Mild/Natural IVF

[beauty1984]

It’s been 2 years since we had IVF, it ended in miscarriage and we had found it hard to find the strength to try again. More recently though I feel like I’m ready to try again and looking at my options. I came across CREATE Fertility who offer mild IVF or natural IVF. It uses less/no medication and was wondering if anyone has tried it or can recommend it? Or is it better just sticking to normal IVF? Pros and Cons?

[Ivfgotadream]

I’m probably biased but I’m pregnant with twins from natural modified IVF with the clinic you mentioned with 2 more top quality blastocysts frozen (although doubt husband will agree to transfer them after having twins!)

I also did 2 cycles of mild IVF with Create

For me natural modified was the key to our success. My 2 cycles of mild I got a total of 28 eggs but less than 30% fertilised even with ICSI and got 4 average quality blastocysts. 3 transfers BFN. PGS tested a couple - neither normal.. diagnosis from create was basically poor egg quality which goes some way to explaining the 4 miscarriages I had previously

So we changed to natural modified and did a 3 cycle package where you bank blastocysts before transferring on the 3rd egg collection

Total of 9 eggs - 100% fertilised- 4 top quality blastocysts. 2 being my twins

Pros to natural modified

- cost - MUCH cheaper - 3 cycles cost £13.5k including support package, all drugs, ICSI, freezing storage and 1 transfer (this is compared to the £20k we spent on 2 cycles of mild ivf)

- quick - only on drugs for around 9 days.

- quick - able to cycle back to back - ie egg collections every 4 weeks

- no side effects

- focus on quality not quantity

Cons to natural modified

- it’s a gamble going after so few eggs. My branch of clinic will go for more than one egg but certain other branches don’t so variation in approach. Other clinics can be quite dismissive of the approach since their whole business model is built around obtaining the maximum quantity of eggs

- can be quite intensive if you go back to back but you don’t have to do that. That was my personal choice

[beauty1984 in reply to Ivfgotadream]

Thank you for this info it has really helped. I guess my only concern is the number of eggs being collected, it seems such a risk for so few eggs and then there’s no guarantee these will even fertilise.

Do you think the medications played a part in your blastocysts being average quality? How did you know changing to natural modified was the right thing to do?

[Ivfgotadream in reply to beauty1984]

I did it because I knew that just doing another cycle of mild IVF with the same drugs would just give the same rubbish results as the previous 2 cycles? My doctor said lots of people are only capable of making 2 blastocysts per cycle so why bother forcing body to produce 14 eggs when I could produce 2 eggs and get the same result? Plus financially we could afford 3 cycles of natural modified IVF but would only really get 1 more cycle of mild out of the same budget.

My doctor basically said why force your body to behave like a Ferrari when it’s more like a Ford Focus - clearly higher dose stims and forcing production of lots of follicles just meant that quality was spread a lot more thinly

For me it was absolutely the right choice to change to natural modified - I didn’t really have anything to lose? I wouldn’t have done it if it was my first ever cycle of IVF but because I had already done 2 I knew (and doctors knew) how my body was likely to react and it was time to try something new

[Artist2019 in reply to Ivfgotadream]

Hi could I please ask you what was the dosage of the medication you used and what medication did you use for the mild stimulation I am currently in the same situation and I am going to be using Menopur only. Thank you

[Ivfgotadream in reply to Artist2019]

HiyaMild stim I was on 225ml Bemfola daily from cycle day 2

With natural modified I was on 20mg tamoxifen tablets rails from cycle day 3 (similar effect to clomid) and then 150ml of Bemfola every OTHER day

[Artist2019 in reply to Ivfgotadream]

Thank you and congratulations on your pregnancy 🥰

[Sammy246]

Hi I'm in the same boat, we have had 2 ivf/icsi cycles. Even though we have had 7 blastocyst from both cycles. Ive had 2 miscarriage and 3 embryos were chromosomal abnormal. 2 didn't stick as I had 2 transfers each time.

I am also deciding whether to go for a natural cycle on the basis that the egg quality will be less effected as fewer eggs retrieved. I had 19 eggs the first time and 17 eggs the second time. Which was alot of eggs for my my age. In my second round we were only aiming for 8 to 12 eggs intially but I ended up with 17. I was 39 years of age with my first round and 40 in the second round. I know the egg quality would not be as good hence my predicament!

Good luck with your decision xx