What would you do?

[Hopehunter]

I am lucky enough to have one child from a FET in 2022, and have two remaining embryos left frozen at the clinic. On my last attempt, I found the process quite stressful as we've moved from London to Oxford, and making it back for appointments with a young child was logistically very difficult. The transfer itself ran late, and the doctor shouted at me beforehand for this, think she was stressed but was blamed for the lateness because I hadn't signed a form which wasn't brought to my attention until very late. The whole clinic is quite disorganised and quite old fashioned, the embryology lab feels a bit dated and doesn't have things like Embryoscope. But I'm maybe making assumptions. I also find the nursing team quite disorganised.

I did get pregnant but had a miscarriage at 7 weeks. I'd reduced my progesterone because I was getting extremely unbearably painful haemmerhoids rectally and quite severe thrush type symptoms vaginally. This was OKed, as I had a natural cycle FET and no known luteal phase defect. On a call with an embryologist this morning i was told that the miscarriage was possibly caused by my reducing the progesterone, I'm so totally crushed. The thought I could have killed my healthy potential baby is soul destroying.

I just don't feel I can face going back. I've been told my remaining embryos aren't great quality - I have two. I'm so tempted to start afresh in Oxford and do PGT (I'm 35) to reduce the chance of another miscarriage. But leaving these last two without giving them a chance feels difficult too.

I'm lost, low and stuck. What would you do?

I'm so sorry that you had this experience 😣 can you transfer your embryos to another clinic closer to home?

I am so sorry to hear this. I don't think you can blame yourself for stopping progesterone- there was a medical reason and you did so with the clinic's permission. It seems to me your clinic loves to blame others and honestly I would not go back to them. Shouting at patients is not on, it was a transfer not a life and death situation and they were partially responsible for the delay.

Like pp said, I would move the embryos to another clinic- a lot of people do this. If it's too much hassle, then I would start afresh somewhere else. Also, explore alternative progesterone if you can't tolerate pessaries e.g. Lubion injections (bearing in mind Lubion is very expensive) and patches. Good luck 🍀

I'm sorry you've had such a negative experience. I would encourage you to report to HEFA - they way you've been treated and made to feel sounds appalling.

I would move your embryos to a clinic closer to where you now live. But I would definitely try the embryos you have first. I had my DD in 2022 and had 2 embryos remaining (not tested). Transferred 1 and now 35 weeks pregnant. It would have been a huge additional emotional, financial and time cost to have undergone another egg collection etc. I definitely wouldn't write-off the embryos you've got.

I left 2 'bad quality' embryos which had also been scored poorly on CARE embryoscope. The clinic had given them around a 10% chance each of working, and I'd had 4 failed transfers from the same round. I didn't listen to my doctor who had said I shouldn't do a new round before using what we had as 'quality' is not a good guide. I did a new round (£10k + cost), with PGT A to work out what was wrong, and got 4 or 6 embryos, but zero normal embryos. I therefore assumed I was producing lots of abnormal embryos and the poor quality ones we already had would also be no good.

ONLY because it was coming up for Christmas and the clinic wouldn't be open long enough to do both a round and a transfer, I decided to 'chuck in' the two bad quality embryos before definitely having to do another round in the NY.

Obviously, I have twins.

Wow! That sounds like a rollercoaster of a journey 🙃

Wow, twins, after such a tough journey, what an outcome! Can I ask how old you were when you did the new cycle?

Move the embryos, you can’t have confidence in that clinic any longer. If you feel up to it make a complaint too (but I would get your embryos safely moved first).
Good luck with the FET in a new environment.

@Hopehunter I was 38 second and third round, second round produced the eventual babies, third round, which we had screened, produced nothing but think it was bad luck.