IVF with PGD # 10

At least my wait is over with AF arriving today...some finality to it all I suppose. Hormones must be returning to normal as the emotional roller coaster is getting a bit easier to ride. Spoke to the nurse today too. She asked if we had thought about our path forward. Said I would prefer to have a chat with the FS about what he thought our options are & what he thought our chances are. If there is something he can suggest to try to try to get us over the line or if he thought our chances are just hopeless. May have to resign myself to the fact that there may not be another blessing in my life......

Still grappling on whether I am going to tell my family. My last loss was the day before my gran died and just wasn't the time to be heaping that on my mum as well & they are coming to visit next week for my DD's 5th birthday. I certainly don't want to spoil my DD's birthday & the visit with her grandparents but not really something I can just discuss on the phone either. It's still so fresh in my head & even just thinking about it still brings me to tears. They have no idea that we have even been trying so whether I should just keep it to ourselves & spare them the pain. Not sure that spreading the misery would actually achieve anything or if my mum would be more hurt for not having told her sooner. Not really a winning situation for anyone.

Sorry for my babble but helps to have it out of my head!

xxx

At least my wait is over with AF arriving today...some finality to it all I suppose. Hormones must be returning to normal as the emotional roller coaster is getting a bit easier to ride. Spoke to the nurse today too. She asked if we had thought about our path forward. Said I would prefer to have a chat with the FS about what he thought our options are & what he thought our chances are. If there is something he can suggest to try to try to get us over the line or if he thought our chances are just hopeless. May have to resign myself to the fact that there may not be another blessing in my life......

Still grappling on whether I am going to tell my family. My last loss was the day before my gran died and just wasn't the time to be heaping that on my mum as well & they are coming to visit next week for my DD's 5th birthday. I certainly don't want to spoil my DD's birthday & the visit with her grandparents but not really something I can just discuss on the phone either. It's still so fresh in my head & even just thinking about it still brings me to tears. They have no idea that we have even been trying so whether I should just keep it to ourselves & spare them the pain. Not sure that spreading the misery would actually achieve anything or if my mum would be more hurt for not having told her sooner. Not really a winning situation for anyone.

Sorry for my babble but helps to have it out of my head!

xxx

joe - hope you're feeling ok this w/end :hug:. i had a chem. towards the end of last year, close to my grandma passing away. it was really rough, but i did tell my mum & close family. not sure about your mum, but mine would've been more upset if she found out that i didnt tell her. if its too hard to talk about, could you send a text? bit impersonal i know, but at least you could let her know, and give her an opportunity to support you a little? xx

Alison & JoeSpratt, just wanted to let you know that I am still thinking of you both. Take good care of yourselves, ladies xx

Hi girls
I'm finally back!! I'll go to the donor thread soon I guess but I wanted to say hi and let you know where l'm at. My belly belly friend was not able to be my donor in the end. The friend who offered back in Jan is now single again and very keen to help me and donor daddy (her ex wasn't keen on the idea). She has had her first bloods and we all have our counselling session next wed. I'm scared to death something will go wrong given our past history and had a mini melt down today. Donor daddy has been so amazing, given he thought he'd do a few sperm donations and bang we'd be utd he has stuck with Me through all this, bless him. So who knows, we could potentially have a basket of lovely eggies in the next few months. She's 24 and has a 3 year old daughter who my mum and I are babysitting for a few hours on Sunday (good practice for 'grandma' lol)!
Good to be back. I'll have read and catch up on where everyone is up to.

