Beginning my IVF journey & confused about next steps - help!

[Football61]

Hi, I’m new here. I’m 44 and single, and have realised - very late in the day - that I would like to try and have a baby. I received the results of my fertility MOT yesterday, but my meeting was rather hurried, and I’m confused about what to do next. I still need to receive my results in writing, but the consultant said that I had 4 follicles in each ovary and an AMH of 11.5. She said my uterus looked very healthy. She estimated that I might get 4-9 eggs at retrieval - but the quality would probably be very low because of my age. When I pushed her on percentages, she said that I had around 4% chance of a live birth using my own eggs. I would be really grateful for your advice, because I don’t know whether to skip ahead to donor eggs straight away - or to give it a shot with my own eggs. Please can anyone let me know roughly how much one cycle of IVF (own eggs) costs in London - including all costs? Also, she tried to reassure me by saying that my embryos can be genetically tested - but I have seen that the HFEA has ‘red-rated’ PGT-A. Is there another way of knowing if embryos are healthy/normal/genetically sound before they are implanted? Hugely grateful for any advice - thanks x

[HedgehogMad]

Hi lovely, welcome to this forum - there are plenty of women on here who have had success in their 40s, either with own eggs or donor so I'm sure you will have plenty of good advice. I am in a different situation to you but feel it might be worth giving it a go with your own eggs. I don't know about costs in London but would imagine it would be around £4-5000 as this is the average in my area. PGT-A often adds another 2 grand or so.

PGT-A has been shown to improve success rates in older women so worth talking to your clinic about. Even though it is a high upfront cost, it may save you money and time on wasted transfers of embryos that aren't viable. The grading of embryos is an indicator of viability but unfortunately you don't know unless they are tested. We have transferred 4 high quality blastocysts and none worked, so embryo grading is not an exact science.

Good luck on your journey! Xxx

[Football61 in reply to HedgehogMad]

Thanks so much for your response, and I’m so sorry to hear that your embryo transfer didn’t work. £2k for PGT-A - yikes! It was reassuring to hear that there is a way of genetically testing the embryos, but I’m a little bit wary after reading the HFEA’s analysis. Will speak to the clinic about it. Thanks again ❤️

[Solly-44]

Hi, it’s certainly a lot to digest at the beginning and I think it was wise of you to push for a percentage. When we started treatment I didn’t and we agreed to drop our place in the NHS queue to try ovulation induction first. It was only after it failed (multiple times!) that a dr casually mentioned we’d had a very low chance of a live birth that way. We wasted over a year on it and I never would have if I’d known the odds. So personally I would jump straight to donor eggs. I’m not trying to minimise the decision though and I know it’s difficult for some - a lot of clinics offer counselling and it may be worth your while having a session to talk this through. In terms of testing, it’s hugely expensive but can save an awful lot of heartache and time from transferring non viable embryos (which we did quite a few times!). I think it very much depends on your finances - we didn’t but if I could afford to, I would. The cost of a fresh IVF cycle varies hugely and you have to add on meds which won’t be included and will be personalised to you. I’d say a very ballpark figure in London to be from £4K for the treatment itself and it can go to double or triple that. Most clinics publish their price lists online which is handy, you can check without facing their hard sell over the phone! Sorry so long, wishing you all the luck with your treatment x

[Football61 in reply to Solly-44]

Thanks so much for your response. I would find it really reassuring to get any embryos genetically tested, but I wasn’t sure about the effectiveness of PGT-A after reading the HFEA’s analysis (they have red-rated it). I’ll speak to the clinics about it. Huge thanks again for all your advice - it’s much appreciated ❤️

[Jumpppy in reply to Football61]

PGT-A is a mixed bag and certainly not a "diagnostic" test for embryos. Normal embryos can test as abnormal and vice versa. Go into it with eyes wide open. There are evidence-based reasons why HFEA have red-listed it. If it was as good as it seems on face everyone would recommend it. Not saying there aren't good uses, but if you aren't in the recurrent miscarriage group and are doing a last-ditch try or two with own eggs (OE) - I would say just transfer and don't worry about testing. You have more to lose if normal embryos tests abnormal than if you have if transfers do not work out. UK clinics won't let you "change your mind" if testing labels embryos as abnormal. I am on my 2nd pregnancy with "abnormal" embryo transfers (US-based) - both the fetuses tested normal via amnio/CVS. They also believe older women are more likely to get false positives for abnormality (i.e. less accurate, as a result of not being able to account for "self-correction).

Good luck! Hopefully you are in the 4%.

[Football61 in reply to Jumpppy]

Thanks so much for your advice ❤️

[JustJane1234]

Hello and welcome.

The decision of whether to use own eggs or go straight for donor is a very personal one as some people have strong feelings about passing on their own genes and others just want the treatment that gives them the highest chance of becoming a mum. I was given similar odds to you (less than 5% with my own eggs) but decided to give it one shot before moving on to donor eggs. However, this was NHS funded (as I met the age criteria) and we had clarified with our clinic that if any eggs collected didn't fertilise (and the 1 egg retrieved didn't), it wouldn't count and we'd still have our NHS funding for our first shot at donor eggs. If we'd had to self fund from the start, we might have made a different decision.

