Embryo batching with PGS testing

[2021ivfagain]

Hello. I thought I’d start a new thread. It seems like the old one has been closed.

It’s been really good to share advice and experiences when going through the ups and downs of embryo batching.

@Lola245
Hi. How did your last egg retrieval go? It sounded like you were doing well.

I’m doing my mock cycle this month to test for ERA, Emma, Alice and nk cells. I’m dreading the biopsy.

@2021ivfagain Sorry for delay in reply I’ve stopped following all threads atm as there seems to be so many people getting their bfps right now. We do have some PGTA tested embryos but I just can’t work up much positivity. I believe I could get pregnant again but I’ve lost faith that I can carry to term. We are private but I find I still have to be on top of things. My cycle has improved post lap but is still very heavy. I have my follow up Friday which is making me anxious but at the same time I’m desperate to find out more about my results.

@InvisibleDreamer

Hi. That’s ok. I’m not always checking the posts that quickly as feeling overwhelmed sometimes with everything. I did my biopsy last week with Emma, Alice, era and nk cells. My progesterone was checked and on 5th day it was 113 which I was pleased about. I’ve been on an even stricter low sugar/no yeast diet to bring candida levels down! I am having a few treats this month as have not been out of meals for over a year.

I’m pleased cycle has improved. Usually heavy periods are a sign of high oestrogen. My periods used to be heavy and were also when I first had my son nearly 2 years ago.

At least you have some PGS tested embryos. If I were you, I would do a natural modified FET cycle as it tends to be easier to produce more progesterone. Are you doing Emma, Alice, era and nk cells tests?

I know it seems difficult now but it will be worth it when you are successful. What is the next stage for you?

@2021ivfagain Well done for sticking to a strict diet I find it really difficult but I have so many intolerances now it does get really boring. I had very high oestrogen during egg collections so I suspect it is always high. My clinic prefers to do medicated cycles but I will ask for my progesterone levels to be checked next time & see if they will reduce the amount of oestrogen. At the moment I’m trying to find out if the extra immune tests I need done can be done at my clinic or if I need to go to London. Annoyingly I just missed a call back from clinic as I was driving and now they are closed. I’m not doing Emma, ERA or Alice as I had implantation on my second FET. When will you get your biopsy results?

I thought I’d chime in as I’m starting my first ever IVF cycle today, I just had my first round of injections. 225 x Meriofert + 225 Fostimon + Growth hormone on alternating nights
My story is 42 years old with no previous children, but 4 pregnancies and miscarriages under my belt in this last year.
Tests found no other obvious cause for the recurrent miscarriage so it’s been put down to age-related egg quality so we feel PGS testing is the way to go.
it’s extremely prices so have small hopes as can only afford one single round. Your experiences are very helpful and insightful to me. Thank you for this thread

@2021ivfagain Thank you so much for all the advice about food and supplements to help with the thrush, that is so kind of you! I’ve done what I could in the timeframe I had and the thrush seems to have gone so I will see if I can get the Invivo test done again soon after Christmas and look at the stuff that might take longer to work like supplements. I’ll either be doing a third egg collection or (definitely dreaming here!) a transfer in Jan/ Feb so I should have a window before that.

I’m hopefully getting my eggs collected next Wednesday and feeling far less optimistic than last time but we shall see!

Welcome @clhiu so sorry to hear about your losses and hope your cycle goes well. Are you in the UK? Just asking as you said you have growth hormone as part of your protocol. I don’t think it’s something my clinic offers but I read it can be good for egg quality issues (which I have) and I would be interested to know if you think it’s useful?

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal thanks for your reply
I am in the UK, under the care of CRGH in London.
My consultant’s throwing everything at it in the hope to have me produce as many mature eggs as possible so that we might have at least one euplody embryo.
I read growth hormone can improve egg quality too, but she explained I was prescribed it to help as many eggs as possible to fully mature. I’m also on 1mg per day of Dextamethosone which I was told instead is specifically to improve egg quality.
These two add-ons to the high dose gonadotropins should help me get as many eggs as possible allegedly whilst them being as good quality as possible.
For added reference, if helpful to anybody, since April I’ve also been on 5mg folic acid, 300mg CoQ10, 300mg Aphalipolic acid, 1000mg cod liver oil, 2000mg vitamin D and vitamib B group tablets.
About 3 months after starting these supplements, hoping they’d improved egg quality I became pregnant naturally for the 4th time, I was prescribed progesterone pessaries and low dose heparin in support, but still ended in miscarriage, currently waiting for the result of the biopsy to find out if it was a chromosomal abnormality.
The previous one was a triploidy, which wouldn’t normally be age related.
The first two losses happened earlier and naturally so there was no tissue to send off for testing so we will never know.

