"Older" or "Larger" women and IVF success - Stories please :)

[nothing2lose]

Okay, so I am two weeks shy of my 40th birthday

So far I have had four IVF cycles this year - all BFNs.

My FS says I should keep trying for another 12-18 months but I am curious to know if there are any IVF success stories from oldies like me.

I am also chunky (read: more to love). So if there are any success stories from the curvier of the IVF crowd, I would love to hear from you too...

I just need a little pick-me-up, motivation-wise while I am having a little IVF breather.

Thanks!

[melbel]

I conceived Connor two months short of my 40th birthday if that helps...we had been trying since I was 33, he was conceived late May and I turned 40 at the start of August......we plane to at least try for a number two and I will be 42 in a couple of months, so yes it can happen......don't give up...it was right when we are about to give up that we finally got our sticky bubba. I am not gonna blow smoke up your arse and say it will happen but i will say there is still hope.

[nothing2lose]

Thanks Mel!

And I appreciate the 'no smoke' bit! I am not really into it IYKWIM!!!

I really, really, really hope we both get what we want.

I assume you are going the IVF route again? Do you have any frosties? Or will it be another stim cycle?

And, I have to ask, did you do anything differently the time you conceived your little one?

Thanks again

n2l

[briggsy's girl]

i'm on the "more to love" side of things (LOTS more to love lol)

we had 10 cycles to get DD - 8 stims, 2 FET's. She was conceived on an IUI cycle in between IVF cycles (we are out in the country and were filling in time in the three months between cycles being available locally. we had been experimenting with lots of things - the differences that cycle were that we stimmed for an extra day over every other cycle, and we added accupuncture for luteal phase support. i continued accupuncture til about 6 weeks to get us past the point at which we'd lost the others from IVF/IUI cycles.

[melbel]

We have no frosties so will go back to fullstim...fortunately my AMH indicates I still have goo egg numbers. We actually stated out doing the very expensive IVF/PGD cycles due to recurrent natural miscarriages and had no success on those. We then flew to Sydney and consulted Gavin Sacks who did blood tests and a uterine biopsy that showed I have about 7 times the normal level of NK cells in my uterus so basically they were killing off my embryos.....he prescribed a regime of prednisone and clexane which my melbourne FS was happy to follow. We had run out of funds by then and thought we would do some cheaper IUI cycles while we saved up for more IVF...we fell pregnant on our second IUI cycle. So for us low tech worked where the highest of high tech had failed! OUr FS says we should try IUI again first as it worked so well for us....

I was on high dose prednisone till 13 weeks then slowly weaned off over the next few weeks and was on clexane injections till about 33 weeks from memory. I also did twice weekly acupuncture before during and after the cycle till about 13 weeks then dropped back to once a week for the rest of the pregnancy...I still go once a fortnight now cos it makes me feel so good!!

[nothing2lose]

Thanks BG and Mel!

I am not sure my FS is a great believer in NK cells. She is pretty no BS...that said I have just been tested for a whole range of chromosomal problems. I have appointment on June 15 to get results.

It is funny you both conceived on an IUI cycle. I never tried IUI. Maybe I should give one a go!!!

[melbel]

My fertility specialist was not conivnced either way as the research is still quite new, but he was happy to support us in getting a second opinon and even sent up our test records so we didn't have to double up on any blood tests as we had already had the full gamut of chromsome and other tests before we had started.....so that meant we only had to have a couple of extra ones done in sydney. And when an issue was found he was happy to liaise with Gavin on what protocol to use so I guess finding an open minded FS is the key to trying new things and exploring your options. I am surprised you are only know being tested for chromosomal issues, we had all that done before our very first cycle but possibly because we had had 3 miscarriages (2 on clomid) before we started down the IVF road they approached us differently.

[nothing2lose]

Yeah, I have never had a miscarriage (that I know of). Prior to IVF I had all of the hormone tests, thyroid, insulin, etc but this time around dp and I were tested for karotype, Leiden factor v and a million other things! She is also retesting my hormone levels - AMH, FSH, LH etc.

[lise]

N2L, I was 33 when we went through IVF/ICSI which according to the IVF nurses was 'a baby' though it didn't feel like it to us. I was also overweight, I'd lost about 15 kgs before starting IVF but was still classified as obese (hmmm, doesn't look very nice when I write it down!). We were very lucky to conceive on our second stim cycle (first cycle all our fertilised eggs developed multiple nuclei and our FS said they were no good so we had to go straight into another stim cycle) but we had male factor infertility (low sperm count, poor motility and morphology) whereas my tests had come back all clear. So not sure if that made a difference but we did manage a BFP whilst being on the cuddly side.

Wishing you all the very best xx

[Shish]

Okay, so I am two weeks shy of my 40th birthday

So far I have had four IVF cycles this year - all BFNs.

My FS says I should keep trying for another 12-18 months but I am curious to know if there are any IVF success stories from oldies like me.

I am also chunky (read: more to love). So if there are any success stories from the curvier of the IVF crowd, I would love to hear from you too...

I just need a little pick-me-up, motivation-wise while I am having a little IVF breather.

Thanks!

I do not have a happy ending story to tell yet however I thought I would respond so that you know that your not the only one out there. So far we have been through two full IVF ICSI cycles. The first one involved implantation of one embryo and one frozen. The second one in March this year involved one frozen and two implanted embryos and resulted in a miscarriage at about 7 weeks. I am thinking of doing another cycle in July also. In the meantime I am trying to lose weight but really struggling. I have also asked my doctor if he will change the protocol at all from the last two antagonist cycles but he doesnt seem to think this is necessary. My gut feeling is that time is running out and as I havnt had a great result to date, surely my case could be reviewed and changes, no matter how slight be made? It is frustrating but I really loved finding your thread and this is the first time I have joined in a discussion but I had to as you sound like someone going through a very similar thing.

[jacklicky]

I haven't had 'true' success yet either but I am in a similar position.

I turn 40 in October and considered on the 'cuddly' side of normal and have just finished my 2nd full stim cycle.

In my first (Down Reg) I got 14eggs, 8 fert, 6 2day, I had 4 transfers and 2 BFP's only to MC at 8wks and 5wks. 2 other BFN.

In my 2nd (Antagonist) I got 13eggs 6 2day embies, BFN on fresh transfer and I have 4 frozen to do FET's with.....

I'm not sure what the quality is like because my FS just says usable/non-usable embies.... FET's seem to work better for me that fresh....We have MFI (blockage) and that is our only know fertility issue. We do have a daughter (2 1/2) that we conceived naturally after a vasectomy reversal.....so we might look at doing that again if these FET's don't work.

[JBM]

hi i am 39 and half and 12 weeks preggers after 3 years IVF.
i am so much fatter now than when i had my boys, over weight and about size 16
our FS said same after we got 6 BFN's in a row but on 2nd full stim cycle i got a fresh BFP.

wishing you the best of luck. fingers crossed. x