my husband received chemo over 10 years ago as a late teen. Because of the risk of infertility his sperm was frozen.
We have been doing ivf now for the past 4 years. So far 3 rounds of ivf which resulted in 4 transfers (2 FET, 1 chemical, 1 early miscarriage, 2 failed to implant)
We started treatment when I was 26, I’m 29 now so I’m still “young” enough to not have an issue so i don’t understand why it’s been so difficult for us so far. My BMI has crept up to around 30 which I revert back to blaming each time we’re not successful.
The most recent fault transfer I was on a cocktail of drugs - lubion, cyclogest, aspirin and clexane.
We initially waited 5 years before TTC because I never thought we would need to do IVF, I thought it would be a simple IUI.
Is anyone else in a similar position? Looking for advice on what to do next. We have 2 embryos frozen and want to consider next steps before rushing into another transfer.
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Deeak
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Yes, I transferred 10 embryos (including one confirmed euploid), all made in my 20's. Plus a natural miscarriage. It was shocking to me because of my age. Eventually I figured out that my main issue was likely endometriosis, which can have no symptoms apart from infertility or repeat miscarriage. I went through the specialist surgeon list on the Nancy's Nook FB group, had my surgery, 8 weeks later I did a FET that worked. It was worth it even though I was really hesitant to do the surgery. I also now have zero period pain.
I also worked with a RI (Reproductive Immunologist), did all the prednisone, blood thinners, etc. He recommended. Plus IVIG and I also did the keto diet the entire time. However, I've since had success again without any of that so I'm assuming that the surgery was a quite permanent fix for me. Totally worth looking into both though! So many success stories for women like us! xx
Thank you for sharing. Do you know how you go about finding of if you have endo without symptoms? My periods aren’t heavy and I don’t have symptoms- am I wrong in thinking they would see something on baseline scans? I’m always told my lining is “textbook” 😒 whatever that’s worth.
I can see we’ve reacted similarly to ivf. I have been at risk of OHSS twice, my last round they collected 21 follicles but only 3 made it to freeze - again I don’t understand why 😢 I suspect something genetically is wrong but my clinic don’t do genetic testing. I think I’ll consider another clinic after the 2 I have frozen are transferred.
There can be silent endo (the only symptom being fertility problems). You can't know you have endo without doing the surgery most of the time. Sadly. I went into the surgery unsure if they would find anything, honestly.
Endometriosis would not be visible on a baseline scan. Unless you had a very clear endometrioma or very thick areas of endo (which I had none). Endometriosis is outside of the uterus so it won't affect your lining. I would do some reading on Nancy's Nook info website or such to get more of an insight into how this can affect some of us younger ladies and is rarely discussed. NHS never diagnosed me, and 2 IVF clinics didn't diagnose me, only the 3rd clinic mentioned it and I went ahead and booked it myself. So frustrating!!
OHSS is much more common and aggressive in younger patients, low bmi, high AMH, PCOS, etc. I have an extreme over-reaction to meds every time. But I've been to 3 IVF clinics in total and they all handled it differently. The first clinic I only got 3 blasts. The last one I literally got 20 blastocysts. I would do a non HCG trigger (gnrh agonist trigger only!) And it avoids OHSS risk. I was hospitalized for it once and I was the sickest I've ever been by far. It's more to do with protocol, unlikely to be a genetic issue. Especially if you have already have karyotyping blood test done. They may be triggering you prematurely to try and "avoid" OHSS, but this is better done by using a GnRH trigger only and making sure the majority of follicles are nice and big. All the best xx
as you’ve had 2/4 implant it doesn’t sound like that’s the issue but it does sound like maybe you should have a conversation with the embryologist on your numbers of blasts as that does sound like a low number per collection especially at such a young age. It would be good to get their opinion on whether it is a sperm issue (usually seen with high day 3 drop offs for example) or egg quality issue in their opinion. I presume they are using ICSI rather than IVF as it’s frozen sperm?
If you have 2 frozen defo try them first but if you need to go for another collection perhaps looking at getting quality over quantity might help with the dose of stim meds as if you’ve had 21 eggs collected and risk of OHSS etc perhaps not pushing you as hard could make less eggs but might be better quality? Defo worth a good chat with your clinic or even a 2nd opinion from somewhere else? Wishing you both lots of luck! Xx
So there’s lots of tests and things to try and get the conditions right for implantation but as you’ve had 50% success rate of embryos implanting it’s more likely (in my experience) an embryo issue than conditions for it if that makes sense? So I was thinking about the chat with the embryologist might be helpful. I also took 600mg of COQ10 to help with egg quality for my last collection but other than that it was the exact same protocol I had to just keep going with until we found the embryo that stuck and carried on developing, so it can just be a case of keep trying sometimes xx
Thank you, I’m okay with that being the case as long as they think that it is rather than wasting time continuing with the same protocol if there’s something that need addressing or changing. Thanks so much ❤️
Just had a look at your bio 😢 thank you for giving me hope, I hope you get your second baby soon ❤️❤️
Ps both my successful pregnancies have been when my BMI was highest (29 and 31) and I’ve had lots not work with ‘perfect’ BMI so please don’t put that in your mind 🤗 healthy and happy is much more important than BMI xx 💜
😢 ah thank you it’s so hard when you’re looking for answers not to blame yourself. I’m still hoping to get loose a little before my next transfer to be healthier in general. Did your dr not tell you to go in a keto diet like mine did 😑😑
no actually they didn’t, they said just to eat healthy like if you were pregnant and to be honest I’ve went really strict low carbs etc in the past and it was my worst rounds so I just went back to eating what I wanted, I did start getting hello fresh meals so I was getting fresh ingredients and the right portion size but weekends I had takeaways and nights out with Prosecco and cocktails in the lead up to my successful collection round and even more so in lead up to FET (as embryo already made) and just like with my son in 2020 when I chilled out with the strict diet and no alcohol stuff is when it worked! So I am not sure it makes any difference whatsoever to egg quality or embryo development/implantation unless you are being pretty unhealthy or binge drinking, but we need to do whatever makes us feel best and sometimes a wee diet can do that as long as it gives us energy and not suck the happiness out of day to day living is my thoughts on it all 🤗💜xx
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progesterone testing during ivf cycle 
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