Anyone had first time own egg IVF success in 40's?

[happypupp]

Has anyone here had a successful first time ET with own eggs when in 40's, resulting in a baby?

I have one euploid embryo and one untested embryo, both in good shape (Grade 2, meaning one grade down from the best rating due to slow development but morphologically good looking).

We were originally going to bank embryos due to age, but we've recently had a change of heart and decided to have more faith in ourselves and give one of the little precious embies a chance!

I'm 43 and ready to go for another round of EC if this isn't successful, I had over 16 pmol/l in February, 8-12 AFCs. Potentially blocked tubes leading us down the IVF journey, no other major known issues except elevated NK cells from peripheral blood in March when I had UTI and ureaplasma infection, both treated and cleared.

Still feeling quite nervous about our latest choice and any positive experiences and stories from ladies over 40s' would mean so much to me!

[DreamingOfTwo79]

Hello Konyaga, this is great news that you have one euploid embryo and another good quality, albeit untested embryo! I am 44 (partner is 58) and currently 11+3 weeks pregnant with our OE euploid embryo. We started IVF last year when I was 43 and did two rounds of back to back embryo banking with PGT-A testing, we got two euploid embryos out of 5 good quality blastocysts across these two cycles, both euploid ones are from our second cycle. We did a modified natural frozen transfer and had the ERA/EMMA/ALICE/NKC testing via a hysteroscopy done earlier this year to give ourselves the best chance of success as we knew we had neither the financial means nor time on our side to attempt any further egg collections. My AMH was only 3.8 but with decent AFC last summer, we also have male factor and our consultant wasn't hopeful at all after our initial consultations. I am so glad we persevered but it could have easily gone the other way. Doing as many tests as possible prior to transfer was important to me as we have a history of recurrent miscarriage and I needed to know we had done everything to increase our chances of success before we attempted our first transfer. Wishing you all the best for your transfer! x

[happypupp in reply to DreamingOfTwo79]

Hi DreamingOfTwo79

Thanks so much for sharing your story and details of tests too, and congratulations on your pregnancy, and I too wish you every luck all the way to the delivery🥰

Did your trio tests & NKC testing & hysteroscopy reveal anything that changed your transfer protocol?

[DreamingOfTwo79 in reply to happypupp]

Thank you very much! The ERA showed I was receptive which was reassuring as I tend to have shorter cycles and ovulate around Day 11, EMMA/ALICE came back fine, no antibiotics needed. My NKC profile was slightly raised so we added intralipids to my protocol, I received one just before transfer, another one after testing positive and the final one about four weeks after the second one. I forgot to say earlier that whether to keep banking prior to any transfers may also be guided by how many children you'd like to have. Like LuxFleur said, having a euploid embryo is sadly not a guarantee that you will fall pregnant and that the pregnancy will progress well. And if you'd like siblings then embryo banking might be a good investment at this time. My consultant said that priority needs to be to create embryos while you're young and every month counts, growing the actual baby can still be done at a more advanced biological age (of course this will come with its own challenges) but our fertility really does nose-dive once after 40. I was lucky and conceived my son pretty quickly when I was 39 once we actually put our mind to it and tracked ovulation but when I started trying to conceive again at 41, we suffered four back to back miscarriages, most likely due to chromosomal abnormalities for which unfortunately your risk increases the older you are. Wishing you all the best, trust your gut! x

[happypupp in reply to DreamingOfTwo79]

Thank you for the detail and encouragement! Your advice makes a lot more sense!

Unlike you this is my first baby, with zero history of getting pregnant and miscarrying, we have no information about how receptive our uterus is.

My original gut feeling (after reading everyone's struggles getting pregnant in this forum) was to bank embryos, and we actually don't mind siblings so I'm a little more inclined for another EC.

Sounds like you did all the right tests and took steps to prepare for the transfer.

Looking forward to hearing your further success story here in the coming months!

[LuxFleur]

Hello there. My advice, at your age, is to go ahead and bank embryos now. At 43 every month counts, and you won't get those opportunities again. I'm currently pregnant with OE, untested embryo, at age 44, but the EC was from just before I turned 43. This was our 6th transfer, from 4 collections. We had three BFN and two pregnancies that resulted in miscarriage. I would really, really urge you to bank embryos if at all possible. It's not really about "having faith" in oneself, but rather the biological reality of our eggs as we age. Those of us who are able to get pregnant at all after age 42 are the lucky ones and in the minority. In the end, it won't matter if you can find someone who got pregnant on the first try from IVF at age 43, and hear a "positive story," because there is no way of knowing what will happen for you. Yes, it has happened, statistically, but it is the exception. There are also women who get pregnant naturally at 44 and give birth to healthy babies. But not many. For women age 43, the percentage of live births per egg retrieval is something like 5%. Lots of women on here transfer euploid embryos that still fail to implant anyway for unknown reasons. I'm sorry to sound grim, but it's important to know the reality. If you don't mind letting go of parenthood, or of moving on to donor eggs, then it doesn't matter as much and you should go ahead and transfer the embryos that you have without banking any more. But at 43, if you have the opportunity to bank embryos, you should definitely do so. I know you said you were looking for positive stories from ladies in their 40s, and this is not exactly that. I'm pregnant and we saw a heartbeat at the last scan, but I'm aware that my odds of miscarriage are still high due to my age. If you transfer and then get pregnancy but miscarry, it can take up a lot of your last good year to do IVF. Whatever you decide to do, I hope all goes well for you. xo