Great to see you back, Sunbeam :-). Ill be stalking & crossing my fingers for you. Xx

Sunbeam!!! Missed you! I will be stalking :)

Welcome back Sunbeam! Sounds promising. How did the testing go this week? Hoping this is the final instalment of your journey xxx

Hi Sunbeam - that's so exciting wishing you every luck in the world! Would love you to pop in and keep us posted x

AFM - sorry I've been MIA, I've been struggling with my "you'll be unlikely to have another baby" diagnosis after my failed PGD cycle. The specialist told me last week that even though they'd rather have tested from 10 to get a proper idea the fact I've had so many miscarriages just proves it's my eggs not just one of those things grrr. He basically told me to enjoy my daughter and enjoy my life in a nutshell. Was pretty depressed for a few days and struggling to deal with some friends who are pregnant and whinging about it but i'm trying to stay positive. Got in to see a great fertility naturopatI , who said I am one of he ryoungest clients and she has another client with premature ovarian dysfunction, low AMH, high FSH like me, had failed IVF and then after 3 months working with her she got pregnant with a healthy bub. So it re-sparked my faith again that perhaps I can still do this. We're taking 3 months off from TTC and hitting the naturopath's diet and herbs and we'll see how we go. Have found a lot of interesting info on the whole affects of IVF drugs on egg quality and flaws in the PGD testing so I figured it was worth one last shot. I just don't feel ready to quit yet, I really do feel I'm meant to have another baby, not sure if it's denial or what - off to see a psych about it anyway to get some coping with pregnant whinging women strategies ha ha ha. Oh and I turned 40 yesterday, scary milestone when I really hoped to end my 30's with a baby in my belly at least. Ho hum.

Hope everyone is well, sorry for the woe is me post! xx

Hi ladies, was wondering if you wouldn't mind me joining in ur grp. I used to be on BB a lot a few back and the support helped me so much. We have been trying to conceive our 2nd for 13mths. 1xiui, 2xfresh, 3xfets all bfn. I just waiting for af to arrive from our latest fet. We saw our FS yesterday and he feels PGD is the be t step for us. Feeling quite overwhelmed and I guess just searching for ppl to chat to about it cause Icsi is one, but PGD is a whole new level that no one really understands!

Welcome T-hopes! You certainly have been through a lot. Did your FS say what they would be using the PGD for? Just general abnormalities I'm guessing. The ladies here are really supportive & know that we are all going through the same thing so feel free to rant/vent/whinge & ask as many questions as you like.

AFM...follow up with FS today after m/c cycle to discuss options for moving forward. Still haven't decided if we are going to go again but have started taking DHEA to see if that will help with egg quality/numbers if we do decide to go again. FS thinks we should go again but I reckon if that doesn't work, then that would probably be it! A lot to think about I suppose

Hope everyone is travelling along well xxx

Double!

Thanks for the welcome :) nice to be on bb and in a group that speaks the same language, however I'm new to PGD so I'm sure I'll have many questions. I'm so sorry to read of ur recent loss. From experience Id say that nothing ever eases that pain, you will get thru it but never get over it. More than 3yrs on from my loss and the very thought of it still brings a lump to my throat. Xxxx

Reading in ur last post I just wanted to ask about DHEA. I see a lot of ppl talking about it but my FS has never mentioned it. I'm wondering if you could tell me a bit about it? Perhaps I should ask my FS if he would recommend it for me. I also have read a lot of pol taking melatonin for egg quality? Our embryos have all been of very average or below average quality so Im really interested in finding ways to improve them. I'vw just turned 31 so I'm still young, hoping PGD can give some answers.

We are on the ivf path because I have PCO, NKC and endo and Dh has 96% abnormalities with his sperm.

And yes they are looking for general abnormalities. However I do have a nephew with a very rare genetic disease called Ectodermal Dysplacia. We aren't sure where is has come from in our family and it is normally carried from females but presents in males so that is something we will speak further to the geneticists about.

xxxx

Hi T-Hopes and welcome - I have been taking DHEA on and off for 12 months, it's a relatively new drug that your body produces normally but as you get older it produces less and less. It's actually in affect an anti aging hormone so there is some evidence to show that it may help with egg quality, but nothing substantial as proof. You have to be on it for 2 solid months before it can take affect, I found it interesting as my clinic kept making me stop when I came up to doing a collection cycle which to me defeated the purpose as it mean you were off it for 2 weeks at a time, so on off on off. I'm still taking it now even though I won't at this stage be doing any more IVF, we are going through a fertility naturopath and going back to the a la naturale way to see if I have a better response. Good luck with your IVF/PGD journey xx

