Anyone gone against clinic advise? IVF

[waitingforourmiracle]

After my first round of IVF ended in MMC I'm now in the process of preparing myself to go again... On my last cycle I had 21 eggs retrieved so was told it would be a freeze all cycle. On my day 5 update I was told that only 1 made it to blastocyst suitable to freeze, day 6 we got told that 2 more made it to early blast but they where not suitable to freeze, I can't stop thinking if we weren't having a freeze all cycle I could of at least tried with them 2 day embryos, a small chance is better than none! I didn't have any symptoms of OHSS at all at any point of my first cycle so my wondering is now, shall I go against the clinics advise of doing a freeze all and try with a fresh cycle? It's so hard to know what to do!
Another thing is some of the packages I've looked at include a fresh transfer but not a frozen so I would miss out on the chance of having a transfer included then would have to pay £1200+ for a frozen transfer.
Any help would be appreciated!

I think if you're at risk of OHSS and a freeze-all cycle is planned, your clinic won't allow you to do a fresh transfer even if you want it.

You could discuss with your clinic taking a lower dose of stims to try to avoid the risk of OHSS - I have seen some suggestions that aiming for fewer, better quality eggs can lead to more success than high-dose stims with lots of eggs collected, but far fewer useable embryos.

Thanks for replying @2mumlife we did a mild IVF so I don't think they would go much lower on dosage, I know a high number of eggs is a good thing, I'm so grateful for that, it just seems a shame to miss out on the fresh transfer that is part of the package

Oh I totally understand your frustration OP - but the truth is that if the embryos aren't suitable/ aren't strong enough to freeze, then they are very unlikely to result in a live birth.

I don't think you should go against the advice of the clinic and consultant - they have experience and know what they are talking about. They wouldn't recommend against it if there was a chance you would get a baby from it.

@IVFveteran I know your right and I know they know best but I just want every single chance possible 😂we had a follow up with our consultant yesterday and he explained more so it does all make sense! We're going to focus more on my partners side of things now before we can think about going again!

@waitingforourmiracle Ah! Yes in your case I guess they might not recommend any lower stim dosage either. You just must be very responsive! Sounds sensible to just concentrate as much as you can on improving egg and sperm quality. Is there any package offers that cover FETs? We went with Access Fertility that included 1 fresh and unlimited frozen trasnfers, so in some ways it didn't really make a difference when we were recommended a freeze-all on our second cycle. We also had some embryos that were alive on day 6 but considered not suitable enough for freezing, but I've always felt ok about not having transferred them to be honest, as I've always sort of felt if they weren't considered suitable to freeze, they probably weren't viable / genetically 'normal'. When they recommended a freeze-all for our second cycle part of me was disappointed about having to wait longer for an embryo, but actually, I found the fresh transfer on our first cycle brutal and bled at only 5dp5dt (it was my period despite clinic saying it couldn't be) and always felt my body was not in the right place to be pregnant. I've always felt like we wasted that embryo, and that it never had a chance to result in a pregnancy as I feel my body was totally messed up. All of my frozen transfers have results in a BFP (1 chemical pregnancy, 1 live birth and 1 currently pregnant). The birth and my current pregnancy have both been from FETs from my second freeze-all cycle, so freezing worked for us :)

@2mumlife I did look into Access Fertility, the only thing that put me off was that medication was included, would you spent a lot on the medication? Yes that's what the consultant said yesterday my body might not be in the best possible position. It's so hard when I feel like all we do is wait for the next stage, I want it all to happen yesterday! Congratulations on your pregnancies xx

@waitingforourmiracle Yes we spent a lot extra of medication. From memory it was somewhere in the £1000-1500 of meds for each egg collection, and around £500-1000 for each FET (we did medicated FETs). And this was a few years ago so no doubt prices for medication have increased. I also didn't have any steroids, blood thinners etc and only was on Lubion for 5/6 days for each FET, so obviously individual medication needs could push that price up quite a bit also. My latest FET we just paid the clinic directly for (no package or anything). Thank you, we've been really lucky overall building our family.

@2mumlife Access Fertility is definitely an option but I would need to look at medication costs. I would also need a medicated FET, I did last time!
Thanks for the information, all the best with your pregnancy ✨

@waitingforourmiracle Wishing you all the best of luck x