@clhiu Thanks for your reply! That’s interesting about the growth hormone, I did OK for number of eggs last time but the quality wasn’t great so if we need another round after the current one I will ask about Dexamethasone. I had a consultation with CRGH, fully expecting to have my treatment there, but the consultant we saw (not the same one as ours was male) wasn’t great so we went elsewhere. They have really good success rates there so hopefully you’re in good hands and fingers crossed you get a good batch of eggs/ embryos!

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal I am sorry to hear you didn’t have a good experience with the consultant you saw at CRGH.
I purely came across mine as I was looking for someone who specialised in recurrent miscarriage, of whom there don’t seem to be many about, but this clinic and her name came up so went with it.
Have to be honest, the costs for a single round are eye watering so no doubt I will be extremely embittered and not necessarily feel like recommending them if it doesn’t work out.

Good luck with egg collection next wednesday 🤞🤞🤞. Let me know how it goes.

had my first ever tracking scan today after the first 3 days of stims, I have 17 follicles apparently, but sizes are allover the place for now, yet the nurse told me it’s a fairly standard picture at this early stage, does anybody know whether this is true? She told me to continue with the same protocol, but other than that she was pretty vague and wasn’t sharing much information.

thanks!

@clhiu Thank you! I think 17 follicles on day 3 of stims sounds really good (but I’m not an expert by any means - there are some very knowledgeable people on the thread so hopefully someone else will be able to give you a bit more detail!) it’s about what I had last round and more than I have this round. I have found exactly the same, that the medical staff are a bit sketchy about exactly what they can see on the scans and very reluctant to commit to definitive numbers. They did say that they’re looking at a 2D image of something 3D so it’s very difficult to be certain of anything and, in our case, I think they want to try and manage our expectations a bit so we’re not disappointed if things don’t go as well as they seemed to be. Fingers crossed your follicles (and mine!) continue to grow well!

Yes @clhiu @CharlotteYorkMacDougal 17 follicles on day 3 is a very good start. Even in day 6 of stimming meds not much growth is visible sometimes. You basically need some even growth of these follicles and you are into an excellent cycle. I have done 6 egg collections so a bit of a veteran unfortunately!

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal thank you. Mind me asking how many blasts you ended up with from that cycle in the end? And did you bank them or were they tested already?

@Sarahk20000 thanks for your expert view, really appreciate it. Sorry to hear you’ve been through this mill that many times. I hope things ended up or will end up working out for you.

The one round is literally all I can afford so not very hopeful for success, knowing the statistics, but putting myself through the process now because I had to try one more thing before resigning completely.

Does anybody know if Cetrotide is supposed to negatively affect egg quality? I feel I read someone mentioning it in a thread, but cannot really find any studies or anything else online to say that and I know my consultant is especially concerned with egg quality so I shall hope she wouldn’t have recommended this specific protocol if she thought it would impact that negatively, but would love to hear your experiences.

Thanks

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal thank you. Mind me asking how many blasts you ended up with from that cycle in the end? And did you bank them or were they tested already?

@Sarahk20000 thanks for your expert view, really appreciate it. Sorry to hear you’ve been through this mill that many times. I hope things ended up or will end up working out for you.

The one round is literally all I can afford so not very hopeful for success, knowing the statistics, but putting myself through the process now because I had to try one more thing before resigning completely.

Does anybody know if Cetrotide is supposed to negatively affect egg quality? I feel I read someone mentioning it in a thread, but cannot really find any studies or anything else online to say that and I know my consultant is especially concerned with egg quality so I shall hope she wouldn’t have recommended this specific protocol if she thought it would impact that negatively, but would love to hear your experiences.

Thanks

@clhiu I got one euploid from 21 eggs collected last time (I have PCOS and they believe my egg quality is poor) it’s frozen and waiting for either when we either have enough banked or we decide we aren’t able to do any more egg collection cycles. The consultant said today that there’s nine decent sized follicles so we’re hoping for better quality even if there’s not as many and crossing our fingers that having ICSI will help.We understand that if the drop off rate is the same as last time the most likely outcome is getting nothing from this cycle though.

I personally don’t know anything about Cetrotide affecting egg quality but given how often it’s used I would be surprised if that were the case. I hope your stims are going well, are you expecting your egg collection to be next week?

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal thanks for sharing all this information, it's really invaluable for me.

I hope egg collection went well and ICSI helped with getting a better fertilisation rate this time.

Mine's pencilled in for Sunday however I'm waiting for the nurse's call following today's scan, the consultant who did the scan suggested it may get brought forward to Saturday given the size of my follicles, I sort of hope not as it'd get in the way of work logistics, but we knew we had to be ready at short notice I suppose.

Will let you know how it goes in the end.

@clhiu Thank you! The number ‘collected’ on the day was 16 but only 11 of those actually contained eggs. Eight fertilised and we’re now waiting for day 3/5/6 and then will do PGT-A if there are any blastocysts. I’m trying not to look too far ahead but unless the blastulation and euploidy rates are significantly better than last time I’m thinking of changing clinics. Going to look at CRGH, ARGC and abroad

@clhiu Sorry posted before I meant to! Hope your egg collection goes well wether it’s on Sunday or Saturday and you get lots of good quality eggs 🤞

Good morning everyone

I just wanted post an update following my egg collection yesterday for those who my be interested.