AFM - so I am feeling in a better headspace now, I've got past the failure of the IVF and the results of the PGD and moved on to better things hopefully. The naturopath was very positive that I can still produce good eggs and she was very interesting in that she explained exactly how the IVF drugs work and what they can do to your body and personally I'm starting to wonder if they didn't make things worse, but I guess it's an individual thing and it's definitely something I had to try. So I'm on a detox diet at the moment, which is a little sucky but i'm losing weight too so that's a plus and I'm feeling more energized and certainly less stressed. We are taking 3 months off ttc as the ovaries apparently have a 3 month cycle to produce good mature eggs so we will boost myself with goodies in that time and start trying again probably August/Sept. I just turned 40 last week so my mindset has changed somewhat, I've decided we might just try naturally for another 6 months and then call it a day :o)

Hope everyone else is doing well and will pop in occasionally to see how you're all getting on xx

Hi T-Hopes and welcome - I have been taking DHEA on and off for 12 months, it's a relatively new drug that your body produces normally but as you get older it produces less and less. It's actually in affect an anti aging hormone so there is some evidence to show that it may help with egg quality, but nothing substantial as proof. You have to be on it for 2 solid months before it can take affect, I found it interesting as my clinic kept making me stop when I came up to doing a collection cycle which to me defeated the purpose as it mean you were off it for 2 weeks at a time, so on off on off. I'm still taking it now even though I won't at this stage be doing any more IVF, we are going through a fertility naturopath and going back to the a la naturale way to see if I have a better response. Good luck with your IVF/PGD journey xx

AFM - so I am feeling in a better headspace now, I've got past the failure of the IVF and the results of the PGD and moved on to better things hopefully. The naturopath was very positive that I can still produce good eggs and she was very interesting in that she explained exactly how the IVF drugs work and what they can do to your body and personally I'm starting to wonder if they didn't make things worse, but I guess it's an individual thing and it's definitely something I had to try. So I'm on a detox diet at the moment, which is a little sucky but i'm losing weight too so that's a plus and I'm feeling more energized and certainly less stressed. We are taking 3 months off ttc as the ovaries apparently have a 3 month cycle to produce good mature eggs so we will boost myself with goodies in that time and start trying again probably August/Sept. I just turned 40 last week so my mindset has changed somewhat, I've decided we might just try naturally for another 6 months and then call it a day :o)

Hope everyone else is doing well and will pop in occasionally to see how you're all getting on xx

ha ha JoeSpratt we are into the double posts - sorry girls not sure what happened there! x

Double posts are so random Alison!

As for going off the DHEA when you are cycling, my FS has said that I would have to stop once I start the FSH as it has the potential to screw up your hormone ratios which will be a killer in maintaining a pregnancy due to the conflicting hormones.

Hi ladies,
I was wondering if I could join your group for some emotional support. We are about to embark on a PGD (CGH cycle for abnormalities) after 5 failed cycles (3 fresh, 2 frozen). A quick summary: ICSI #1 in 2010 - gave us our DD and currently trying for #2 the past 18 months. I have (had) PCO and hubby has low sperm count, low motility and low morphology. We recently found out that he has a higher percentage of sperm that have chromosome abnormalities, and basically FS says we'll have a difficult time falling pregnant. Hence the CGH this cycle. I know I can get pregnant once we find the 'golden one' but figure there is no point transferring perfect looking blastocysts that are infact abnormal. We've been tested for absolutely everything else & normal, so just a numbers game for us now.

Cheers,
Emma

Hi Emma and good luck!!! It definitely is a numbers game, I learnt that the hard way. Wishing you every success, I'm hoping to catch the golden egg too after 2 failed IVF cycles (good looking embryos but tested abnormal). It only takes one and if you respond well to the drugs and get good numbers to choose from great, I had poor response so only had 3 for testing. Such a rollercoaster this whole thing isn't it.xx

Welcome Emma! Hope the PGD can get you your elusive # 2!

