Max number of IVF/egg freezing cycles before you give up?! Age 36

[Rosiestraws]

Sorry it's long but didn't want to drip feed anything.. had my "final" egg collection yday and just can't sleep...

I have been doing egg freezing alongside trying naturally with my partner in between. I won't go into the details but clearly we're not on the same page about desire to have a child (hence solo egg freezing not IVF together!) so I can see us breaking up soon and me ending up single...

Tests at 34 found out I had 0.8pmol AMH and premature ovarian failure... they have seen between 1-7 follicles on scans over different cycles but now I'm 36 it is usually only 1 or 2 and only 1 responds to treatment usually.

I have completed 7 full cycles* and had 1 abandoned before EC.

(1 cycle with a clinic I don't recommend but had 4 follicles going in & got no eggs, then changed clinics and 1 cycle with 3 eggs but only 2 mature, then 5 cycles with 1 mature egg)

I now have 7 mature eggs frozen.

I am still paying off my (interest free) credit card for the last 3 cycles (0% ends Feb 24 and I will, based on the way things stand now.. have it paid in full by that time with no interest)

I feel now (after my final egg collection) that I want to do 3 more cycles. With the aim of getting 3 more eggs and having 10 frozen. Probably with a bit of financial help from partner, parents and then credit card. I have strong prospects of my earnings increasing a lot in 2ish years so I suppose the interest free credit card route could work and then anything left cleared then. It's not ideal to keep getting into debt for though...I get that.

I have heard that IVF is addictive and I can see how that's starting before I've even fully got there! When do you decide to draw a line? I read all the statistics about egg freezing being best to do under 35 and semi believed it and thought it would be a waste of money later (as opposed to full IVF when you actually know if your eggs are any good/fertilising/if you can get pregnant etc!) But then I read that there's still better prospects under 37 so I think maybe I've got a bit more time and I'll never be as young as I am now!

To add that I am not interested in freezing embryos with sperm donor in case this should come up in suggestions ... just the egg freezing.

Also... does anyone else have any concerns about so many sedations/hormone injections etc? The egg freezing I do is similar to mild/natural IVF short protocol so with my own cycle and less meds than a "normal" IVF cycle but still 7 of these (now maybe 10) in just over 2 years worries me a little....

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi @Rosiestraws sorry to read about your situation, it sounds very difficult. I’m in a similar position in terms of age, AMH and number of cycles in a similar timeframe, although I’ve done IVF rather than egg freezing. However, you’re in a different (hopefully better?!) position in that any of your frozen eggs could become your baby so you’re not really deciding whether to carry on or give up in the same way. I guess whether 7 eggs is enough entirely depends on how successful you are when you come to try to fertilise them! I’ve heard as a rule of thumb most people are successful after three embryo transfers so if you were to aim for three blastocysts, you’d probably need to be lucky to get them out of your 7 eggs. However, you might be lucky, you just don’t know until you try. And many women are successful before their third transfer.

If I were you I wouldn’t want to wait any longer but that’s not entirely logical because if you do need more eggs, they’ll be better now than in a couple of years. It also doesn’t take into consideration your personal situation which sounds complicated. I hope this doesn’t sound judgmental, but I’d advise sorting your relationship out. Freezing eggs is probably making you feel that is less urgent (and well done for taking control) but knowing whether he is part of your future could make the decision easier, whether you do IVF together or whether you’d crack on alone with a sperm donor or freeze more eggs in the hope of doing IVF with a future partner etc. I really feel for you, this is hard enough with a partner on the same page so must be incredibly difficult for you.

In terms of the number of sedations / hormones, I’ve asked two consultants and both said there’s nothing to worry about.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

hi @GreyZebra ... no I definitely don't feel like the egg freezing has made me any less concerned about the relationship! It's a long story but it's ultimately weighing up do I stay with him hoping it just happens by trying naturally with minimal pressure on him, or do I break up and start again, hoping to meet someone else who I love as much and wants to do everything possible to have kids. Which might not happen before I run out of time..it's so difficult.. I'm not keen to get sperm donor involved yet. I'd rather hold out hope of it working naturally with my partner or with someone else in the future and then using these eggs then with them. If neither happens then its a risk I'm willing to take...

But the egg freezing side of things is something I still really want to sort. If I had limitless money I'd definitely do at least 3 cycles but sadly doesn't work like that.

It's good to know you've been told no risks re multiple cycles. How many have you done if you don't mind me asking? Will you continue? Do you have a limit in mind?

*at least 3 cycles more I mean!

