Not exactly DOR, but some other ovarian reserve issue.... thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20:59 here. I tried DHEA for a while, which is testosterone like and maybe what you're thinking of?, but didn't notice a difference and didn't like the side effects.

I would also urge considering donor eggs/donor embryos, if you're open to that. We were secondary infertility so decided to just stick with one, but I seriously considered it and it is really a good option for folks like us. I have no idea why this happened to us, but sometimes there's just no fixing broken. I'm so sorry, it's really hard.

Also about the fleeting success, we had two early natural conception miscarriages during off cycles while in treatment and had a child naturally a few years ago. It is HARD when it seems so close. Our miscarriages definitely made me keep going longer because it made it seem possible. But ultimately it wasn't. They were still crappy quality embryos, just slightly less so and actually made it to blast.

Speaking of blasts, you said you have good fertilization and arrest after day 3? That was us too. Consider a DNA fragmentation test and second opinion from somewhere like Cornell. We never did and I regret it. It feels off that we could get pregnant a few years ago, I was young enough (34 at the time), and had gorgeous day 3's that could never make it to blast. The urologist said it wasn't him, but I just don't know and I wish I would have looked into it at least. Maybe it wouldn't change anything, but maybe it could have. Worth a shot.

Thanks! Yeah I am not quite ready to move on to donor eggs and the fact that we got pregnant on the first transfer is obviously playing into that. My husband is really not ready to move on.

It does seem like our situations are similar (except we are trying for our first). I plan to ask about a DNA fragmentation test. We are also doing a consult with CCRM colorado and dr. Abassi (to explore the autoimmune issues). I will definitely look into scheduling a consult with Cornell as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll add another donor egg story for you.

I started TTC around age 35. IUI failures, surgeries to find/clear endometriosis, then tried to do a completed IVF cycle but I was a poor responder (this was back in late 90s, early 2000s so meds were different)
We did donor egg in 2001 (with a proven donor who had produced 6 quality embryos) We also got 6 embryos, transferred 3 and put me on immune-suppression protocol. I had a singleton who just turned 18. From the other three embryos that went to the freezer (on day 3, I believe) I transferred two, two years later. and I have 15 year old boy/girl twins. Again, we did immune-suppression protocol, which I mention because while I do not have thyroid or diabetes issues, I have other problems that are likely also auto-immune (allergies, and the endometriosis).
I believe that my infertility/poor ovarian response is related
Donor egg was the greatest thing to happen to me!!

Thanks! I think we will give it one more shot with my eggs, potentially at another clinic, before moving on to donor eggs, just to know we have tried it all. I am going to see Dr. Abassi to get her thoughts on how my autoimmune issues might be playing into things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you sound a lot like me. I got a fewer eggs each retrieval because one of my embryos was behind my uterus and they couldn’t harvest from it, but my numbers and age were similar. I got a diagnosis of POF, which you can only get with multiple failed cycles.

We ended up using donor eggs and now I have three kids (6,4,1) from two DE cycles (and one frozen embryo from the second cycle). My outcome is great and I only wish that I had switched to donor eggs sooner and not put us through so many heartbreaking failures. Nothing fixes poor egg quality and DE IVF has a really high success rate when that is the main problem. I wish you all the best.

Thanks for replying! Donor eggs is something I definitely plan to discuss with my doctor. I have a lot of work to do before me and my husband feel ready for that though. I feel like it’s so hard because we did have that transient success. If we hadn’t gotten pregnant in our first cycle, I feel like I’d feel a lot more ready to move forward with donor eggs. I think we are definitely going to do one more round at this point and then reassess. I’m glad things worked out for you though!

PP here. I totally understand about not being ready to move on to donor egg. There other complication with donor egg is that insurance doesn’t cover it. One of the reasons we tried OE IVF so many times is that we had some insurance coverage for it. We also got pregnant a few times, but had early miscarriages. I will tell you that if you find yourself farther down the road and do consider DE, the fact that you got pregnant is actually a good sign. It means that your uterus can implant an egg if you can find a good one.

[Anonymous]

A kind of similar thing happened to me. Despite normal numbers, I was a poor responder, and my retrieval outcomes were all over the place. The RE chalked it up to variable ovaries. We did 4 fresh cycles resulting in 3 eggs (2 poor quality day 3 embryos to transfer, negative), 20 eggs (6 blasts resulting in 3 miscarriages and 3 negatives), a cancelled cycle due to poor response, and 13 eggs (6 PGS normal embryos - the first of which is our son). With our last cycle, we switched clinics, went with a more aggressive protocol with only a few days of estrogen priming, and added PICSI as another sperm screening step. I was also on Clomid the entire duration of stims. Even though we had no "known" issues per se, we wanted to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, and if anything, switching clinics and starting anew was really beneficial to my mental health. My husband and I also took a variety of supplements leading up to our fourth cycle (no DHEA though). Since there's so much we can't control, I wanted to control as much as I possibly could. Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous]