Welcome to T-hopes & Emma!! Good luck on your journeys xx

Thanks ladies for welcoming me into your group. We ve also changed FS to the infamous Wazza & he's put me onto metformin & myo-insoitol for egg quality & doing a down reg cycle with gonal f & menopur rather than antagonist so hoping it helps us catch the golden egg. I do respond well, usually between 10 -14 eggs but fertilisation & blastocyst numbers are usually very low. clinic does CGH biopsy on day 3, we usually only get 1 or 2 blasts & not worth the money to test. Emotionally, I cannot keep putting back embryos that are abnormal. I'd rather know upfront. I'm new to synarel & getting awful headaches. Any advice?

alison - im glad you're feeling a bit better about the last cycle, hopefully your naturopath can get you that natural miracle. xx

joe - i agree with your fs... i think you should go again ;). hopefully the DHEA will make the difference. xx

welcome t-hopes & emma, wishing you all the best with your upcoming cycles.

T-hopes, you sound quite similar to me as we are starting cycle #4, first one with PGD for abnormalities. I'm 30, have a 2 yr old DD, have PCO and DH low everything & recently did a sperm chromosome study (FISH test) that showed a high percentage of his sperm were infact chromosomally abnormal which is common in males with low sperm counts etc. have you had any DNA fragmentation tests etc done?

You asked about melatonin, I've been reading up about it & have heard good things about melatonin for egg and also for sperm so have ordered it from US as you don't need a prescription. I've also got my DH onto maca & l-carnitine at the recommendation of a friend who went through similiar issues & swears melatonin and these supplements made a difference to her DH's sperm. Are you on anything for PCO? I'm taking Diabex and also myo-insoitol at recomm by new FS. Also alternating between gonal f and menopur this cycle.

Just waiting for AF to arrive, to start inject on day 6, why does it always not come when you're waiting for it!

Alison, a friend of ours who is 46 is pregnant naturally with #2 after 4 unsuccessful cycles based on egg quality. They had given up on trying, sold all their baby stuff and BAM. A miracle at 46. 50% chance of it being normal and to a true miracle it is, baby is completely healthy. You just never know.

Thank you everyone for a lovely welcome! Sorry I've been Mia, it's been a big wait to start this cycle but finally the ball is rolling! I started the pill a few wks ago, had our geneticist appts, nursing etc, picked up meds so I'm getting excited! I have my last OCP 1st aug and start FSH after a bleed! I'll be on 200iu gonal f.

Elarwood :) hello! I'm excited to read how similar our situations are! It's a lonely old road but to have someone that's on the same page it's really good!! My FS is putting me on Luveris to hopefully help with the fert rates... Same as you, I produce lots of eggs but they just don't make strong embryos! We will also be testing ours on day 3 but we have never even had an embryo that is more than 7cell so I'm extremely scared! I reckon we'll have to bank this pick up and do another pick up in a few mths so make it financially worth the testing! So where are you up to in your cycle? Had EPU yet??

Thank you everyone for a lovely welcome! Sorry I've been Mia, it's been a big wait to start this cycle but finally the ball is rolling! I started the pill a few wks ago, had our geneticist appts, nursing etc, picked up meds so I'm getting excited! I have my last OCP 1st aug and start FSH after a bleed! I'll be on 200iu gonal f.

Elarwood :) hello! I'm excited to read how similar our situations are! It's a lonely old road but to have someone that's on the same page it's really good!! My FS is putting me on Luveris to hopefully help with the fert rates... Same as you, I produce lots of eggs but they just don't make strong embryos! We will also be testing ours on day 3 but we have never even had an embryo that is more than 7cell so I'm extremely scared! I reckon we'll have to bank this pick up and do another pick up in a few mths so make it financially worth the testing! So where are you up to in your cycle? Had EPU yet??

Hi girls,

I have been meaning to post in here to say hello and let you know I'm around if I can help you in anyway.

I'm 27 weeks now with our pgd bub after suffering 5 miscarriages, presumably due to chromosome problems, happy to answer any questions about it you may have :)

Hi ladies, just got my AMH test results and my level is 14, just wondering if that is low? My nurse said it was the lower side of normal?!

