Hi all
I am feeling alarmed and nervous about how low the success rate is for IVF at 40 (around 15%)
I've read some positive things about PGT but as im discovering with all things fertility it all seems a bit vague!
Does PGT increase your chances on top of the 15% (if it did this would make me feel a bit better!!)
Thank you
Katie x
I’d believe that that chances were 15 percent including the pgta. It’s honestly such a low percentage but it can and does work xxx
Hi, I don't know about the testing because I never did it but I'm 41 now and 26 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my own eggs I had my eggs retrieved when I was 40 years old and I have 2 frozen embryo's also so it definitely can happen
At Asha82, how many cycles did you do? Did you transfer 3 day embryos or 5 day embryos. Also was your AMH level high and did you take any supplements prior to IVF?
I did 3 stimulation cycles and one frozen cycles I got pregnant from the third cycle but had a silent miscarriage, the one I miscarried was day 3 but all the others were day 5, I can't remember my amh but I know it was good for my age, I was taking folic acid and iodine for several months before starting ivf, it was also icsi that we did due to low sperm count from my partner
In my opinion PGT A would give you the best chance although it’s most cost effective and worthwhile I think if you have multiple embryos to choose from or do embryo banking so you maximise your chances of euploid embryos. I was 42 when I last cycled with my own eggs in 2022 and got one day 5 and one day 6 blast from 8 eggs. Same result numbers wise as my cycle at 36 in 2016, but clearly my eggs weren’t as good as both transfers were BFN (one chemical). Both transfers from my 2016 round were BFP - one amazing son and one born sleeping.
I would have done PGT if I had more, but given it’s pretty expensive I chose to do a fresh then a frozen transfer. I was worried with only a small number of embryos they might be damaged or not re thaw properly. In hindsight I wish I had done it on the second embryo as it didn’t work and it would have saved money and heartache.
At 40 you still have time on your side, I think it’s 43 when you really see the odds slip. My FS gave me a 3% chance with own eggs to we moved to donor embryos.
If money hadn’t been an issue I probably would have thrown everything at 3 rounds and done embryo banking & PGTA but unfortunately it wasn’t really an option for us.
We did embryo banking with pgta last year. A tested embryo has a 50%+ chance of pregnancy. It makes a huge difference as embryos normally fail to implant due to chromosome issues. We are really pleased we opted in for it x
I don't think it increases your chances over the 15%, but it gives you information that avoids repeatedly transferring abnormal embryos which costs time and money, not to mention the physical and mental toll! Like a previous response said, if I was going again with my own eggs and could afford it, I'd go for embryo banking and PGT-A testing.
Good luck x
PGT doesn’t improve your chances overall of success (as it doesn’t improve your embryos etc) but what it does is save you time by being able to transfer the embryos with the best possible chance of success, which can be particularly important for those over 40 where time is of the essence or for those who have had losses as it can reduce the chance of the embryo having issues if it does implant. I only get one or 2 embryos per round so I’ve just been transferring them back fresh to save time etc but if I got more embryos (say 4+) it would defo be something I’d do (I’m age 41 had 3 miscarriages) my clinic gave me lots of information about it and what it could do to help etc so defo ask them and see what they say for your particular situation 🤗 xx
I have a little boy from an embryo made when I was 40 (a week before turning 41). I think with the percentage chances of success its tricky as it can mean so many different things, I'd imagine the 15% is per blastocyst (5 day) embryo transferred, but hopefully if you're lucky you'll get more than one blastocyst from an egg collection and can improve your overall chances with frozen embryo transfers. I think at 40 plus there's still a really good chance of being able to have a child it's just that it's likely you'll need to do more transfers and probably also more egg collections (my son was my 6th transfer). I'd recommend signing up for a multi-cycle package if you can as it's likely to work out more affordable in the end. I'd also really recommend the book 'it starts with the egg' by Rebecca Fett for advice about improving egg quality/success rates in our 40s (although take it with a pinch of salt as it's quite full on). Good luck!
the thing with PGTA is it doesn’t improve your chances of getting pregnant at all- ie it can’t make better embryos. But what it can do is identify the ones more likely to work so you don’t waste time transferring the ones that won’t work. And also then if you have a few tested ones that end up not working you know there’s probably something else going on in you that’s causing issues as unlikely the embryo at that point.
Something to be aware of is Mosaics- you may make these types of embryos (alongside normal and abnormal ones) - mosaics have been proven nowadays to be almost as successful as normal tested embryos - so don’t be disheartened if you get some of those. I am currently 32 weeks with my mosaic embryo after my two ‘normal’ ones failed to implant. The failures helped me get more testing to work out what was going wrong, then subsequently we did the mosaic and it worked! ☺️
That's great news! Thank you for replying with your experience 
x
Congratulations!! Do you mind me asking what other tests you did to figure out what was wrong? Xx
Sure I did ERA/EMMA/ALICE (was fine). Had a hysteroscopy - they found my uterus was quite narrow due to fibrous tissue or something so they were able to widen it. Had some blood immune tests and found me and my partner had a KIR/HLA incompatibility so I had to take a specific immune drug, and I also found out I have MTHFR double gene mutation so am on blood thinners. I saw a reproductive immunologist who helped with these things.
I also did a completely different protocol for my last transfer: I did a mild stimulated FET which is a type of modified natural. Rather than a fully medicated one.
Sorry, just realised I hadn't replied. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me. I really appreciate it. Really helpful to hear what tests you did. Xx
At my initial consultation (age 39), they said to me it was 20% success for IVF and 5% for IUI, so I opted for IVF, then I heard about PGT-A testing and wanted to add that on. They said they would need to check with the consultant to see if it would be suitable. After a few weeks, they said it was OK, but they didn't say it would increase the success rate and just sent a another invoice to cover the cost for PGT-A😂x .
Thanks for the response Daisy
Hi Katie,
PGT-A can be a bit confusing in terms of success rates. I read into it a lot when I was doing IVF as I wanted to understand roughly what success rate I could expect for my age group.
The bottom line is that for older women (starting from around the ages of 35-38) it's harder to find chromosomally normal embryos to transfer, but once you have a chromosomally normal embryo your odds of having a successful transfer are more similar to someone of a younger age. Overall your odds are still less than someone of a younger age before having your eggs collected, but if you can get good chromosomally normal embryos to transfer those odds increase to a similar level to those of a younger age.
While it might be more difficult to get decent embryos at the age of 40 (you may need to consider that it could take more than one egg collection and transfer) there are plenty of women on here who've had babies with their own eggs at age 40+ so it's definitely possible.
Even with better success rates for older women with chromosomally normal embryos, it could still take a couple or even a few transfers to achieve a live birth, so it's worth banking a number chromosomally normal embryos if you can to increase you're odds even further.
I hope that's helpful and good luck with however you choose to move forward, whether that's with PGT-A or without.
X
Hi Mudra, thanks so much for your reply with your advice and experience. It's all so complicated n is lovely there's people on here that share their wisdom!I think I will aim for a few cycles with peta and prepare to be £ poor!!!
Thanks x
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