We’ve done 6, one of which we abandoned before egg collection. I think we’ll do one more. We also have male factor so our main (first?!) problem is fertilisation so we’re going to try Artificial Oocyte Activation in our next cycle and see if that improves things. It’s a bit of a Hail Mary but we want to know we’ve exhausted all options before giving up. If fertilisation improves but we’re still unsuccessful we might do more, but if our fertilisation rate is still crap we’ll probably call it a day there.

oh I see what you mean now, so you've not had any successful pregnancies from the cycles you've done so far? Sorry to hear that...I guess I'm living in ignorant bliss atm as I don't know if any of my eggs will be any good so I don't have to decide to give up on doing any more cycles knowing there's no more eggs/embryos left. I'm so scared of that day coming... so I guess I'm glad I don't have to address that as yet... I did have a natural chemical pregnancy in Nov tho so I guess a BIT of comfort in that clearly my eggs can fertilise to a stage enough to implant..but then there was obv something wrong there for it not to stick...

It's all so hard 😔

Hi @Rosiestraws

I'm sorry you're in such a tricky situation. As you know from our separate discussion, my situation is different to yours and I'm much newer to all this - so I hope none of this sounds patronising/obvious.

It's all so personal that I think another person probably can't tell you what your priorities should be in this situation. But in case helpful, I think, for me, having 7 eggs frozen would likely not be sufficient % likelihood of a live birth for me to go away feeling I've done all I can and not think about it for a couple of years if I knew that I really wanted children. However, that doesn't necessarily mean I would keep going - after all, the sad reality is that we know there are no guarantees. So you could do 3 more cycles and get to your 10 egg target and still not feel you've done enough.

Factors I would consider when deciding whether to continue would include:

• how important motherhood of your own biological children is to you
• how important it is to share that with a partner (it sounds like fairly, if you're not in a place where you'd want to consider freezing embryos.)
• how much the process has taken out of you/consumed your life so far - both from a financial perspective and from a life enjoyment perspective
• related to the last point, what would continuing with more cycles take away from your life? And I'd think about that in light of everything you're saying about your relationship - if your relationship does break down, what financial situation will you be in (just practically from my own experience, starting over in a financially stable position made an awful situation a hell of a lot easier), how would you find dating etc.
• how would it feel to give up (well, hit pause) now - do you think you could get to a place emotionally where you feel like you've given it a good shot (which you absolutely have after 7 cycles) and need time to focus on other things?
• how would you feel if you did 3 more cycles and didn't get to your target? Would you ever be able to quit?

A couple of practical suggestions:

• have you had therapy? I think this could help you figure out how much you want to prioritise this at this stage of your life.
• do you have a consultant you really trust who will be honest with you about the likelihood of success / the risks of pausing a year or so in your situation? If not, would it be worth considering a consultant change?
• your relationship situation sounds really complicated, and must be adding to your stress as it sounds like you're living a bit in limbo, with so many different potential paths stretching out ahead of you. Have you got a plan / deadline for reaching resolution on that? If not, I would try and reach one in place (again, I'm very into therapy so would probably seek the help of an (individual and/or couples) therapist in doing so).

Sending lots of love. It sounds really hard.

Hi lovely, I'm sending you lots of love, these are such difficult decisions. The advice @iyzzz gave is fantastic, there isn't much more I can add.

I mentioned before the duo stim worth a bit of research if you do decide to go again as potentially 2 collections per cycle, not sure of the costs but may be more cost effective and timely based on your plans x

Thank you so much for the replies. It really helps.

I've made a note to ask my clinic re duo stims, but thinking about it, I doubt it would save money and it would just be treated like 2 egg collections or 2 cycles so not sure if there's a lot of benefit there as opposed to doing 2 separate full cycles. Thanks for the thoughts though.

All of your points @iyzzz are really helpful and they do lead me into thinking I want/need to do the additional cycles...certainly if I split up with my partner. I guess if we could reach an agreement about properly trying instead, like we did the one month I had a CP then I could maybe not bother with the EF for a while but it still feels like a lot of risk. I guess I need to figure out the financial side of things and how strict I would have to be to enable me to do more cycles as a priority.

Thanks for the thoughts/comments re counselling...I've had some but basically paused it before Xmas as counselor basically pointed out that I'm not ready to make a decision to end the relationship and it wasn't really beneficial (!) Partner has suggested some couples counselling too so we're starting that this week...not sure if it'll help much.. It's difficult to know what deadline to put on things but I know that's probably the only way I can resolve things that way rather than carrying on in limbo as you've said..