I also have an autoimmune disease (RA) and saw Dr. Abassi for a consult. But their lab was disorganized, she had no thoughts on the autoimmune disease and I ended up working with Shady Grove. I don't think the autoimmune issue played into my secondary infertility. It was just poor egg quality unfortunately and I think that's what the problem mostly is for folks. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A kind of similar thing happened to me. Despite normal numbers, I was a poor responder, and my retrieval outcomes were all over the place. The RE chalked it up to variable ovaries. We did 4 fresh cycles resulting in 3 eggs (2 poor quality day 3 embryos to transfer, negative), 20 eggs (6 blasts resulting in 3 miscarriages and 3 negatives), a cancelled cycle due to poor response, and 13 eggs (6 PGS normal embryos - the first of which is our son). With our last cycle, we switched clinics, went with a more aggressive protocol with only a few days of estrogen priming, and added PICSI as another sperm screening step. I was also on Clomid the entire duration of stims. Even though we had no "known" issues per se, we wanted to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, and if anything, switching clinics and starting anew was really beneficial to my mental health. My husband and I also took a variety of supplements leading up to our fourth cycle (no DHEA though). Since there's so much we can't control, I wanted to control as much as I possibly could. Best of luck to you.

Thanks! What clinic did you do your last round at, if you don’t mind saying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also have an autoimmune disease (RA) and saw Dr. Abassi for a consult. But their lab was disorganized, she had no thoughts on the autoimmune disease and I ended up working with Shady Grove. I don't think the autoimmune issue played into my secondary infertility. It was just poor egg quality unfortunately and I think that's what the problem mostly is for folks. Good luck!

Thanks! Yeah I guess I’ll see what she says, but I’m not excited about what I’ve heard about CFA generally.

[Anonymous]

Just wondering, do you have cold extremities a lot by any chance? I do. I had a similar outcome to you during 2 rounds of ivf when TTC my first, my amh was a little low and also dubbed a poor responder, got 9 eggs each time on high dose meds but nothing made it to transfer either time.

2 months later, while trying to find out how to improve egg quality, I found a study that found the best eggs came from follicles that were well perfused/oxygenated. Seeing as my extremities seemed to suffer from poor blood flow, I thought perhaps my ovaries also were not getting good blood flow to produce competent embryos so I started exercising and keeping blood moving. I was walking literally 5 miles a day. And I conceived my son that very same cycle. Coincidence perhaps but when I went to TTC #2 several years later, with dismal AMH numbers by that point, we had 3 cycles BFN and on the fourth I started the exercise routine again and conceived my daughter that very same cycle, maybe coincidence again but thought I would share.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A kind of similar thing happened to me. Despite normal numbers, I was a poor responder, and my retrieval outcomes were all over the place. The RE chalked it up to variable ovaries. We did 4 fresh cycles resulting in 3 eggs (2 poor quality day 3 embryos to transfer, negative), 20 eggs (6 blasts resulting in 3 miscarriages and 3 negatives), a cancelled cycle due to poor response, and 13 eggs (6 PGS normal embryos - the first of which is our son). With our last cycle, we switched clinics, went with a more aggressive protocol with only a few days of estrogen priming, and added PICSI as another sperm screening step. I was also on Clomid the entire duration of stims. Even though we had no "known" issues per se, we wanted to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, and if anything, switching clinics and starting anew was really beneficial to my mental health. My husband and I also took a variety of supplements leading up to our fourth cycle (no DHEA though). Since there's so much we can't control, I wanted to control as much as I possibly could. Best of luck to you.

Thanks! What clinic did you do your last round at, if you don’t mind saying?

Sure. We saw Dr. Moragianni at CCRM. I loved her bedside manner.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. Here's some studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5799932/

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/14/8/1979/2913176

I should add my infertility diagnosis was endometriosis (considered autoimmune by some) and tried for 2 yrs for my first (including 3 iui and 2 ivf all bfn) and 4 months for my second, both ended up naturally conceived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. Here's some studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5799932/

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/14/8/1979/2913176

I should add my infertility diagnosis was endometriosis (considered autoimmune by some) and tried for 2 yrs for my first (including 3 iui and 2 ivf all bfn) and 4 months for my second, both ended up naturally conceived.

Very interesting. Yes my feet and hands do tend to be very cold. I don’t see how this can hurt. Between not being able to exercise while stimming/ after retrieval and work stuff, I have kind of fallen off the exercise band wagon and need to get back on anyways. I’ll try! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A kind of similar thing happened to me. Despite normal numbers, I was a poor responder, and my retrieval outcomes were all over the place. The RE chalked it up to variable ovaries. We did 4 fresh cycles resulting in 3 eggs (2 poor quality day 3 embryos to transfer, negative), 20 eggs (6 blasts resulting in 3 miscarriages and 3 negatives), a cancelled cycle due to poor response, and 13 eggs (6 PGS normal embryos - the first of which is our son). With our last cycle, we switched clinics, went with a more aggressive protocol with only a few days of estrogen priming, and added PICSI as another sperm screening step. I was also on Clomid the entire duration of stims. Even though we had no "known" issues per se, we wanted to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, and if anything, switching clinics and starting anew was really beneficial to my mental health. My husband and I also took a variety of supplements leading up to our fourth cycle (no DHEA though). Since there's so much we can't control, I wanted to control as much as I possibly could. Best of luck to you.

Thanks! What clinic did you do your last round at, if you don’t mind saying?

Sure. We saw Dr. Moragianni at CCRM. I loved her bedside manner.

Awesome! CCRM is one of the clinics we are consulting with but we were going to consult with Schoolcraft in Denver.