Own egg IVF will probably cost you £4-5k (clinics often don't include all the drugs you'll need in their prices so watch out for this) and donor egg IVF is more like £9-10k. Treatment abroad is cheaper, but if you do go down donor egg route, donors are anonymous in most countries. Personally, I would want any child of mine to have information about the egg donor, but this isn't important for everyone.

Good luck and do ask more questions - everyone on this forum is so lovely and supporting of each other (don't know what I'd do without it) xx

[JustJane1234 in reply to JustJane1234]

PS some clinics offer 'discounts' for multiple rounds e.g. my clinic offers 2 cycles of treatment with donor eggs for about £15k and there's a 50% refund if neither cycle is successful. Obviously, there are criteria to meet and I would read the small print very carefully, but we're considering this option if my current (very early) pregnancy doesn't make it xx

[Football61 in reply to JustJane1234]

Thanks so much for your advice - it’s hugely appreciated. And congrats and best of luck with the pregnancy - that’s fantastic news ❤️

[JA-fnuk Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

You can get costings/treatment available /stats etc on hfea.gov.uk Find a clinic near me

Good luck for the future

Janet

[Football61 in reply to JA-fnuk]

Thanks so much ❤️

[DreamingOfTwo79]

Hello and a warm welcome to the forum! I was 43 during my egg collections and was given very similar percentages. We decided to do two rounds of embryo banking with PGT-A testing after the second egg collection cycle. I took DHEA and other supplements for three months prior to starting the egg collections and I am convinced this has contributed to an improvement in my egg quality (we tried naturally for two and a half years prior to starting IVF and had suffered four miscarriages in that time, most likely attributed to chromosomal abnormalities which unfortunately is one of the risks the older you get). My AMH was only 3.8 but my follicles responded well to my stimulation protocol (all the details in my profile in case you're interested). Across two cycles we ended up with 16 mature eggs, 9 of which fertilised and 5 made it to good quality blastocysts which we had tested. We now have 2 euploid embryos and we are hopeful to be able to transfer next month. After we received the PGT-A results I decided to have further investigations done to ensure I give my embryos the best chance possible (I did the Endo Quartet plus Natural Killer Cells blood testing). We're with a clinic in central London and are currently at £38K all in (including the cost for the upcoming FET). Please feel free to DM me if you'd like to discuss anything in more detail. Wishing you the best of luck, keep believing in your dream, you will find out along the way what feels right for you! X

[Football61 in reply to DreamingOfTwo79]

Thank you so much for your kind message - it’s much appreciated. And the best of luck for your FET 🤞❤️❤️

[Infragilis]

Hi I saw that you have had some immunology testing done. We also had Lymphocyte Immunization Therapy (LIT). The LAD or Leukocyte Antibody Detection test is conducted prior to LIT. The treatment is done if LAD is negative.

I also had a hysteroscopy done prior to my last transfer.

My husband had low count and DNA fragmentation was fine when tested. What worked for him was a long course of antibiotics. It was amazing how after so many years his count just shot up.

As a precaution for the transfer apart from LIT I'm on progynova, prednisolone, blood thinners and intralipids.

Ask about these approaches because you don't seem to have a problem getting pregnant so they should try focus on the cause of the losses. Really sorry to hear you have been through all that. Wishing you the very best.

[Tour_girl]

roughly around £5000.

[Hidden]

Just to say whilst IVF is c. £5k for own eggs and for us was £11k for donor this didn't include any drugs, or additional tests. So the reality was it probably ended up £7.5k with drugs for own eggs (I was on top dose for stims so had a lot) and also probably ended up £15k for DE.

I started IVF at 39, I had a high AMH for my age (and continued to into my 40s) but what I found was I either didn't get pregnant or I did but had early miscarriages and they put this down to egg quality. They said they could tell a lot about egg quality by how the embryos developed in the first five days. I would maybe try one round of own eggs and see how you get on? Because I know people on here pregnant at 46 with their own eggs. Its a lottery really in terms of what age your egg quality diminishes.

Also with PGT we were always told to only do it if you had a lot of embryos, as it wasn't 100% conclusive and could damage the embryos - so if you only had a few it was sort of not worth risking them. Every clinic seems to have different guidelines but we never did it.

At 43 we were told to go DE because of repeat MC and failed rounds, and we were told even if we did get successful again (which was a low chance) we would likely MC again. I turned 46 on Sunday and I am currently 35 weeks pregnant with our first DE round, so it can happen. Feel free to ping me any questions - good luck xx

[Poop84]

hi I’d say total cost of ivf including meds and treatment is roughly 4K ivf , 2k medications depending on protocol and maybe 2k/3k if having pgs/ta testing done. I was told to move to donor eggs I am younger than you and have a lower 3.2)amh but got 6-9 eggs and 3 in my cycles. I was told quality would be poor but I got some pgs tested embryos so not bad going

[Football61]

Thanks so much for sharing your story. So you think one cycle will be roughly £8-9k? x