How many transfers did it take you after the first failed?

[thislittlebird]

I’ve done my first FET and was cautiously optimistic thinking that egg meeting sperm had been our main issue, but I know it can take a few attempts. Now I know this has failed, I’m wondering how many transfers did it take you after the first failed to have a child? It feels like it will never work right now, I’m 38 about to turn 39.

@thislittlebird tbh it makes no difference whether your 5 weeks or 5days. A loss is terrible at any stage. I was similar, I had a positive on one of my earlier transfers and were over the moon to see those two lines for the first time but sadly caught Covid and it all ended by day 14 (not that we can know Covid was the issue). I still get upset thinking about it.

really sorry to hear you’ve been unhappy with your nhs clinic. One thing for sure is that private care is completely different - faster, more specific etc. We moved to lister after our first nhs round and I couldn’t speak highly enough of them. The staff are lovely, any query I had was answered swiftly and I really felt like I was listened to. They have loads of data on their system so you can get quite specific stats for you. We used one of the access packages which really helped take the stress of money away so worth considering if you haven’t already. I feel excited for you going there and hope you have a brilliant experience too. X

@Scottishgirl85 no, because of cost and we didn’t have a lot of embryos. It’s something I’d think about but I’m not sure. Did you do it?

@Agapanthus13 yeah it sucks. It’s so hard because we invest so much time, energy, and emotion to get those two lines and then it all goes wrong anyway.

They were ok at first and then have seemed to be really chaotic the last few months. I’m looking forward to the difference in experience starting private. Not looking forward to the cost, but yes, we’ll try an access package. Thanks, I hope I have a good experience. Can I ask which doctor you saw there? Maybe it was more than one, I’ve seen a couple back when I was doing Letrozole cycles with them before the nhs funding for ivf came through.

We didn't. Had 1 failed fresh followed by 2 successful FETs. I have friends who used PGD though. Just thought with 3 failed rounds it's most likely genetic issues. Wishing you much luck. We did private ivf in Czech Republic and worked out much cheaper.

@Scottishgirl85 I’ve heard good things about those clinic. Tbh my personal theory is it’s my immune system because I have a history of overreactive immense system issues and chronic conditions. I self medicated with low dose prednisone that I had at home this time and it was the only time I got a positive test. So I’ll probably be asking my clinic for that officially next time.

Immune not immense*. They’re definitely not immense.

@thislittlebird we had James N (can’t remember how to spell his surname). He was our consultant so he was who we always spoke to about treatment. Interms of transfers & egg collection etc but ultimately it was dependant on who was on shift that day.
def worth talking to them about all the different options, they didn’t recommend pgd testing for us, said it would prob be a waste of money as there was nothing in our tests to suggest we needed it. We were planning to do immune testing on our next round and were also considering looking at optimum transfer day testing (I can’t think of any of the medical terms today, sorry I’m shattered!) This last round we had clexane prescribed for recurrent ivf failure, might be worth asking about too. I found our consultant good at talking through all the options and advising what he thought we should do.

@Agapanthus13 that’s who I’m booked in with! I hope he was nice. I’m preparing a whole document for him with all our test results, transfer outcomes etc.

I think you’re younger than me but I’m pretty sure at my age duff embryos won’t be a shock to them.

Did you do medicated transfers? Maybe you mean the endometrial receptivity testing? I’m avoiding medicated because I have hormonal migraines and I’ve done natural modified so far, keen to continue with that and obviously it did work this time, if briefly. Had you moved clinic when you got your positive test for this pregnancy?

@thislittlebird we both liked him, I’m sure he’ll run through suitable options for you. I did natural transfers with them, still cyclogest involved but that was it much nicer than the medicated transfer I did elsewhere. yes, I meant endometrial receptivity testing!! Thanks. My current pregnancy was through lister.

@Agapanthus13 Thanks for sharing, I'm really pleased to hear you had a good experience and positive outcome. I'm keen to swerve the medicated, I don't need to feel physically ill, and I'm pleased at least that this embryo did implant on a natural cycle, hopefully I can continue with those.

