As I've come back to the forums after taking some time out, I thought I'd update you lovely folks with our current situation.
So, after our second bfn, after having been told we had an 'above average' blasto by the embryologist, we were shocked to be told by the consultant that none of our 6 embryos had developed especially well, and she thought that egg quality was a problem as they all seemed poor before day 2, e.g. None made it to 4 cells that day etc. We had already set the money aside for one more round so we asked what other tests we could have done before having one more go of icsi. In the light of my miscarriage last November, I wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be implantation problems and I'd read a lot on here about NK cells. After all, if we got a good embie, I wouldn't want my womb to fail it! Another consideration was that we wanted to reach a point where we would stop trying and be able to move on to adoption... we felt that more definitive answers would help us to stop trying after round 3.
So, we paid an eye watering amount of money for "level one and level two tests". I had to give about 16 vials of blood, and hubbie gave one! Some of the bloods went off to Chicago and we were told we wouldn't get the results until the end of August. So when the clinic rang us at the end of July, we knew it wouldn't be good news.
It turns out that, yes, my killer cells are slightly high, and also I'm one of the 10% of Caucasian women who don't absorb folic acid properly, also I have some clotting issues so should take baby aspirin and steroids. But the real shocker was that hubbie has a balanced chromosome translocation. He's fine, no ill effects for his health (thank goodness) but means many of his sperm are probably abnormal. We were told there was only a 2% chance a chromosome abnormality would be found (though I've since read some research that suggests 2-14% of infertile men have a chromosome issue). We had expected to find a problem with me, not him.
So now we are waiting to see the geneticist when we get back from holiday at the end of August. We are paying to see one privately but we have also seen the GP to get on the nhs waiting list (which is likely to be start of October) as there is nhs funding for icsi in cases of genetic disorders... but only before I'm 40 and I turned 39 in July. 😬 the clock is very much ticking!! But we have some savings and my parents have said that we mustn't say no to anything because of money as they will give us the money if we need it (they're of the opinion they'd rather see us spending any inheritance whilst they're alive than leave it for us when they're gone, bless them). So we are exploring a whole new world of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
It's very unlikely to work. The pgd depends on having a selection of blastocysts to screen, and heaven knows that producing blastocysts has not been our strength. We might decide that it's not worth proceeding after seeing the geneticist, as it's likely that my eggs are poor quality too, and my hormone tests show I am borderline low ovarian reserve now.
But I can't tell you how much better I feel now it's been confirmed that it's not all my fault! My husband always told me there was no room for blame in this game, but I was still blaming myself really badly, still finding myself thinking that if he wasn't with me, he could have had a child by now. It's only now that we are in a position where I *could* blame him, that I appreciate how little there is blame in this game... I don't have any question in my mind that we are in this together, and I realise that I really was beating myself up for no good reason.
I feel more positive about the future than I have done for ages. We are going to the alternative families show in London in September and also a local adoption information evening. By next July, I'll know for sure what the future holds as we definitely won't try any more icsi once I'm 40. The uncertainty was killing me but now we have some answers and some ways forward. There will be children in our future, it's just taking us a while to get there. In the meantime we are making the most of the time we have to do adult things. Like sitting in bed posting on forums whilst the rain lashes down outside!
Anyone had chromosome karyotype testing and was it useful?
Abnormal Pregnancy Sac & Medical Missed Miscarriage
Abnormal embryos, losing hope :(
Failed cycle #1 , perfect embryo PGS testes 46 chromosomes 
