PGT A

[Milo2011]

Hello lovelies

I’ve just spoken to my consultant about my last failed cycle back in September and he said there’s no way for him to point out what the actual problem was and where we went wrong. I told him about PGT and he said that draws risks to the embryo and hence he never suggested it. I only had two embryos and he said PGT is only advisable when you have a good number of embryos. Can yous please share your opinions/ experiences on this matter as I want to know whether it’s worth doing if I decided to take further treatment.

Thank you in advance xxx

[Millbanks]

Hi lovely,

I'm sure you will get a lot of varying opinions on here - but this is just my experience...

We had 5 failed FETs before going for PGT-A testing. The main reason was that we had 9 embryos frozen and I really couldn't bear just to keep popping them back in and just "hoping". Out of 9, 1 failed to thaw and 2 were discarded due to trisonomy 13 and 15.

So we had 6 euploid embryos - meaning that if they failed to implant we at least knew that that wasn't the issue.

For our 6th FET I was given steroids and intralipids and transferred a normal embryo and it stuck. Our little boy was born last year and he's perfect ❤️

When testing, the cells are taken from the outer shell which becomes the placenta, rather than the baby itself, so it doesn't cause damage to the embryo - but there is some evidence that mosaic embryos can correct themselves in utero - and therefor embryos that might be discarded are sometimes actually ok to transfer - which I think is why some people are against PGT-A testing.

Personally I found that I felt a bit more relaxed when it came to things like the Harmony and NIPT tests as I was fairly certain they would be ok....

I also believe that a lot of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities so for me I felt more reassured with my PGT-A embryo.

Having said all of this, I know that PGT-A isn't a silver bullet - we recently did another transfer (exactly the same protocol as my successful one) and it didn't work - sometimes the embryos just don't have enough energy to keep dividing and implant - plain and simple.

Your consultant is right that he can't pinpoint exactly why it didn't work and unfortunately IVF is a game of trial and error. There are lots of other things that you can test before going down the PGT-A route. If this was your first transfer it's likely that they would advise you to try again before opting for additional testing.

xxx

[Football61]

Hi, sorry to hear about your failed cycle. I’m 44 and did two cycles with my own eggs earlier this year. My clinic strongly recommended PGT-A testing because of my age. And I was on a race against the clock and didn’t want to spend inordinate amounts of time transferring embryos that were abnormal. I sent two blasts for PGT-A testing in my first cycle, and three blasts in my second cycle. Unfortunately, they all came back abnormal (including a pretty perfect looking 4BB). Really upsetting - but saved me the heartache of multiple BFNs and miscarriages. Personally, I also think the risks and downsides of PGT-A are pretty low. Good luck x

[Hidden]

hi Milo2011 we have just decided to pgta 4 x embryos follow 2 x failed transfers of 5AA and 5AB blasts. When speaking to the clinic they advised on the risks, which actually seem pretty low. I just would like to know that the embryos we are transferring have a chance of implanting. It’s very personal and I think if the lab believe the risk to the embryo is low then worth it in my opinion. Good luck x

[Boo718]

hello how are you? I am all for pgt embryos we had a number of rounds where there were 2,3 or 4 embryos we pgt tested them all each round and we are so glad we did as there were a number of abnormal so it saved us wasting time and money transferring. In one of the rounds with 4, 3 were abnormal xxx

[Twiglet2]

I feel the same as your consultant I only get one or 2 embryos so just put them back fresh transfer to ‘test’ them that way rather than in a lab, my clinic were for testing but agreed with only a small number there wasn’t as much point as it causes a few months delay when at 41 my clock is ticking. I just had a missed misscariage at 9 weeks and I’ve had a few chemicals but I still feel the same I wouldn’t test unless I had at least 4 embryos and even then I would probably still put one back fresh and send the others away for testing so that I still had a transfer after egg collection. It’s also quite expensive and not an exact science, although the chance of damage is low. It’s personal opinion though but just thought I would share mine in case it helps your thought process xx

[Systema23]

Hi lovely

So I did PGT-A testing this cycle because I am 41. I chose it because at my age I wanted to give myself the best chance of a successful outcome. I was also acutely aware that we did not have the finances for more than one transfer.

It turned out to be a moot point anyway as of the 8 eggs fertilised only one made it to 5 day blastocyst stage. That one was tested, found to be eupiloid and implanted and I’m currently a little over 4 weeks pregnant.

I can tell you that the lab my clinic used classes low level mosaic as eupiloid and so would implant those so perhaps speak to your clinic about what they class as eupiloid.

Ultimately it is a personal choice for you, but even with only one I was content to know that it gave me a fighting chance.

Good luck xxx

[Wishinandahopin]

as long as you have a clinic that are experienced in biopsies for PGT-A then there is next to no risk to the embryo. But also make sure your clinic allow for Mosaic transfers- most do nowadays as the evidence is so high of success.

We had ours PGT tested, got two normal embryos and quite a few mosaics and only 1 abnormal. My two normals failed to implant (prob due to immune reasons we later found out) and I’m now 26 weeks with one of my Mosaic embryos!

[Hopewhite]

hi Milo, i hope you're well. I had a similar advise prior to my FET in November, we had 2 frozen embryos the consultant said it wasn't worth the risk as they'd have to be thawed , test and refrozen so there was a small risk of damaging the embryo. That FET ended on a BFN, and had another review yesterday. Again, the same was raised, the consultant advised to try another FET, and only advised to do PGTA if we had to go through a new fresh cycle where we had a few blastocysts to test. I'm on similar situation than you although with only 1 embryo left, the consultant didn't advise to do anything differently... he didn't think anything was wrong and could only guess the embryo quality might not have been optimal, which is a bit of a contradiction (against pgta) but it sounds like they prefer to do this from fresh transfers and with a good number of embryos to minimise any risk. Sending you all the best of luck! xx