Hi @thislittlebird Im looking into the Lister as well. We had a supposedly good quality embryo which I miscarriaged and was found to have trisomy 21. The other frozen embryo we then pgt-a tested and it was missing chromosome 19 so we did a comet test on husbands sperm and found it had more unhealthy sperm than should be for ivf. Lister uses something called the Zymot chip and primarily one of the reasons I’m looking into them.
I will Pgt-a test again I think.

@birdbybird can I ask how many embryos you started with, then how many tested etc? I’m assuming the one you had was the good one.

My husband has some fragmentation but he had 0% high when tested so Dr Ramsay ‘cleared’ us to start icsi. That was over a year ago, obviously our embryos all failed but because only the last one implanted, I can’t if any would have worked if I’d been taking the same meds I did when one did implant briefly, if that makes sense.

I’ll have to look into this Zymot thing. We’re seeing them on Wednesday, I’ll let you know how it goes.

It feels like a mountain to climb with very few embryos and a lot of bad sperm. I wish they could test the sperm before they inject it 😩

@thislittlebird I understand.
The Zymot apparently helps filter out sperm with fragmentation and we have our own appointment with Dr Ramsay beginning of November.

We got 6 mature eggs. All fertilised and got to day 3 but only 4 were 7-9 cells. At day 5 only one was a good grade (5bb) and it was transferred and implanted but no heartbeat at 8 weeks and testing of miscarriage tissue revealed a trisomy. 2 were frozen on day 6. We weren’t planning to Pgt-a but after the miscarriage changed our mind and decided to test the frozen. One didn’t survive the thaw and the other had a chromosome missing.

@birdbybird I’ll have to ask about it. I’m guessing it’s not cheap. When I met with the lister before nhs funding came through they suggested IMSI and I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s just a big microscope, it’s not like they can see inside the best looking sperm with it. I don’t really understand the benefit.

That’s frustrating about the embryos. I’m always in two minds about testing because I suspect we’ll end up with none and I don’t know how I feel about that.

@thislittlebird I heard something about using a combination of Icsi or imsi and the Zymot. We’re waiting for my husband’s urine culture results to see if there’s any hidden infection.

@birdbybird I’m going to try to think of a list of things to chat to him about Wednesday. Just collecting all my results and remembering how bad my husband’s sperm is all over again. The ivf sort of made me forgot but it reminds me how unlikely we are to conceive naturally.

@thislittlebird i have found this thread after going through 2 failed embryo transfers and wondered did you have success in the end? Xx

@Marshmallow99 yes, I did! We now have a happy and healthy one year old daughter. It was a real slog though, 3 egg collection cycles and eight embryos transferred including one double. It feels like a distant memory now but at the time it was a very horrendous rollercoaster and I'd pretty much given up on it working by our 8th attempt in September 2023 but that was the one that worked (after much protocol tweaking!) and here we are.

I know it's a painful situation to be in, happy to chat if you want to know anything we did.

Hi @thislittlebird congratulations on your little one. So pleased it worked for you. Do you feel comfortable saying what you changed on your successful round ?

@thislittlebird congratulations, that’s so lovely to read you had success. Do you mind me asking what you did differently in your successful cycle?

we are ‘unexplained’ so we have no idea why it isn’t working, I have some thrombophilia tests coming up and a pelvic MRI hoping to get to the route cause but it’s taking so much time 😥. We have one embryo left, I’m thinking we may do a fresh round before transferring that to bank more embryos. I think it would put my mind at ease knowing we have more chances

@thislittlebird congrats! Pleased for you -we also got there in the end Spring 2023

@SprinklesOfHope @Marshmallow99 sorry for the delayed reply. Protocol changes wise, I think the main changes that I put success down to are:

