Stupid covid!! Have I been screwed over now that the clinic froze my donors eggs?

[AnnieMac123]

So in March we were due to fly to Prague.. Both myself and donor started our medication... In fact only 2 hrs after my first injection the clinic called to say the country was in lock down and I was to stop all medication as they couldn't confirm when I could travel. The following week irish flights were also shut down. So hubby never got to Prague to give his sperm.... Clinic continued with donors medication (which I was unaware of but I appreciate she was taking a lot more drugs than me so it may have been more difficult to stop her cycle) anyway we received 12 eggs.. Which they had to freeze.

For me this changes everything. We planned on using fresh eggs - fresh sperm, fresh embryo for 1st transfer... and freezing any embryos that remained. The clinic originally offered a guarantee of 8 eggs and 2 embryos... So at least we had the guarantee that a transfer would happen.. I have questioned the clinic asking about their experience of defrosting eggs as I have read only 50% may survive the thawing process... So we may only end up with 6eggs if we r lucky.. They have kinda shrugged me off not answering the question directly when I ask about the contracted guarantee.. They say nothing has changed that they stand over their offer.. But to me our chances have been halved..

Feel like it's just another thing taken outta my control... I feel like pulling the plug on everything but the day they cancelled my cycle they sent me a bill for €3000 for the donors side of things which I paid straight away without stupidity asking any questions first.

I started a new job just last week and it's very male dominated so I really don't fancy having to tell the manager all this... We r hoping to travel again in late August-Sept.... My partners been out of work cos of covid so he can only go for a day or 2.. And I will have to stay on for the week by myself awaiting news on how many embryos made it to day 5 (if any)... Its not want we want.. To be on other side of the world from each other for what mayb our only chance to have a family... On top of that.. this stupid 2 week isolation that's been imposed on people when they arrive back in Ireland means am actually having to ask for 3 weeks off work.. Am stressed to the max at the min I just can't see anything working

Sorry for rant! I feel like am sinking with a low mood at min!

[Hidden]

Im so sorry Annie. No words can easy your frustration. I hope one will be enough to give you your rainbow baby.

Also please dont stress too much about the self isolation. Im sure loads can change in two months. Its horrible to go through this by yourself when doing the procedure but hopefully the situation changes in the coming months. Also i always worked in a competitive surroundings and don’t underestimate men. If you have a ivf policy in your hr policy please know you can take time off without telling your direct manager and tell them its a women health related issue. I guess what i want to say that there might ve options. Keep your head high you can do this xx

[AnnieMac123 in reply to Hidden]

Good thinking.. I need to check if there is any policy in place...I doubt it though the irish are fairly slack on helping women have children.. I think the UK policies and free cycles on NHS are amazing! . Lol its the strangest set up at the minute at work as there are so many people working from home that I don't even know who I should be asking about annual leave or anything. Have my 1st week over with so will try and suss someone out this wk to see about contacting HR...there all based in Dublin and am 5hrs away I honestly don't think there's one pieces of my life that's straight forward at the min!

[Chel91]

Totally understandable to be upset, frustrated and feeling totally let down. This whole situation sucks! It must be so difficult to be left out of the decision making process and too far away to do anything. My heart goes out to you!! I was disappointed in my retrieval as I only got 8 eggs, but they made 3 good quality blastocysts. Hopefully your strongest eggs will be the ones pulling through at each stage!

Fingers crossed for you that you get the very best result possible🙏🤞💕 xxxx

[JanuaRuna]

Hi AnnieMac123

I do feel you, even though not quite the same situation but I just landed in Prague, alone after this Covid time, going for a a FET tomorrow.

My hubby is home staying with our kid. It is not my first option but, or the second one either but we jumped on it anyway.

I think a lot can change in 2 months time, we do have to do all kind of things to get what we desire. And sometimes those things can get complicated and not as we picture us in our plans.

Hope everything will just turn out for tou, if not then plan b,c or d will put in action.

Best of luck

[AnnieMac123 in reply to JanuaRuna]

Ah best of luck for tomorrow hope all goes well.... Can I ask where did u fly from?? The clinic are asking when I can travel and checking flights from dublin there just not going regurally enough yet to take a chance on it. Unfortunately there's no direct flights from Belfast Airport and I live closer to there than Dublin if any last minutes flights came up! At the minute I can't even get a private scan booked to check what dates transfer would even be possible cos our local hospital still have ongoing covid cases.. Its getting to the point where everything seems against us and I wonder some days if its just time to give up.. Something out there clearly doesn't want me to have a baby!

[JanuaRuna in reply to AnnieMac123]

I understand it is hard, when everything seems just not to work out no matter what.

I see that Ireland is a low risk country to enter Prague, so at least some good news so you can at least travell there, like me without any trouble. But the home thing is other matter for you.

I am coming from Iceland, so I will get tested when I arrive so I will only have to stay away from my family 1-2 extra days while waiting results. But then agin if I have catch it anywhere then there will be two weeks. That we will just tackle if it happens.

It is all stressful, I am just alone in my hotelroom. Brought books, knitting, my work with me to have something to do.

Will be here for full 4 days. I am just as afraid that the embryo does not come through after thawing, but that is just one of all other faktors in this process that we can not control no matter how hard we try.

The head just keeps on winding up, over and over agin when we start this road of impossibles and nothing working out.

It will work out, august-sept is a good month away, and your boss, do not know him but... if you get him on one-on-one chat he might just surprise you. Perhaps has he had gone through with it or someone in his family so he will relate.

Bottom line we want to so bad to be in charge over everything but as soon as I figured it out that there is nothing I can do other than take vitamins, my pills and injections, eat healty as I can, and show up all the rest is up to luck and crossing fingers.

