness today. You'll probably get a phonecall tomorrow where they'll start talking to you like you already knew it was definitely going ahead! Really hope you do get a good call.

It's good to know it's not just me @seven201 but also not great that we're all experiencing this :(

I got the call to say go ahead with the progesterone for the biopsy on Monday

In other news my NK biopsy result is back and I am shocked it is 3.44% which is in the normal range. I expected it to be through the roof, I don't know if the gel Mr Trew put there would have affected it. It would be good if I can get a repeat sample to see what it's like this cycle. He mentioned that it tends to vary and that if it's high one cycle they would say to book in the transfer soon as it should be low again soon, so this is a bit annoying as it means last cycle would have been a good time to have a transfer.

@Gardenlady543 what's the gel mr Trew put on? What's the normal range for nk? It's great you have the green light for the biopsy and progesterone start.

@seven201 Mr Trew uses some kind of gel instead of the coil or balloon that Mr Lower uses. He said it comes out after around 10 days, but would have been holding things open for a lot of the cycle I had the biopsy in.

The normal range depends on the dpo, they plotted my result on this chart, so I'm on the lower end of normal, which I just didn't expect at all.

@Gardenlady543 so being that low is really good then right? Sorry, just don't know much about it.

You've only had one transfer since having your microflora treated, so maybe you were just unlucky that time. I'm glad you have the other biopsies soon, hopefully that will shed a bit more light.

@Gardenlady543 good luck today

Hope all goes well today @Gardenlady543 ❤️

How are you @seven201?

I'm 5dpo, it suddenly hit me this morning that I'll be starting my FET next week, feel underprepared :(

@VenusStarr that's great that it starts soon. Why do you feel underprepared?

I'm alright. Still waiting on the results of the pgta testing. Not had a letter yet to say how my surgery went a couple of weeks ago but I think I'll just wait until I have to go have my coil taken out in 2 weeks to ask.

Thanks @seven201 and @VenusStarr

I've had the biopsy, it went well, the doctor that did it managed to get two samples: one for the ERA EMMA and one for the NK biopsy, my husband is driving that one to Coventry as we speak! The doctor said he got good size pieces of tissue for both and it was straightforward which is great news for me since the first biopsy was so difficult to get. I have been counting down the days until I can stop the estradiol, will be good to be off it! I will keep taking progesterone for the next few days to give me some extra time to get the results and plan the transfer cycle.

@seven201 I'm not sure what to think about the first NK biopsy, there is someone in the immune thread that had their first sample come back at 0% and then the next month it was 40%, so I think I'll need to wait and see what this repeat shows.
How long has it been since they sent the cells off for the Pgt-A?

@VenusStarr that's great that you're moving forward! There's so much waiting around in IVF!

@Gardenlady543 excellent news. Bet you're relieved! It is SO nice stopping the awful meds! I bet your husband is quite pleased to do the trip so he can be properly useful.

Cells only sent off last Monday so not expecting them yet. Hopefully next week sometime. Just had a phonecall to say my thyroid autoantibodies has come back clear, so that's at least something!

@seven201 lol I told him he had to take the sample to the clinic at the hospital as they were doing me a favour in processing a sample they hadn't taken. He just told me he called the department when he arrived and had them come get the sample from the drop off zone. Like a drive through service! Nevermind at least it's where it needs to be.

That's good news on the autoantibody front, I had a full autoantibody screen back in February and I was so nervous that the results would reveal an undiagnosed autoimmune condition!

Ah it's only been a week then, you never know the results could come back this week.

That's good news you got both samples @Gardenlady543, glad your husband was on hand :) hoping you aren't waiting too long and that you get some answers / good news.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks pass quickly @seven201 for your coil removal and for your embryo test results 🤞 good news about your thyroid antibodies too, one more thing to rule out.
I do have positive ana antibodies.

I just feel like I haven't done enough, I'm trying to walk each day and make sure I'm eating OK. I think with my fresh round there were things to do, but with a FET, it's just waiting for af, pop a couple of pills and hope my lining plays ball.
Is there anything I should be doing for a FET do you think? X

Thanks both

@VenusStarr don't feel bad. I've gone through all the approaches to FETs. Being super healthy causes me to get a bit stressed as I just can't decide what to eat and it generally makes me a bit miserable.last FET I probably went too far the other way and should have eaten and exercised more. For me I think just walking a bit more, eating less treats and trying to fit in some relaxation time is what I need. There's been threads on here before from people saying their ivf worked on their least healthy round... it's a really personal thing I reckon.

@VenusStarr I'm quite convinced that subtle changes in our body will be the determining factor and there nothing we can do that has much influence on it, so there's not any point in putting pressure on ourselves.

Saying that I just saw someone share this article which found greater implantation in women that drank a daily homemade juice, prepared with fresh beetroot, watermelon and ginger, from the day of embryo transfer until the day of pregnancy test.

doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2019.07.1334

@VenusStarr with my son FET I was gluten sugar and all things processed free. No alchohol for a month before

With this FET I drank up to taking my oestrogen (not huge amounts as I’m not a huge drinker anyways) didn’t stop gluten and had the occasional treat and I ate out.
I don’t think it makes a difference. I put too much pressure on myself over the years and I think it just wore me down. To the point that this time I just did what I wanted within reason. I think it makes more difference for a fresh cycle where ur sugar levels and what u way could impact your eggs. So for my fresh I was always fairly healthy (though no saint!)