[happypupp in reply to LuxFleur]

Hi, thank you for sharing your experience and I'm so sorry to hear about the miscarriages and implantation issues.

We are open to donor egg options in the future, say after 45 - but of course we want both our genetics if we can! Spoke to DH and we agreed that embryo banking is the best way forward with potential siblings in mind even if our first ET results in birth leaving frozen embies in the clinic for a couple of years. Talking to the clinic about the EC dates now.

Wishing you the best of luck for your ongoing pregnancy too!

[LuxFleur in reply to happypupp]

I didn't really have implantation issues, I think a 50% implantation rate is actually quite high, especially for untested embryos. Really hope things go well for you.

[Orangeflowers]

Hello, just to share my experience:

I had success on my first IVF round (second transfer). Egg collection at 41, birth at 42. My daughter is now 22 months.

I turned 43 in April 22 and since then I've done 6 fresh rounds to have fresh transfers and bank embryos. I'm currently in the 2WW and have 2 untested blastocysts frozen.

I kept on going with fresh cycles as I wanted to collect my younger eggs. There really is a steep drop off in quality. I started making blastocysts and can now only get morulas.

If you transfer what you've got first, you need to consider the timeline. If you have pre transfer tests and need to wait between cycles, have an early loss etc. when could you realistically do another collection if the worst happens and you have to?

If you're still getting blasts and can afford it, maybe do another collection as insurance. If you'd consider donor eggs, that would be less valuable.

If you think you could do the frozen transfer and move swiftly onto a fresh if you need to, that might be best.

Good luck whatever you decide x

[happypupp in reply to Orangeflowers]

Hi, thanks for sharing your experience and insights! 5 out of 7 fertilised embryos of ours only got to morula stage so it may have been the age - I think our mind is back to the second EC because we would like an OE baby and can have siblings if the first one results in a success - we'll wait until we hear back from our clinic.

[Kitkat10]

yes, I had success at 40 and my AFC were lower than yours, more like 8.

I had only 3 eggs collected, one 5 day embryo and a baby boy 8 months later so it can definitely happen. I also had a completely straight forward and healthy pregnancy and child birth, so remember age is only one factor. Good luck, just got to go for it, I think you have 100% the right outlook on things 🍀 🍀

[happypupp in reply to Kitkat10]

Hi thanks for sharing your story and encouragement! Congratulations on your child birth

Did you have any gyno conditions or investigations to help with successful implantation & fetus development?

[Kitkat10 in reply to happypupp]

hi, no I didn’t apart from the basic blood tests etc as we had MFI diagnosed so I used donor sperm. But it took 3 transfers for a BFP but I assume that was down to egg quality at 40?

[Gemstone78]

have a click on my name and you can read my success story at 43/44 with 1 egg ♥️

[happypupp in reply to Gemstone78]

Wow, you had a Day 3 fresh transfer baby? Big congratulations, did you have a Plan B at the point of the transfer, was it your consultant's recommendation to not cultivate until blast?

[Countrychic]

Not entirely the same but I had my first little boy after two rounds of IVF age 38. First round I had nothing the transfer and second round I had two blastocysts. We thought we wouldn’t have much chance of having a sibling as I ended up with an emergency c-section so were told we should wait 18 months before trying again. Miraculously, I had my second son when I was 40, he was conceived naturally. Anything is possible, despite struggling with infertility for years, we were blessed with two lovely littles within 18 months of one another. Best of luck to you xxx

[happypupp in reply to Countrychic]

Hiya, thanks for sharing your miraculous story! Congratulations on your two miracles - one baby from just two blasts then a natural conception going all the way

[StarsAllAround]

Not the same circumstances as you but I had 3 rounds of IVF fresh transfer each time we were successful on our 3 cycle almost 2 years after we started IVF our daughter was born. If you can do cycles back to back to bank embryos I would do that as it can save time in the long run. Good luck whatever you decide x

[happypupp in reply to StarsAllAround]

Thanks for your story, I've read your profile and congrats on your newborn baby! I'll keep my hopes up and persevere