1. PGT-A - I was 39 at the last EC and husband was 41, so I think this helped to find a viable embryo for us. We didn't do it for our first NHS round, our second private was a complete failure so we couldn't do it, and then on the third EC we did for 3/5 embryos. 1 of those 3 tested came back as euploid and that is my daughter.
2. Steroids - I think I mentioned upthread that I have only ever got pregnant when taking 10mg prednisolone. I self-medicated with it for one transfer on my NHS cycle because I had some at home anyway that had been prescribed for something else. That cycle I got pregnant but it was a chemical. I never had success again until I pushed my Lister consultant to let me try it. He thought I was nuts, but I know my body and I think I have a very overreactive immune system. The transfer previous to my daughter (fresh transfer, untested) I had a strange reaction to the embryo, like my body was fighting off a virus or something, that's how it felt. This made me think that I was not completely crazy and maybe my body was rejecting embryos...anyway, he let me have 10mg pred again (daily for 12 weeks) and it worked again, but this time with my viable embryo so I carried to term.
3. Extra progesterone - my progesterone was low from the start and the NHS round didn't seem fussed, gave me bog standard progesterone suppositories and seemed to think that was fine. I got my private clinic to test it after I'd had to many failures and it was still low after the transfer so they started giving me injectable progesterone as well as suppositories as standard. I can't remember the doses though, pretty sure it was daily.
4. Blood thinners - not sure if this helped but my consultant said it wouldn't hurt so put me on them for each private transfer.
5. Male factor - We had male factor infertility initially but unexplained (low motility and vitality). After many private appointments and tests a Lister embryologist said he had antisperm antibodies, and then a protocol was put in place to help his sperm out. We did IMSI to select the best sperm, they washed the sperm as soon as he'd done his sample and didn't leave it hours and hours before using it on the final round.

I think that's most of it, if I remember anything else I will post that too.

@Marshmallow99 how many collection cycles have you done now? I know what you mean about the embryos. We still have one in storage and are fairly resigned to the fact it won't work (it's untested and poor quality). We can't afford to do it all again, so it's likely one baby for us but she's amazing and a little miracle so I cannot complain.

It's so slow, but definitely do all the tests you can. The NHS just doesn't do enough for complicated cases in my experiences, probably ok if you're 30 and have no known issues. Less useful if you have lots of things going on and age against you!

@EL8888 thanks and congrats to you too! Did you have a boy or girl? It took us 5 years all in all, it's a lot of time but worth it now.

@thislittlebird wow thank you so much for your detailed reply. I am 34 and my partner is 37, we are currently going through our NHS funded rounds (luckily we get to transfer every embryo we made in our NHS round for free). We had 3 embryos, 2 have failed and so now its one left and we did not PGTA test them.

I think it's likely we will need to go private to create more embryos and then will definitely be PGTA testing them to save heartbreak.. and time. It sounds like you had a better experience going private vs NHS? i feel like they are so reluctant to try new meds when i have asked to throw the kitchen sink at it.

You are the third person to tell me about Prednisolone- i will definitely be asking for that. I had my clotting and immunology bloods done today, i have to wait 4 weeks for the results. More waiting! really hoping for some answers.

I have said I am one and done after this (if i'm lucky to have one), I cant go through it again, its absolute torture xxx

@Marshmallow99 you might be lucky on the third one, lots are, and you have age on your side still so PGT-A not so crucial. Fingers crossed for your last embryo. If you do need private after this one, check out the funding packages available with places like Access.

The nhs isn’t the best place for throwing the kitchen sink at things, I would say. They have so many rules and budget limitations, it’s all very rigid. Whereas when I went private it’s your money so you can ask for things you want or request extra tests. The experience with EC and ET was quite similar, although I did get a private room and proper food at the Lister, versus just a tea and biscuit and a curtain around my bed at Guys.

The worst bit of the nhs experience for me was a consultant I’d previously liked telling us to make sure we’re having lots of sex after all my nhs embryos had failed and we went for a review about what happened. Thanks, we never thought of that! Sex was never going to help us with my husband’s issue, but they never looked into it enough to find that out. I found it so upsetting, and more than one person said it to us, an nhs urologist also said it to us. it was infuriating after years of infertility and not a single pregnancy and both of us clearly having issues.

Hopefully your clotting and immunology shed some light. I had the immunes test, I forget its name, and it came back slightly high levels but normal and I asked for prednisolone anyway because it was such a low dose I didn’t think it would hurt. High doses can have a lot of side effects, bear that in mind because I had to stay on it for 12 weeks and was glad it was low dose! I’ve been on high doses before for skin issues and didn’t want to do it again.