Egg collection tiday

[Downonthefarm]

I go in for egg collection today (it’ll be my 3rd time). I’m nervous, I’m older - 41 (it was 2018 the last time I had it) and I’ve experienced weird sensations in my legs the last couple of days.

I don’t recall this happening the last two times. It almost feels like my skin is stretching, my knees and my joints feel really stiff. Last night I lay on the couch with my legs up against the back of it.

I’ll mention it to my consultant this morning, but has anyone else experienced this and know what it is?

- thanks x

[DianeArnold]

Hi Downonthefarm. Most probably down to the position you were in during egg collection. Hopefully you will soon fel OK again. Make sure you drink plenty of water in case your ovaries are still a bit active. Good luck! Diane

[Downonthefarm in reply to DianeArnold]

Thanks for coming back to Diane. I experienced this before the egg collection while working from home at my desk.

I’ve had the collection this morning, resting up and thankfully feel fine now.

Thanks again x

[Millbanks]

Hi lovely, I've not experienced this but hope you're doing ok and your EC was successful! x

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Hi Millbanks, I’m doing alright, thanks.

EC went well, they took out 12 eggs this time, just like the last two times. However, heartbreakingly this part always seems to go ok for us and quantity doesn’t seem to be a problem - it’s the quality or the environment it’s being returned to I think.

Fingers crosses we get some good fertilised eggs tomorrow and they grow nice and healthy over the next few days so that we can move to the next stage on Monday.

Thanks x

[Millbanks in reply to Downonthefarm]

12 is brilliant - well done. Ah I hear you - same for us unfortunately - no issues creating embryos but getting them to stick seems nigh on impossible. Have you had any other tests done? We had ERA which showed our window of implantation was out by 24 hours. I'm also waiting on immunology results + karyotyping to see if any chromosomal issues (then PGS testing)... xx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Thank you, yes it’s frustrating isn’t it. We’ve been ttc since 2015, done great on the 2 egg collections we had, had a few frozen cycles but not a dickie-bird other than the two chemical pregnancies on the fresh cycles.

No, I’ve not had ERA - I actually don’t know what that is...? (I probably need to come on this more!)

I’ve heard of karyotyping and I suggested it to our consultant - isn’t this where they take a few cells from an embryo to look at the DNA structure under the microscope?

Not had PGS testing that I know of - off to goggle now!

[Millbanks in reply to Downonthefarm]

So frustrating!! ERA takes a biopsy from your uterus on the day you would normally transfer (so you do a FET protocol without the transfer) - it tells you exactly how many hours you need of progesterone before the ideal transfer window is.... it's so interesting.

Karyotyping looks at yours and your OH's (if you have one) chromosomes to check if there are any that aren't quite right - then if you want to have your embryos PGS tested (which is taking a few cells to check the chromosomes) they know what to look for. I think for us - as we've never had proper implantation, these are the most crucial next steps xx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Hi Millbanks,

I’ve just had a read about ERA, thank you - it sounds interesting.

They have always put me on cyclogest from the day of EC. This time I’ve asked to take both lubion and cyclogest from day of EC (tonight)(we’re literally throwing everything at this cycle! My friend had success with this at 42-gorgeous little boy born in December)

Does the results of the ERA tell you when you should start taking the progesterone then?

Thanks xx

[Millbanks in reply to Downonthefarm]

It’s not relevant if you’re doing a fresh transfer but only frozen... but interesting none the less. And yes that’s exactly what it does. 👍🏼

Ahh that’s lovely news. Hope you have the same luck! Xx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Ah ok, good to know. If we end up doing another fresh cycle (who knows, hopefully won’t need to!) - I will definitely enquire about ERA,

The other thing to point out is that, although 12 seems to be the magic number for us, our embryos seem to “die off”. As in, by the time it comes to ET, it’s more than halved. First time we had 5 for transferring and the 2nd time we had 4. (Incidentally, I don’t know if this is normal or not.)

So with this on mind, I wonder if Karyotyping or PGS would be worthwhile in our case - perhaps in your case, more of yours survive?

Essentially, the last time we did a round, we put x2 (fresh) back in and then x2 (frozen, well, technically, 1.5 as one was a bit dodgy) back in...

...if we did karyotyping/PGS then it would have meant we wouldn’t have had any left for the frozen cycle as we would have used the decent one for this process.

Plus I’m guessing karyotyping/PGS costs more than a frozen cycle? And from our POV would we have been any the wiser...?

Xx

[Millbanks]

We have about the same in terms of numbers. 14 eggs : 4 embryos... this is pretty normal ☺️

We’ve done 2 cycles and frozen all the embryos (9) so we can test them all...

yes it’s not cheap at all!!! It’s a difficult decision for sure. The main benefit of pgs testing is that you only transfer the embryos that are chromosomally normal. So you don’t have transfers that absolutely wouldn’t work (of course a pgs normal embryo doesn’t guarantee a pregnancy)... xx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Thanks for this info Millbanks.

I like the idea of testing first, at least it gives you more confidence in the process. I’m think it’s us worth considering if we need to go through it again.

In my experience anyway, the whole system seems biased towards putting the female through the cycle without doing the investigative work first anyway. It really should be done every time a cycle is undertaken as it gives you a more accurate picture of what’s going on at the time. It’s costly I’m sure, but it shouldn’t be. Appreciate it won’t always work, but surely it’s more important to understand what’s going on in both the eggs and sperm before putting your body through what is a gruelling process, but the system doesn’t seem to favour that.

We’ve been diagnosed with unexplained infertility - hugely frustrating. We’ve been trying for a baby since 2015 (I don’t know about you but forget coronavirus in 2020, our lives have been on hold for >6 years!) - we did our first cycle in 2017 - all up to our last FET have been done on NHS. It’s frustrating that’s these diagnostics are not given more focus and explained to anyone gong through the ivf process via NHS.

Anyway rant over!

On a more upbeat note, did get some good news back from the clinic today to say we’d 12/12 collected/fertilised. I don’t tend to get too excited at this point as I’ve been here before. Let’s see what happens over the next few days... x

[Millbanks in reply to Downonthefarm]

Oh completely! There is so much to learn about this process and we tend to go in to it blindly (as you don't know what you don't know).... and just "hope for the best". Frustrating to say the least!I am a big advocate of the NHS but I think when it comes to fertility you can't just lump everyone in with unexplained fertility - that was our diagnosis too but it's complete rubbish - we know exactly why we can't get pregnant and we've found that out through my research and tests. Most of these tests I didn't know existed until last year....

Well that is great news on your fertilisation! We also tend to get roughly 100% fertilisation rates - but usually end up with 4 or so embryos. Good luck!! xx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Thank you. Will be laying low til Monday and trying to relax.

Exactly... own research (& this forum) has taught me a lot - from supplements to additional meds. I sort of had to push for these things a little bit...hoping it’s going to make a difference this time xx

[Millbanks in reply to Downonthefarm]

Lots of luck to you! Will be looking out for your update xxx

[Downonthefarm in reply to Millbanks]

Thanks so much - need all the luck I can get! Xx