Getting pregnant at 43+

[Manc80]

I’m looking for stories (good and bad) from people who have successfully become pregnant after the age of 43. Statistically I’ve read that your fertility falls off a cliff after 43, but I’ve never felt healthier! I had two rounds of IVF at the end of last year after unsuccessfully ttc naturally for the first time in my life for the two years prior. Both rounds resulted in embryo transfers but neither stuck 😢

I have endometriosis but it’s in check, regular cycles of 26 days and I have a low AMH but otherwise fit and healthy both physically and mentally. Any stories/advice would be gratefully received!

Hi there. I’m sorry your transfers didn’t work out. I’m 43 and I’ve got pregnant twice in the last six months. Miscarried first in the summer at ten weeks and currently going through another now. I don’t seem to have trouble getting pregnant but egg quality is obviously a. Issue at this age. I have three children from a previous relationship but had them many years ago. If you’ve any questions I’ll do my best to answer x

I'm nearly 42 and 20 weeks pregnant. I have an older child but suffered from secondary infertility. I was amazed when I got pregnant last year. I knew my amh was low. I had been tested and it was 3. I think it's to do with egg quality and pure luck. Maximise your chances by taking pregnacare, minimising alcohol and having regular sex. That's all you can do.

I just turned 43 and have been pregnant at age 39 just about to turn 40 and then 41 about to turn 42 lost both pregnancies early on. We got pregnant even with my husband having low morphology at one point was 0%, since starting taking Impryl upon the advise of a fertility doctor my husband's morphology rose from 0 to 4%.

My AMH is very good for my age.

We haven't been trying naturally as has have been accepted on the NHS for IVF. I did not want to try again then miscarry again.

The IVF clinic started me on stimulation before I turned 43 as this is the cut off period for the NHS meanwhile due to a family emergency I had to travel abroad which we informed the clinic on our consent forms.

On the day of the Egg collection as about to go to theatre they told me I maybe at risk for Zika so EC cannot take place. Was in pain after that.

They put me straight on stimulation next cycle and did have my Egg Collection. I had good number of eggs but hubby could not provide sperm sample on the day and so they had to freeze my eggs.

The clinic's sample room is not hygienic and is therefore not conducive to producing a sample.

We provided a sample from home a few days after the Egg Collection and that was also frozen.

Now the IVF clinic is saying that as I am now 43 I no longer have access to funding.

I am so shocked, anxious and confused as how did we get here. They said they will try to request for an extension.

I did very well I had a good number of eggs which I believe a few might not survive the thawing process and my lining as the Nurse said when I was being scanned was "textbook" lining.

No one has told us we could provide a sample from home and freeze in advance so we did not depend on providing on the day of the egg collection or simply brought one on the day (we were fairly local) rather than trying to provide one on their unhygienic sample room.

We do not have the money for this treatment. I am so scared of the possibility that this could be abandoned.

This would a first child for us both.

Oh wow, what an encouraging and honest response from everyone!

@Tray66 I’m so sorry you are going through that and hope you are ok. The clinic thing my egg/embryo quality is likely to be the issue with the IVF as everything else looked fine, they just didn’t stick. It must be difficult wanting to grow your family now and having these struggles.

@Maryquitecontrary55 congratulations! That’s good to hear and sounds like it’s all going well for you. I’m doing all of those things, completely gave up alcohol last year but having the odd glass of wine again now but nowhere near as much as in the past when I’d have a glass of wine most evenings after work. I guess the damage was done then!

@mrsmb03 sounds like you’ve also had an ordeal! My other half tends to pass all the tests with flying colours (6% morphology at age 46!) and has two girls from a previous relationship so we know I’m the problem 😢 NHS told me at 41 they wouldn’t give me IVF with my own eggs and needed a donor but I didn’t want to do that. I think it’s wonderful that people do but it’s not what I want due to my mixed heritage and unlikely to find the same mix. I’m so sorry for your situation, do you now need to pay the NHS to get your eggs/embryos back? Surely they must class this as a continuation of the cycles/s they agreed to fund?

@Manc80 would you consider doing ivf with pgt testing? That was my next port of call after miscarriage in summer but only had a few follicles so said no point in ivf so decided we had nothing to lose by continuing to try again ourselves and hope we’d get a good egg! Unfortunately not yet….

@Manc80 I really don't know. One would assume that these are part of the same treatment. They just started talking about funding when I asked for the next steps. It came as a shock and I am so stressed about it.

@Tray66 they have recommended that but I don’t really want to fork out an extra 1k for them to possibly tell me it’s a bad one, I’d rather take a chance and pop it in as have heard mixed stories on the process of testing with apparent low grade embryos resulting in perfectly healthy babies. I have very few follicles and have only ever ended up with one embryo to transfer each time so doubt a third go would be any different. Like you we’re trying naturally and hoping for a good one in the mean time! 🤞🏼

@mrsmb03 I would ask for clarification asap, I’m really surprised they will start a cycle and not finish it, that’s seems terribly cruel and unfair 😔

@Manc80 Sorry I must have missed it. You are in the process of doing IVF now? What stage? How many follicles did you have both times? Partner's sperm?

Sorry just wanted to hear your past experience as well. No need to say if uncomfortable to share. 😊

@Manc80 reading this post you mention low grade embryos resulting in healthy babies and that being a reason not to PGT test. PGT testing is looking at chromosomes rather than embryo quality. You could have top quality embryo that is PGT tested as aneuploid (abnormal) and therefore won't work and a low grade embryos that turns out to be euploid. Embryo grading is a separate process to PGT testing. Hope you don't mind me posting 🙂

@mrsmb03 not doing IVF right now but did two rounds last year. 6/7 follicles with 4 eggs retrieved first time and 3 second time. All of which fertilised (parter sperm is v good on all the tests) but only ended up with one embryo to transfer each time, neither of which stuck. Deciding what we want to do next.

@Bryterlayter1 I don’t mind at all, thank you for sharing 😊