Hi minniemouse! I think we shared a forum yrs back! Congratulations on your bub! I'm keen for all the advice and knowledge I can get! Feeling overwhelmed and confused by everything right now!

T hopes I'm not sure how old you are (I'm on my phone) but that number is ok, mine was about 15 which I think is just below normal and pretty good for my age. Alison on here has a low amh & got a few eggs collected each time

Thanks for the congrats :-)

Anything in particular you want to know now, I can tell you my experience of pgd if you want ?

:) pfffft, 14 is high to me, mine's 2.3 at best, at worst 1.6! But I don't have good results from doing PGD, I was a poor responder and out of 2 collections only managed 4 to send to testing as we lost a couple in the thaw from the first round, 3 viable blasts all of which were complexely chromosomally affected. My specialist said it's hard to judge whether it's my age/poor quality eggs or just one of those things on such a small number to test but either way no more IVF for us. We are having a break and seeinga naturopath and already my cycles are back to 28 days with a 14 day luteal phase and my FSH is down a bit so hoping this is the magic formula for us before we have one last try in a couple of months.

That would be great Minniemouse! Love to hear of your experience! I've got a lot of fear I guess mainly because they will be testing our embryos on day 3 but ours have always struggled to get to day2 let alone day 3! And then have to keep going to day 5 to transfer! Scared to death all of a sudden!

Oh sorry if I offended Alison, I just didn't know what 14 meant, was just a number but now I understand that it's a normal result x

I did a "normal" ivf cycle in feb 2012 and got 6 eggs at pick up, 1 got to blast and was put back on day 5, i got pregnant but it ended in miscarriage (was measuring behind on the 6 week scan and i knew it was heading the way the others had gone), it too was put down to chromosome problems.

so then we decided we would go to pgd as that was as far as we could go with ivf and then we could do no more, it took me ages to get my cycle back after the miscarriage so we did another cycle with pgd in september, that time i got 7 eggs, we got 4 to day 3 and were tested but all 4 were abnormal, that was pretty hard to take, going into the clinic to be told there was nothing normal and you leave without a transfer, without a chance, that was very hard.

We then decided to do 2 cycles to collect more embryos for testing and the plan was to do a november and december cycles to make the most of the medicare rebate before the new year started. i was also put on luveris for this cycle, the november one i got 18 eggs, was huge numbers for me, we ended up freezing 11 on day 2 and i was meant to go straight into the next cycle but just couldn't do it, i was too sore, so we took december off and did a january cycle where i got 6 eggs, on day 2 the frozen ones were taken out to be at the same stage as the fresh cycle and 9 out of the 11 thawed and progressed and with the fresh ones got 10 to test between the 2 cycles.

we were hopeful with 10 to test we would get several normal ones (my clinic quotes 60-70% will be abnormal so based on that we thought maybe we might get 2 or 3 normal), in the end we got 1 normal out of the 10 (this pregnancy), terrible result but that one good one took, we were very lucky :)

The results for us were very bad, total of 14 tested and only 1 good one, in a way the results made me feel better about my miscarriages, as awful and hard as they were given our pgd results i feel they probably were chromosomally abnormal and we weren't losing healthy babies

ha ha you didn't offend me at all T-Hopes, I was just trying to say pffft to the nurse for telling you those numbers weren't good because I'd kill for those numbers lol. I have premature ovarian failure, I've only just turned 40 and when I fell with my now almost 4 year old daughter it took me 3 months to fall pregnant with no miscarriages. Since I've had 5 losses and still don't have another baby. The sad thing is even though I had 3 perfectly good looking blasts ready to transfer they were all chromosomally affected so they would only have ended in disaster. The embryologist couldn't believe I didn't get at least 1 good one considering how great the embryos looked in the dish, they were all a grade 2 by blast stage. Just goes to show that the PGD is important if you want to avoid miscarriages. I wish you all the best, my IVF journey has ended but I've come to terms with it now and am enjoying not filling my body with drugs and for the first time in 2 years I feel half normal and my cycles are normal so it just wasn't for me. What works for one, doesn't work for another but how you get the bub is not important, it's getting it that is so wishing all my friends on here the best of luck and lots and lots of sticky baby vibes for us all xx

Hi minniemouse! I take it that everything went well for your scan? Glad to hear that everything is progressing well.