Hello, my situation is very different to your. I've had 2 DC with a sperm donor (I'm single), and trying for DC3 atm (transfer tomorrow!).
Obviously no one knows how many of the eggs will make it (defrost, become embryos, then turn into blastocysts, then pregnancy works, continues to work etc). There's a lot of issues with that. One question I would have is how many children do you want? You probably don't know, but are you certain you want more than one? Would you be okay having a second with donor eggs or would you rather stay at one?
I always knew I wanted lots of kids and always wanted them to be genetically full siblings, but people are different, and I was in some ways in a very privileged position and "able" to be so demanding! If it had really come to it, I suspect I would have had a second child using donor eggs/different sperm.
Genuinely, if you are ready for kids now, I do think you need to say to your partner, we do IVF with some of the eggs now. Unless he has a good reason for putting it off a year or so (planning on moving house or something real), I think you should make it an ultimatum, now or you leave. Whether it works or not you will have a better idea about how many eggs you need to achieve the family you want.
Good luck.

Also, your clinic must have told you about the quality of your eggs? That's really important, and seven high quality is better than 70 low quality. I produced 24 eggs in one around years ago when I was 31, and although they were almost all high quality, I remember the Consultant saying there was increasing evidence that producing a lot like I did was strongly related to them not being quite so good in quality. It isn't just a numbers game.....

Hi @IVFbeenverylucky good luck with your transfer!

To answer your qs... I see myself having two children. I doubt I have time for more than that but my strong preference would be for them to be my eggs so I might stop at one if I was only lucky enough to get one from the eggs. So I guess I do feel pretty sure I need to find a way to do the additional cycles...

I don't think I could be a single mum. I'm someone who has always been in relationships and wants that support...I just have to hope I have time to find it elsewhere if I do end this relationship.

In relation to the quality of eggs, I'm not really sure what you mean about the clinic/consultant telling me anything about the quality of my eggs? As I understand it, we cannot know anything about the quality until we try to fertilise them, which I haven't done yet. I know they're all mature eggs as they don't freeze those that are immature or "considered not suitable for freezing". I also know that my clinics USP is that they say that the milder stimulation is best because then you get the best egg that your body would have normally selected to ovulate naturally...but there's not much evidence for that tbh!

@Rosiestraws
Thanks. I just remember when I had my eggs taken out (about 10 years ago), then telling me 23 were very good, and one was not so good but still worth freezing. Obviously that does not mean they will survive the whole process and I've certainly lost more than one along the way. Next time, maybe ask?
Also, depending on your medical history, wouldn't it be better trying one full meds cycle and getting quite a few? You obviously shouldn't do this a dozen times in quick succession, but to me it seems odd not to try it once and "bank" a pretty haul.....

Iv heard egg collection, is fine up to 10 times anyway. I have done 2, and got 5 mature eggs each time. Best of luck.

I've done two cycles with max stims (at a different clinic before the one where I was successful) The first time I had 5 follicles which grew well but then one disappeared before the EC and then they flushed 4 follicles and got no eggs. They didn't do blood tests (which my current clinic does) so we don't know if they were all empty follicles to begin with or what happened..I also went into EC late and suspect I ovulated early. All sorts went wrong.. hence changing clinics. I did another similar cycle with them and only 1 follicle grew so abandoned EC. I think my fertility issues are playing a part as I just don't get many follicles growing... usually only 1 now as my egg reserves are clearly rubbish so I have to keep doing expensive cycles to even get 1 egg 😔 And tbf I'm now 36 when I started this I was 34 so probably that's why I had a few more follicles to begin with

Rosiestraws I had 3 EC when I was 38. Total 21 eggs frozen. I was in similar situation, relationship (but not real one). I was thinking that one day i will find a perfect man to have a family. And the frozen eggs were a back up. I finally found a man. I am now 42. After year of trying naturally I decided to fertilize my frozen eggs. From 21 only 1 got to blastocyst level and didnt survive. So now I am 42. My AMH 0, my ovary cut after emergency operation 2 years ago. Would I know what it takes to make a blastocyst i would fertilize eggs (at least half of them). Few years ago i dint understand the complexity of getting to blastocyst level, plus with frozen eggs is extra step of freezing and thawing. More than half of my eggs were not even good for fertilization after thawing. Then some didnt fertilize, than some didnt grow into embroyo. Now they are telling me donor egg . So I am in the situation of donor egg+my partner sperm. And I keep thinking what if my fresh eggs were fertilized (donor sperm, frinds sperm..) - I would never know... If I knew what i know now i would for sure try to fertilize half of my eggs before freezing. At least I would know what is their real quality. I could act on it, eg. more cycles... Instead for years I was chilled and now its stress and crying.