@seven201 did u ever find out what lower actually did?! Good luck for pgs results.

@Gardenlady543 glad ur stopping ur meds they are horrible! And good news u got a decent sample.

@Cream123 good to hear from you. How are you doing?

No I don't know what Mr Lower ended up doing. I think I'll just wait to find out when he takes my coil out. Or maybe I'll email Gill if I decide I need to know. Normally I am impatient about everything like this but I can't be bothered to chase at the moment and it's quite nice having a bit of an ivf admin break .

@seven201 haha I know what u mean! Relentless all the time and it’s nice if u make the choice! Id say leave it then :)
I’m ok thanks :)

Thank you all for reassuring me ❤️ I think there is a glimmer of hope in me but I'm petrified to acknowledge it because of what happened last time, so I'm telling myself it's better to be realistic (but actually feeling a bit negative).
It all feels a bit surreal but my meds are coming today, so hopefully having them and sorting them, I'll feel a bit better.

Thank you for sharing the link @Gardenlady543

Glad you're enjoying the break @seven201

Pleased to hear you're OK @Cream123 I got a bit worried when I read about your son's FET, but then saw what you did with this pregnancy and relaxed a bit! :)

Hi @Gardenlady543 - it’s previously forever ain’t enough here. I stupidly got involved in an argument with a horrible person on AIBU and ended up getting banned 😭 even though I’m usually just on here and actually contribute 🤷‍♀️ My own fault - I was having a bad day. Anyway I managed to set up this account but it’s likely I might get kicked off again but I wanted to let you know I got my repeat results back yesterday. Good bacteria gone from 0% to 75% and bad bacteria is now only 9% and not indicative of Chronic Endometritis. Advice now is to keep taking the Canesflor to hopefully get the good bacteria up even further. So it can and does improve. Hoping yours also comes back normal.

Just to say I have never had any issues with lining so I wonder if there is something else impacting that and it’s not related to the Emma & Alice results. Just wanted to say that as we are both the only 0% I know!

If you ever want to talk to me and I can’t get back on here you can find me on Instagram - my username is annas_story25.11 there is a great community of infertility girls in insta too.

Hi @Dochas1 it's good to hear from you, I've been thinking about you and that makes sense as to why we haven't heard from you. I hope you can stick around!

That's amazing news about the microflora improvement, I hope I get a good outcome from the repeat that was taken yesterday.

My lining seems to have improved after the treatment, even in natural cycles, I was originally 5.4mm at 9dpo and last month I was 8.1mm. The biopsy was also straight forward yesterday compared to the first time. Since we last spoke I had a hysteroscopy and everything looked good in the uterus. So I'm hoping this is everything sorted, and that a transfer will work.

What's happening with your treatment at the moment, are you having a transfer soon?

That all sounds very positive @Gardenlady543 hopefully you will also see a good improvement in the test result and confirm the implantation window too. I think even my consultant was surprised as he was talking about if it went up to 20/30% I have a consult with him tomorrow to see what next steps are. I am hoping we can go ahead with a FET. He said if it didn’t improve he would recommend more IVF as would likely need more embryos for it to work but hopefully now we won’t.

I have 4 untested frozen from 6 rounds of IVF. 3 are AA grades and 1 is BB so good grades. We’ve found the implantation window from ERA, fixed the Emma/Alice issues, found I have progesterone absorption issues which hopefully will be solved with intra muscular PIO injections, has thrombophelia screening which came back fine and had blood tests for NKC which came back marginally raised so I’ll be on steroids for that. Hoping we have done enough. I don’t tend to have lining issues. I don’t know if there’s anything else he will propose. As it was so hard for us to get the embryos we did all this in advance of transfer as I don’t know if I have it in me for a 7th round.

Are you also hoping for a October FET?

I am also dreading it. I find the oestrogen gives me panic attacks. I thought I was going crazy last time but then they all went away once I came off it so I guess at least I will be prepared this time.

@Dochas1 I had the same thing from the estradiol in my last FET! I think it was caused by my level going from 0 to 8000 within a few days, I had this constant sense of panic which I've never experienced before. This time I started on a lower dose and it was then increased up and while I was still nauseated and vomiting, I wasn't having the anxiety.

It sounds like you've covered all the bases. How do they know about the progesterone absorption issues, is that based on a low blood progesterone level? The PIO is often used in the USA and it seems to be really good but it's an IM injection which is never fun!

My first NK biopsy came back at 3% which is on the low side of normal, I'm interested to see what the second one is like. I'm going to stay on the progesterone for a few days to delay my period, then I'll have a cycle off while waiting for the results and hopefully go for a transfer in November.

@Dochas1 great news your good bacteria has improved so much . That must be such a relief!