Still wanting to go again & am trying my hardest to loose a bit more weight & let the new drug regime kick in before I go back to the FS in a couple of weeks before I have "THE" talk with DP on whether we will or won't :)

Minniemouse- that's my biggest fear, turning up to the clinic with nothing to transfer! Can't imagine how devastating that must have felt after going thru so much! It's definitely weighing heavy on my mind as I'm sure it does with most ppl! So did you only use luveris one one of your cycles? And it gave you a better result yeh?? I'm excited about trying it, just something new in the mix! Thank you so so much for sharing your story, I've been fee,ing quite lonely cause although I have lots of beautiful friends and family that listen, they don't have any answers or experiences to help me and they get a little confused by everything which is fair enough! Which clinic did you use? Did they use the Sure24 testing?

Alison - oh phew I'm glad I didn't offend! :redface: I'm sorry that things have been so bad for you with ur PGd cycle :( but I'm happy to read ur at peace with it all now, I can only imagine that must have been a hard place to get too! Miscarriage is just horrendous, I still feel devastated about ours and it was many yrs ago! The nurse said that if I am to fall pregnant with a PGd embryo, that there be only a 5% chance of miscarriage, something I hadn't realised!

Hi T-hopes, you sound so similar to me!! My AMH is 14 as well! Which like you said is on the lower range of normal. but you wouldn't believe it, but got 34 eggs at EPU on monday. We were expecting 24 & even then was lots more than what I've had in the past (I get 10-14). FS was shocked of course! The differences were that I did a down regulation instead of antagonist, with gonal f & menopur alternating each day & dosage 350 instead of 300. I am VERY sore still. fS triggered with synarel to minimize ohss risk I was worried I'd get no eggs but obviously it worked as 30 eggs were mature & 20 fertilised. Day 2 results today, 15 are where they should be, 2 a little ahead & 3 behind. But our biggest drop off is day 3 to day 5. Biopsy tomorrow for CGH & I'm petrified none wiill be normal. If that's the case, out of 34 eggs I don't think we'll ever get a normal!

Minniemouse & Alison, I'm worried about doing a day 3 biopsy where they take a cell, whether they are accurate & if it causes the embryo to stop growing. Bunch of nerves!

Opps what I meant to say was like you said, 14 is on the lower end of normal for my age.

Elarwood- yes we are so similar it's creeping me out lol!! 34 eggs!!! Holy heck!!!! How are you even walking!!!!
My first epu is got 7eggs and second epu I got 16... I'm hoping I follow in your footsteps with my third!!! ;) I haven't tried menopur, is that another type of FSH? I have t used syranel before either? I'm on orgalutran & gonal f 200iu.
Gosh you must be so nervous! I'm so nervous for you!!! I'm dreading that part of my cycle... So so scary! I'm worried also about them damaging the embryos...I asked my geneticist this question and he said at our clinic, less than 1% are damaged so I hope she's right! What clinic are you with?

xxxx

My first EPU was 10, last was 14 & FS said we were expecting 24-26 follicles so was in complete shock when I woke up to 34! Another thing similar is that my DD was born 20 May 2011. Crazy!! This is our 4th stim cycle for baby 2, although our first was a disaster with 3 out of 12 fertilizing. You must be doing an antagonist cycle with gonal f. My new FS said he's been getting good results with alternating gonal f & menopur. Menopur is similar to gonal f but has LH and hcg in it to mature eggs as you go. I'm now with QFG in Brisbane, they are sending biopsied cells to sister clinic in Melbourne I believe it Melbourne IVF or IVF Australia. I'm so nervous we won't get any normal ones to transfer on Saturday! I'm in agony with hyperstimulation & having had a lot of couch time has caused me to be very anxious & over think it all. Trying to be positive with the fact I had 30 mature eggs I should have 1 or 2 normal. Otherwise I don't think we ever will! When does your cycle start?