Eggs collected 16
Actual mature eggs retrieved 12
Fertilised 10

I was hoping for 100% fertilisation rate as we paid for IMSI, but I realise there are many factors at play with fertilisation other then the ability of a healthy looking sperm to penetrate an egg and 80%+ is very good.

I realise 12 eggs and 10 embryo is a very good result for my age, but average drop-off rates I’ve been quoted of 60-70% likely mean I may just end of with 3-4 to test at best which isn’t great odds for the hope of getting at least one epuloid, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

If we get leass than 5-6, considering the risks associated with the biopsy I’d be tempted to just freeze them and transfer them one by one hoping for the best and for at least one to be normal. Plus the cost of test is quite hight, but includes up to 8 embryos so almost wouldn’t really feel economical to test less than 5.

@CharlotteYorkMacDougal I hope all is proceeding well with your last cycle and you’re seeing better dropoff rates than last time. It’s a tiring and stressful process to go over multiple times, but must bring some solace to know you have one normal embryo banked and the option to do additional cycles.

best to all

Hi all,

May I join? I thought I was finished with IVF/PGS etc but sadly had a miscarriage at 20 weeks earlier in November of a euploid embryo, our baby boy. Unbelievably sad, bad luck after all we’ve been through.
Never tried naturally, we’ve been doing PGT-M (includes PGS/PGT-A) to avoid passing on a genetic condition. I’ve done 12 stim cycles (yes 12, not a typo!), five FETs (two before doing PGS), one daughter age 3 and then one early miscarriage and one late miscarriage. To top it off, I’m 43😔. I got a euploid at age 43 earlier this year after three cycles/5 blastocysts so hoping I can make at least one more and hope it passes the 50:50 genetic disease test too. Lots of hurdles that sometimes seem
insurmountable. I’m hoping to start my cycle in Jan, pending return of my period after miscarriage. I’ll be on a long protocol.

All the best to those currently waiting for blastocyst updates @CharlotteYorkMacDougal @clhiu .

@CailinInUK So sorry for your loss. It feels doubly cruel when you’ve been through IVF as well. Hopefully you can get some more healthy embryos in the new year.

Hi@CailinInUK … welcome! You are certainly inspiring…Does it get easier doing stimulation cycles after doing 12? I’m on my second cycle. I miscarriaged an untested good looking embryo from cycle 1. It had genetic abnormalities so am testing the results of this cycle. Due to low amh this cycle is only 3 follicles with egg collection tomorrow. This is the first cycle with Lister and I just turned 42. Have all your cycles been with the same clinic?

@InvisibleDreamer thank you, it’s been so tough. I’ve tried catching up and think you’ve had a long wait for a FET. I hope you have a firmer timescale now.

@birdbybird inspiring?! Glad you think so 😊Sometimes I feel stupid for trying so hard!
It was easier once I had the mindset that it’s going to take several cycles and that I’m in it for the long haul. What hasn’t been easy at all is returning to do PGT now, after losing our boy at 20 weeks. I really thought we were home and dry and now at square one with poor odds of success at my age.
I really hope your EC goes well tomorrow and you get maximum numbers possible.

@birdbybird I didn’t answer your other question - I was at Guys and St Thomas (London) for my first NHS cycle and the following two FETs. Then transferred to Care Nottingham for the next 11 cycles. Was so angry at genetic counsellor for referring me to Guys in London when I live in Nottingham. It wasted two years, one year waiting and one year for treatment that didn’t include PGS.

@CailinInUK I’m sorry for not acknowledging your loss in my earlier message (I can be thick at times)
Im sorry for your loss at 20 weeks. Did they find the reason? Or are investigations still going? I can imagine it being tough to come back to Pgt-a . Do you have any euploid embryos left?
I feel like I don’t have any (euploids) in me and my embryo production is so low. My amh is 2.9 and being 42 I’m just wondering if I’m fighting a losing battle.
Whats kept you going after having your daughter? I have a son who I had at 39 after trying for 6 months and since then it’s been disappointment after disappointment.

@CailinInUK I am so sorry to hear about your loss, especially being from an euploid embryo, I can’t imagine going through this, getting a viable one and then still losing it. I experienced 4 losses so I can understand your pain.

Must be tough having to get back to it allover again, but positive that you still have more in you and can keep going after this many cycle, I concur that commends praise for strength and dedication.

For financial reasons, this is my only chance and have no other children so trying to give some serious thinking to the option of a child-free life before I’m too disappointed, but easier said than done. If I didn’t hope it worked deep down I wouldn’t have even put myself through it.

Good luck to everyone awaiting results or to start their next cycle x