What do we do now??

[Ropa19]

Hi everyone, we’ve had 4 ivf cycles, 3 fresh and 1 frozen, all failed. They thought it might of been implantation failure so we had NK cells test at Warwickshire, which came back low (still not normal but no answers for low) since then we have fell pregnant twice which has never happened in all the years of trying. Sadly the first was a missed miscarriage at 9 weeks and the other I miscarried at 10 weeks. We got referred to the miscarriage clinic and all tests have come back fine and they also tested the miscarriage tissue which was also fine, so what do we do now? We were thinking of going back for ivf but is there anything we can do differently now? I’ve changed our vitamins and added extra. I was thinking if the genetic testing on any embryos we might get but do I need it? I know it’s probably just bad luck and need to just keep going but I feel like times running out and everyone is announcing their pregnancy at the min. Sorry for the essay! Anyone have any similar stories? Xx

[BBHH1]

Why did your cycles fail? Few embryos, low quality, or they just didn’t stick?

Also when you say the tissue of the miscarriage was fine what does that mean? The important thing it’s to know if there were chromosomal abnormalities that justify the miscarriage. If yes, that’s your answer. Then need to know if they were random or a problem that will repeat. If there were no chromosomal abnormalities then you need to dig deeper for other causes because 2 losses at 9-10weeks without chromosomal abnormalities is a sign that something else is going on. Then insist more in finding the cause and get second opinions of needed! Hope that hekps

[JPxx]

So sorry to hear about your losses.

Have you done DNA fragmentation tests on the sperm? NHS do not offer this but if you are male factor like us, it is needed in my opinion.

If the sperm has very high DNA fragmentation then we have been told miscarriages are a high chance. You may known this so sorry to go one but if not....

Perfect diets and no booze etc can help with this but that wasn’t enough for us. So we had surgically removed sperm and it was amazing to see how good the results were.

I am currently 6 weeks, and my first early scan is next Friday so I wouldn’t say I am a success story but never got this far yet. Might be worth looking into if you haven’t yet.

Sending love xxx

[HemBella]

I'm sorry to hear about the struggles you've had and the miscarriages, my heart goes out to you. Sounds like you've done the right thing in exploring NK cells. Personally I would recommend exploring genetic testing on embryos if you do another round.From my last round of IVF, I did ICSI and had 12 embryos that made it to day 5 which was amazing. Of that I 6 were suitable for biopsy and freezing. So I had 6 PGS tested and 3 came back normal. So I knew I had 3 genetically perfect embryos.

Had I not done that I could have gone through the pain of potentially transferring some frozen embryos that were genetically abnormal and I would have had a much higher chance of miscarriage.

The last frozen transfer I did was with one of the genetically perfect embryos, it didnt stick and now we are exploring implantation issues - I get my NK results on Tuesday (amongst others - thyroid, blood clotting, a whole load of immune tests). If you havent had all the tests it might be worth doing, but otherwise I would recommend PGS testing so that you know the embryo you transfer back has a higher chance of carrying to full term xx

[Ropa19]

Thank you so much I’ll def look into some of those. It terms of the miscarriage tissue they just said it was “showing normal chromosomes pattern with no known genetic imbalance and the histology report was unremarkable with no evidence of any infection or other pathology” I have to repeat the lupus blood test as they didn’t have enough sample but I think I’ve had that before and it came back normal (not sure if that is something that can change?) ironically it was always progressive motility we had the issue with and the highest we ever had was 7% but this time it was 49% but the sperm count had drastically dropped and morphology too. He usually abstinence for 3-4 days before the sample but this time it was 2 days, could that make a difference to count and morphology? Thanks all so much for your replies xx

[JPxx in reply to Ropa19]

In terms of abstaining, it depends on his issue as to how long to and how it will affect the count etc. Have you spoken to an andrologist?

In our case, due to the high DNA fragmentation we were instructed to ejaculate every day for 20 days before egg collection and then give the sample. Made a huge difference. As the longer the sperm in him, it got damaged. Depends if you have had this DNA frag test.

Xxx

[Ropa19 in reply to JPxx]

No he hasn’t had any tests really, we have a follow up appointment next month at the miscarriage clinic so I’ll ask about it. Thank you x