Hi @Londong I think I replied to your other thread and I'm so sorry about your experience.

I do understand that the odds aren't in my favour re egg freezing resulting in a live birth (I think the recent statistics I read are 1.5% of the eggs that are thawed will result in a live birth so I'm definitely going into it with my eyes open). I am hopeful that I might have better odds as I'm 2-3 years younger when I froze my eggs than the average age of a woman freezing her eggs.

I know I can never know though.. but I'm not comfortable with having a baby with donor sperm so I'd rather hold out hope that I'll end up having a baby naturally or the eggs I've frozen could result in a baby with a partner in the future. I guess time will tell.. I do think it's important that you share your journey though and make other aware of the pitfalls and lack of guarantees with egg freezing. I hope you find a way to create your family.🙏

As for me, I think I will try to do another 3 cycles and hopefully I'll feel comfortable stopping there... least of all as I'll have maxed out the credit cards for a couple of years!

Rosiestraws, i didnt realize i replied to your other message, I m sorry for repeating myself. Yes, of course we are all different, and different situations...i totally understand you, I was there In similar situation... but I see you have knowledge, that is very important.
Wow, I didn't know tht only 1.5% eggs thawed were resulting in live birth. I don't recall they showed ever this statistics during egg freeze. And I was actually trying to look for myself, could not find it. Wow, Thank you, each time I open chat I learn something new from women here.

I don't think the statistics on 1.5% are reliable. I remember when I had mine frozen (back in 2013) I was told it was 8%, which horrified me. But it's all a bit misleading......lots of women never use their eggs, or only use a teeny number, so the others - which were never tried, count as "failures".
I had my eggs frozen aged 31 on the NHS due to cancer. In one round I got 24 eggs. About three years, I took 15 of them and made 6 blastocysts, with 9 eggs still in the freezer. Blastocyst 1 was transferred and became DD1; blastocyst 2 was transferred and became DD2. Most women stop at 2 anyway, so statistically there's a 22/24 not live birth rate. But this is just daft. I've 2 children ffs!
The "real" live birth rate - ie those that are used is waaaaaay higher, but difficult to do statistics because so many do not use their frozen eggs, or have not done so yet.

@Londong So sorry about your situation; I hope you get pregnant in the near future, and down the line I'm sure you will never think of yourself as anything other than a real true mummy, which of course you will be. All the best xx

I've actually just realised that I've probably done what none of us should do which is to read things online and believe them ha! This is where I got the figure of 1.5%, after another poster referred me to check his website:

genesisresearchtrust.com/askrobert-questions-and-answers/egg-freezing-statistics/

However I see now that there is no way of seeing what date he is talking about here! And he mentions dates in 2014/2012 etc so perhaps this question is based on 10years out of date information which is reassuring!!

This is the most recent information , but still refers to 2016 data:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51463488

I think the main problem is lack of data, as we know! I suspect there'll be masses more in 5 years. Also like you say @IVFbeenverylucky it doesn't account for the fact that the majority of women haven't gone back to try and use their frozen eggs. I would say also that you freezing your eggs at 31 gives a way higher chance of them being successful than me having done so at 35/35 or indeed @Londong having done so at 38 though. The main biggest thing is age 😔

The other thing that I have taken comfort from (which seems to be often neglected in statistics or in conversations about this) is that people who use donor eggs are now almost always using frozen donor eggs aren't they? And they have huge amounts of success. But these statistics aren't being considered/used when we compare how likely egg freezing is to work as they haven't chosen to frozen their eggs for social reasons so the statistics don't consider them. But it does prove that freezing eggs doesn't appear to have had much impact of chances of success when using the young, healthy donors..

The one thing I do also cling to is that I've read in multiple places that egg freezing basically gives you 80/90% similar chances of success as to if you were doing the procedure now. So you might loose the 10-20% of eggs from thawing and then the eggs that are left have the same chances of success from ICSI as they would if you had a fresh cycle at the age you get them. So I guess, using those statistics, say 5 of my eggs survive the thaw then my chances of success will be broadly similar to if I'd had 5 cycles if icsi in a row at age 35/36 (as I only get 1 egg per cycle) I'm not in a position to do that now but I've preserved those chances/opportunities for the future. It might still not work but I'll assume it wouldn't have worked doing it fresh now either if that's the case 😕