How many ivf rounds are too many?

[ThisTidyViewer]

DH and I have unexplained infertility (early 40s, no children). We had 4 egg collection rounds over a year and no successful implantation or no good egg quality so far. AIBU for considering that these too many ivf rounds?

It took 5 for me. I changed my last round so that i was on the highest dose of medication, Icis, aoa and zymot were also used. It depends on finances and how much you can take emotionally and physically. The 5th round was to be our last round xx

This completely depends on you, your finances, the toll its taking and advice from your clinic about success rates given your age and history. Only you can decide when you've had enough. Best of luck whatever your next steps are

Thank you both. Doctor is saying that we have a 15% success rate but it’s up to us to decide what is enough. DH and I are on different pages - he wants to continue trying but I’m not sure if we should move on to egg donation already.

I'd suggest having a counselling session together (most clinics in the UK offer this as included in treatment price I think) to discuss impact all the attempts have had and feelings you both have about next steps

Im about to start my 5th round for egg collection but including fet rounds this will be 8 cycles. This will be my last round as I myself have reached my abilities to continue physically and financially its become a burden. I dont make embryos or i only make poor quality embryos so not usually worth transferring. If I didnt already have children, I would use DE.

We were “fortunate” enough to try just about every procedure and anything that might improve our chances. In the end, age seemed to be the hurdle we couldn’t overcome.

Too many failed fertilisations. Too many seven-week scans with no heartbeat. Too many miscarriages. And, through it all, friends who seemed to get pregnant just by sneezing on each other. We were happy for them, but it hurt.

We were at the end of our tether when we decided to use an egg donor. It felt less like choosing a path and more like accepting the only one we had left.

At the time, we tied ourselves in knots over genetics: what it would mean for our child, how we’d explain it, whether they’d resent us. Every imagined future question became another worry, until we’d practically convinced ourselves our child would hate us.

Fast forward, and it was the best decision we ever made—though getting there was incredibly hard. Our first donor-egg transfer worked, and our son is now six.
All those fears about genetics lost their grip the moment the little bugger arrived.

He was our son. We were his parents. And we loved him.

I wouldn’t pretend our outcome is a promise for anyone else. But if it’s the fear of using a donor that’s weighing on you, I can tell you this: we had those fears too, and our experience of being his parents has been so much more than we could have imagined.

My advice (which should always bet taken with a pinch of salt), do what you need to to have a baby. Everything else is secondary (including genetics).

xxx

Thank you @olderdad26for your very honest share. From a rational point of view I think it might be the correct next step but after hearing people talk about the legal bit and how to share with the child I got a bit scared. Mainly scared about how the child will feel - will they feel like their identity is lost if I am not the biological mother, will they revolt as teenagers because of that. Part of me wants to ignore it, not tell anyone and just pretend that the donation doesn’t exist and I’m ashamed to think that. On the other hand I know the main issue is age and feel like we’ve tried enough times.
thanks for sharing your experience, really do appreciate it
xxx

@ThisTidyViewer We (same sex couple) used donor sperm. Our eldest has just turned 4 - she can tell you that you need a sperm and an egg to make a baby and her mummies only have eggs so someone shared their sperm with us. She’s growing up knowing and understanding her story, and honestly at the moment she doesn’t seem interested at all yet. She just knows we’re her family and she doesn’t care right now that my wife has no genetic or birth connection to her. She’s just her mum.

Hi. Did you by any chance find out what causes poor embryos?
I have a child already, through Ivf at 36 years. First try worked perfect. No eggs left as all were poor grading. Tried new round, 16 eggs, 10matured but only 3 survived til blastocyst. Went for ngs and all had monosomy 22.
yesterday went for another egg collection, 14 retrieved, 10 mature and now the dreaded wait. I’m 39 years old

Hi @Nazy87 I’m sorry to hear it’s been a difficult journey.
No real explanation why my eggs are not working, I’m just told that is what is expected at my age (42) and that there’s a 15% chance of getting a good quality egg. Sperm analysis looks fine but eggs are either not mature (max 3 per stimulation round) or embryos came out with genetic deformities. This already with ICSI. This is why I am struggling with the decision of continuing IVF with my own eggs.
Hope you have better luck and will be keeping my fingers crossed for you on this dreaded wait.

Hope you dont mind me sharing & wishing you all the luck with your journey

I carry a chromosome translocation, so we need IVF with genetic testing (PGT-SR). After being told our postcode and my older child ruled out NHS funding, we spent around £14,000 on a cycle that sadly left us with no embryos.

We’re still hoping there’s a chance for us, but misleading information and delays may mean we’ve now missed the age cut-off.

We’ve started a petition for fairer access—even if it comes too late for us, we want things to change for others. Please sign and share will your followers if you can. It would mean so much 🤍 x.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769277

We had a very similar experience to @olderdad26 (except our child is sperm not egg donor - but the feelings and challenges around it are similar)

We got to a point in treatment where we both felt it was not working and there was no point going through more. You know yourself when that is. I was exhausted, fed up of it all, and I just didn't want to keep doing the same thing which wasn't working. I was done. We also got told something like 10-15% chance. I felt I'd given it a good shot and it just seemed like it could be endless more rounds with no success, and we weren't getting any younger. I worried that by the time it worked (if it ever did) we would be such old, exhausted parents, and also all the additional genetic risks for the child of having older parents. So, we just stopped. The sense of relief I felt was something I can't quite describe.

The whole process of choosing a donor and the emotions around it at the time were very heavy and difficult, and all your concerns are really valid and normal. We found an event run by Donor Conception Network very helpful, you might want to check them out. Especially around all the reasons why telling is the best thing to do for everybody, hard as it can be for parents.

It's hard to conceptualise it before the child is actually here and that is why all these worries seem so huge.

Now that our son is here, it's different. It's not exactly a non-issue (obviously we still need to navigate the conversations with him, any reactions he might have etc), but there is just so much love and we are so clearly his parents in every way that matters. I can't explain it but it's just different when they are here.

I would do it again in a heartbeat and it's the absolute best thing I ever did.