Considering IVF but so lost

[KG416]

Hi,
I have a DD who is 2 and a half but since we’ve had her we have had 3 early miscarriages. The last one was June 2022 and we’ve had nothing since then. We paid to see a fertility specialist who said there was no reason for not successfully conceiving yet except that my egg reserve looked low. He said we could try IVF but it wouldn’t stop a miscarriage. He was very insensitive. Can anyone explain to me - are my chances of having a baby higher by doing IVF if my egg reserve is low? Im so so lost in all of this x

@KG416 I'm no expert but having a low reserve probably means you wouldn't get many eggs from the egg collection process through IVF.

Your numbers drop off at each stage, so for example if you get 10 eggs, 8 might be mature, 6 might fertilise and you might get 2-3 good quality embryos to transfer.

Embryo quality doesn't necessarily translate to live births though. During our initial appointment they told us that the chance of miscarriage was the same, if not slightly higher.

Sorry you're having to go through this. It's a horrible journey to be on!

@KG416 I'm so sorry to hear about your losses. I'm not sure if this will help, but thought I'd comment incase it does. I have anovulation and clomid didn't result in pregnancy so we've been doing IVF. 3 embryo transfers have resulted in 2 early miscarriages and a chemical pregnancy. On our next transfer, I'll be taking inhixa for a hughes syndrome (quite common with miscarriages), steroids for natural killer cells and lubion for slightly low progesterone. If your specialist hasn't discussed these then definitely have them checked. I wish we had known about them last year, perhaps we cpuld have prevented the losses. Best of luck to you xx

Hi @KG416 like you I could fall pregnant naturally but had a lot of mmcs. I did ivf but think it was pointless in my situation as the issue ended up being killer cells (nk cells ) as pp mentions. I had treatment and had my dd. There are lots of posts on here about it and suggest you investigate.
I also had low amh, follicles etc and only ever got one blast in ivf and was probably better just doing it naturally for the same result and a lot less expense and pain

Also, immune issues are often triggered by a first birth, your body is primed to attack future pregnancies as the dna is half not yours. I believe a lot of secondary infertility could be immunes related. Best of luck

Hi @KG416 I'm so sorry to hear of your losses. I think the answer to your question depends on the cause of your miscarriages so I think you'd perhaps need to start with that. The NK cells that someone else mentioned is a possibility but could also be male factor - if your OH has high DNA fragmentation, then this can sometimes cause miscarriages too. How old are you and what are your AMH levels? I assume you have had all of the recurrent miscarriage tests? I hope you get some answers soon. x

Thank you for all of your replies, I really appreciate it. @Koalie I’ve had all the recurrent mc tests and everything came back fine but I was prescribed progesterone for the next pregnancy. However just today I received an email from the fertility specialist advising my egg count is “low”. That’s all it said. Is there still any chance of becoming pregnant? I feel heartbroken.

@KG416 hi! As long as you're having a period and producing an egg you have a chance! I have low AMH and AFC . Each round of IVF I only expect 1 egg. That's just how it is for us and I've made my peace with that xx

@KG416 don’t lose hope, you still have things to figure out and work on. Maybe call the fertility specialist back and ask for more information. Are they talking about your AMH bloods or AFC? How low is ‘low’? Find out actual numbers if you can and go from there. x

@Sheepsheeps thank you. Were you advised to have IVF? The specialist told me last month that he didn’t see any benefit of us trying IVF. He was so unhelpful and just said keep trying ourselves.

@Koalie i have replied to the email asking if I could please speak to someone to get more information. The email just said “the result of the egg reserve test is low”. That was it with no follow up. I feel so upset and it seems like the specialist doesn’t care so we are on our own.

I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond.x

@KG416 I'd definitely push for more information.

IVF is a lot to go through if you don't necessarily need it, and as far as I know, as long as you're ovulating each month, low reserve isn't too much of an issue.
If you had male factor issues they were looking to solve with IVF then it would make sense, but low egg numbers alone seems a strange reason on its own for a doctor to recommend IVF. Unless they thought it would make sense to do genetic testing on the embryos, but that's very expensive.

@nizo1245 thanks for the reply. We paid to see a fertility specialist privately last month after having no BFP since June 2022 which ended in mc (and since TTC since October 2021 with 3 mc).
i was keen to speak to a specialist as I’m not far off a year of no results and wondered if IVF might be an option for us. But he was very reluctant and said just keep trying ourselves. Hopefully I can speak to someone to give me more information. My DH has had sperm analysis and the specialist said it was all normal. Feeling so lost.

@KG416 you're welcome, that's what this forum is for, supporting each other!!
We have MFI and I'm old lol 😆 For us it would never happen naturally so we just cut the middle man out and went straight to a private clinic and said we want IVF.
Honestly, I don't think the treatment aspect of IVF is that bad (I'm currently on my 4th round) Injections aren't that bad and I'm terrified of needles! Some of this different drug combinations have affected my mood such as Clomid made me very snappy and I had a very short fuse apparently 😁😁
For me, the hardest part is the disappointment when you get less eggs than you'd hoped and then whether they fertilise. If they do then you have to prepare yourself for 50% dropping off after day 3. In my last round I only had one egg, it fertilised but hadn't made a full blast by day 6 and the clinics policy I'm with is to bin them on day 6 if they're not fully at blast by then. That really got to me.

@Quantumleaper thanks for the info. Was it through the IVF process that you found out about the NK cells or how did you find out?x

@nizo1245 I spoke to the specialist this morning and he said my number was 1.1 and should be 15 for my age. He said there is a slightly better chance of a successful pregnancy through IVF than naturally just because of my age (33) but that the chances are still very low. I feel devastated.x

@Sheepsheeps its really interesting to hear from someone who has gone through it as you always hear IVF is so awful. I suppose our expectations will now be low because of the number being so low but I can’t see that it will be any less heartbreaking really. Hope you have success this time round, can’t imagine what you’re going through.x

Hi @KG416 I was having ivf at another clinic and they detected I had raised nk cells but I lost another pregnancy with them. When I read into it I believed my steroid dosage wasn’t high enough so went to another clinic for treatment, who were more aggressive in treatment
I would recommend getting tested and then you’ll have an idea at least if this is something you suffer from.
I did all the other tests and was fine so it was just this and with treatment I had my baby

The reason I did ivf was to find normal embryos as I thought that was the issue. I’m the end my baby wasn’t even tested.
I don’t think all the mmcs could’ve been abnormal and professionals said it wasn’t possible to have that many in a row and be all abnormal

@KG416 sorry to hear that. I've definitely read stories on here of people with a number lower than 1 going on to have successful rounds of IVF, so it's definitely not the end of the road, but it might make it a very long road as you won't get many eggs per cycle, and not all eggs fertilise then make it to the 3 or 5 day stage for transfer.

I've found the IVF process to be ok, the injections are nowhere near as bad as I expected and it hasn't been quite as stressful as I thought it would be, but it's still a lot to put your body through.

I'm sure there might be previous threads on here of people asking for clinic recommendations for low ovarian reserve.
Some doctors prefer to take a mild approach where as some seem to prefer high dose stimulation. Your protocol always depends on your own circumstances, but I'd expect there must be specialists who are experienced in getting the best results for people in your position.