ERA test or save money for another round?!

[missmam]

Hello!

Would love your help and experiences with ERA test.

A few months ago, we were looking at new clinics after one round abroad which resulted in 1x failed transfer and 1x miscarriage at 5.5 weeks. We wanted to move treatment back to uk as it was all getting a bit much.

We were choosing between as nice but seemingly quite disorganised clinic near where we live and a really fancy one in London. In the end, we went for London cause they offered lots of different tests to prevent miscarriage and a more holistic approach. They are about double the price of local clinic but we thought it would be worth it

We've now had egg collection and although 4 embryos made it to freezing, only one passed genetic testing and it's a day 7 4AC 😔

The London clinic wants us to do a diagnostic cycle with era test before transferring to maximise chances of success but that costs a fortune! Like, nearly 5k! I'm thinking I'd rather put it towards the cost of another egg collection as soon as possible unless it really is game changer?

Hi
I know it can be hard to turn down advice from experts you have trusted so far. And at my clinic when youhave 1 embryo they like to do all the tests as pressure is on. However, given the recent evidence that the ERA test is actually not as useful as people thought I would rather spend that money on another cycle. It makes more sense to optimise your chances with more embryos.

Could you do the ERA at the clinic overseas? I did mine in Prague and it was 520 euros.

I found the ERA useful as I had 2 failed implantations previously (I needed an extra day of progesterone before transfer). I didn't test my embryos; so whilst it implanted this time, I lost it in week 5+5.

@blahblahetc wow that's cheap! Sorry for your loss, mine was at 5.5 too. ERA doesn't help with miscarriage prevention does it?

@faith2024 thanks so much, you're right it's so hard to push back! I'm facing our consultant in the morning. Trying to prep myself to be firm!x

Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to prevent a miscarriage from taking place. The only precaution is testing your embryos, but even that is not a guarantee.

The ERA can determine your ‘implantation window’; the standard is 120hrs of progesterone before transfer, I needed a little bit longer accordingly to my window.

Definitely check with your clinic abroad, the prices are extortion here!

@missmam I don’t have advice but I’m at least in a similar situation. I also had one failed round and one round that ended in miscarriage. I decided to do the Chicago blood tests but not the Emma Alice test. However I did decide to go on a probiotic instead. So I’ve been on that for 3 months now ahead of my next round. I don’t really know much about implantation windows and progesterone but I do go on progesterone after egg collection ahead of transfer so I assume I’m covered there.
I suppose I won’t know if this was the right or wrong approach until the cycle is complete but there’s just so many expensive tests and a lot of conflicting information on them that it feels like that there’s no right or wrong.

Thank you all! Just spoke to consultant who agreed our one embryo is too poor quality to proceed without doing another collection first. Sigh. He understood we have to prioritise finding funds for that rather than ERA test.

Our Emma Alice test actually threw up quite a lot of info so he also said that more likely cause of our problems so fingers crossed it goes better next time 🤞🏻