You have frozen eggs, that is good, some women do only get one egg after IVF.

It will work out for you.

Best of luck

[Baypony]

Hi AnnieMac, this damn covid has left so many people in similar situations. After waiting for this cycle it was over almost before it began. Most of us on here have suggered setbacks aling the way so we know how dissappointing it is. I have no experience of the frozen bit but we had fresh DE treatment in Czech Republic too. 9 eggs collected, all fertilised and only 3 got to blastocyst, so you are probably on target for your clinics guarantee. I think about 1/3 of aggs collected go on to blastofyst generally. It might help you to have a plan of action.

I assume there are a few options; Get clinic to thaw eggs and see how many fertilise and make a decision from there. You don’t know but the thaw may only give you the stronger eggs 🤔?

Speak to clinic to ask if you can have a fresh cycle from the same or another donor once the covid thing is over (Could be ages though?). Although they may make you pay again?

Walk away and find another clinic?

When we had our DE treatment we understood that the donor cycle takes prefernce so if my body didn’t respond to the drugs or my hubby couldnt get to give sample for whatever reason then eggs/embryos would be frozen for use later as we effectively had a contract betwen us and the donor.

Did you receive any such contract? It might be useful to find out.

Personally i’d go with the thaw option as the clinic have guaranteed you the embryos anyway.

It’s so difficult when you’ve made so many stressful decisions. And had years of waiting to get to this stage. I suppose you just have to go with what feels right. I really hope you reach your goal whatever you decide 🍀

[AnnieMac123 in reply to Baypony]

Thank you.... Its all a bit of a head wreck at the minute and really was the worst possible time to accept this new job but it got me moved closer to home so I had to take it. I don't have the option of walking away as I have already paid €3000.... Simply don't have that kinda money to spare.. I went i to this knowing its my only option. One shot! So we have to go with thawing eggs, fresh sperm for 1st transfer if we are lucky to get any viable embryos. Its just the uncertainty of it all... I will spend the week over there alone biting my nails as each day passes to see if we even get one to transfer.. If the isolation rules are still in place am looking at 3 wks off work f it fails I will have to ask work for more time off again this Yr... On top of it all my surgeon warned me in December that I needed to get to Prague ASAP as my endo tends to grow back very quickly so even by aug/Sept they could turn around and tell me the endo is too bad to go ahead with the transfer or maybe if transfer happens my endo will kill any possible chance of getting pregnant. Its just a nightmare!

[Maisie234]

I just wanted to add that the two week quarantine might have stopped at that point. I'm hoping so at least and I see some countries have put an end to it.

Good luck!! X

[sazzle2680]

Hi AnnieMac123

I had a similar situation in a clinic in Spain. I paid for a guarantee of 5 x day 5 embryos. I went over for a week to do a fresh transfer. My first donor produced a good haul of eggs and everything was going fine until I turned up at the clinic on transfer day and they kept me hanging around for over an hour before telling me there were no embryos to transfer. None had made it to the blastocysts stage. They told me to go away and they’d call me the next morning in case some had hatched at day 6. The next morning there was one, which they transferred. I raised the issue of egg quality seeing as it was the only one to get that far and if I did get pregnant with this egg I wanted genetically siblings so what would happen? They told me the guarantee meant they’d put the same donor through another round to ensure I had what I paid for. I did get pregnant but miscarried so they picked a new donor (I had to wait 4 months or so) and they put her through a round and I got 6 blastocysts- 4 x day 5 and 2 x day 6, all very good quality.

You’re right about egg freezing. But you do have a guarantee they’ve got to ensure you get 2 blastocysts out of 12 eggs. Odds are that you will, but if you end up in my position the clinic will pay for the donor to go again.

Really hope it works out for you xx

[AnnieMac123 in reply to sazzle2680]

Thank you. God ur clinic sounds very good. I just dread being over there on my own getting news that they may have all failed. I think it will break me more than anything else I have been through already. Am so tired worrying all the time!

[sazzle2680 in reply to AnnieMac123]

That’s does sound awful. You could defrost, fertilise and freeze the embryos. That way things would happen while you’re home with your OH and pick a time you can both go out together (it would only need to be an overnight to do a FET).

To be honest, at the times I thought the clinic were the devil. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t have called me before I made it to the clinic (my transfer time was noon, so they had all morning). I also didn’t understand why they thought it was OK to keep me waiting an hour at the clinic before telling me. You know what it’s like. You can sense somethings wrong. I was incredibly stressed out and upset. My next donor I did FET only so I knew exactly what I was going out for. I was home and supporting during all the updates on embryo progress.

[AnnieMac123]

I have taught about that too.... But it takes away any option of fresh anything being used.. Maybe it makes no difference really and its my own paranoid head that keeps telling me keep to using fresh sperm if we can't use fresh eggs.. Even if we go for a day now to do sperm we still have to self isolate for 2wks... And the price of flights have gone crazy too! The airline gave me a voucher for missed flight in march so at least I didn't loose the €500 from that. I would feel so much better if it was frozen embryos rather than eggs cos they have a much better chance of making it through the thaw

[Lizzielizzielizzie]

I know how being out of control is the most awful thing in this scenario. But I think you are right to say it would have been hard to stop the donor’s cycle and in many ways you are further forward than you would have otherwise been. I would probably decide to believe that any eggs which don’t survive the thaw wouldn’t have made good embryos anyway. There’s not that much evidence that fresh transfers are any better than frozen but it sounds as though a fresh transfer will still be possible because the embryo will still be fresh even if the egg was frozen. If that makes sense.

Wishing you the best of luck and hope you can try to do as much positive thinking as possible x