How do you know it's time for donor eggs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you really need to examine your records. That is a lot of rounds of IVF. If you don’t have reduced ovarian reserve then DE won’t help you. Sorry I did 4 tries with DE. Negative result. The problem was something else.

That's not true at age 42. You can have plenty of eggs left, but they're still 42 year old eggs and quality won't be the same as it was. No way to know if almost all or all eggs are bad, but after 8 rounds and 4 CP/MC's, it's safe to say egg quality is a big part of the issue and DE will help. There may be something else, but fixing that something won't make her eggs normal again. She needs to move to DE and be completely sure there's nothing else that could be an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you, OP. I also had 8 rounds of IVF and several rounds of medicated IUIs between ages 40 and 44. I had one chemical, five day five embryos to PGS test abnormal, and around 15 day three embryos that were transferred over several IVF rounds that resulted in.....nothing. After my last round of IVF failed, I decided to consider DE because I was exhausted, broke, and emotionally drained. It's taken me many months to come around to it, and that's with seeing a therapist who specializes in infertility issues.

I think my thought process has been that I want a baby and I 've been trying for one for a really long time. If I have one using DE, I still get to be pregnant, still get to have this baby from birth, and it will still be genetically linked to my husband. Of course the downsides are (this is just what's in my head - not everyone feels this way about it, at all) that you lose the genetic link, and that essentially, you have a baby that is your husband's/partner's and biologically someone else's. But, again, I keep coming back to that I still get to have a baby that I raise from birth and who is linked to my husband.

Also, it can take a while depending on if you use fresh or frozen. I have actually not started the process yet as I've been in research mode (fresh vs frozen, success rates, unknown/known donor, which clinic, what tests are needed, etc.). From what I've read, fresh have a slightly higher success rates, and if you want bio siblings you can do a 1:1 fresh cycle where you get all of the eggs (although you don't know how many the donor will produce). Or you can buy multiple lots of frozen for that purpose. Frozen are faster because they're already in the bank and ready to go, and you know how many eggs are there.

There's so much to think about I hope that the journey goes well for you!

OP here - yes! This is so similar to my story! Most women seem to have a baby within 1-3 cycles, so I feel like such an outlier. Thanks for replying - I hate that you had to go through this but it's comforting that I'm not alone. I'm sorry it didn't work for you, but best of luck as you move forward!

DP with the sneaky uterine issues here. This is key and you are absolutely spot on. Most women DO have success within 3 cycles and I really feel like if it doesn't work by then, your issue just isn't fixable by IVF. Of course women get lucky and have success, but they also have spontaneous pregnancies after stopping IVF. We did not exhaust our insurance coverage, so could have kept going, but it really felt like a lot of physical and emotional effort (and those drugs are a lot to put your body through!) for something that had very little odds of success. We were given single digit odds for continuing IVF, which was only a few percentage points higher than continuing on our own and hoping to get lucky. I think it is REALLY hard to stop the treatment train once you're already on it. You get into such a routine that it becomes normal for you. But it's not and in hindsight it's more hard and stressful than you realize in the moment. It feels really unnatural to give up the last bit of hope, but please know that moving to donor eggs isn't giving up hope, it's shifting your mindset and figuring out another path forward. My heart goes out to you and everyone else that's facing the end of the road with a bio child. It's unfair and I wish life didn't turn out this way for all of us.

You are so right. I've done the 8 rounds plus an IUI back to back over 2 years, with the exception of the 10 weeks of "took off" for the pregnancy that ended in a MC. It feels normal since this is what life has been like for so long, but I also know that I used to not spend so much time crying. I'm hoping my SGF doctor can help me figure out if anything underlying is going on. Sending good vibes to you too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you really need to examine your records. That is a lot of rounds of IVF. If you don’t have reduced ovarian reserve then DE won’t help you. Sorry I did 4 tries with DE. Negative result. The problem was something else.

That's not true at age 42. You can have plenty of eggs left, but they're still 42 year old eggs and quality won't be the same as it was. No way to know if almost all or all eggs are bad, but after 8 rounds and 4 CP/MC's, it's safe to say egg quality is a big part of the issue and DE will help. There may be something else, but fixing that something won't make her eggs normal again. She needs to move to DE and be completely sure there's nothing else that could be an issue.

PP here: I’m not saying her eggs are not old. I’m saying that an overview of the entire situation should be considered. DE is very expensive and stressful. Sadly it does not cure ALL problems. On my way out the door the doctor confessed that NOTHING had ever been normal and the problem was systemic. Something that could have been diagnosed on day 1. We ended up adopting.

[Anonymous]

No insight to share, but wanted to give you a virtual hug. That’s a lot to deal with. I have a dear friend with DE teenagers and they are every bit her children. I know the genetic connection is hard to let go of, but life throws so many curveballs to us as parents and it’s the day in day out raising of that child that is the most important connection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now. I’m sorry.

Thank you. I think I need to hear this, but I'm not ready to talk to anyone other than my therapist about it.

I’m really really sorry. You’ve been through h3ll. I wish you the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now I’m sorry also. But DE is no guarantee either and even more stressful. Sorry.

I was thinking of DE as a silver bullet, so this is really hard to hear. But it's important for me to have a realistic view of things, so thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you really need to examine your records. That is a lot of rounds of IVF. If you don’t have reduced ovarian reserve then DE won’t help you. Sorry I did 4 tries with DE. Negative result. The problem was something else.

That's not true at age 42. You can have plenty of eggs left, but they're still 42 year old eggs and quality won't be the same as it was. No way to know if almost all or all eggs are bad, but after 8 rounds and 4 CP/MC's, it's safe to say egg quality is a big part of the issue and DE will help. There may be something else, but fixing that something won't make her eggs normal again. She needs to move to DE and be completely sure there's nothing else that could be an issue.

PP here: I’m not saying her eggs are not old. I’m saying that an overview of the entire situation should be considered. DE is very expensive and stressful. Sadly it does not cure ALL problems. On my way out the door the doctor confessed that NOTHING had ever been normal and the problem was systemic. Something that could have been diagnosed on day 1. We ended up adopting.

OP here - I agree with both of y'all, so thank you. I've only done fresh transfers (or frozen untested) since our 2 tested embryos were abnormal. So I'm really hoping it's an old egg issue and nothing else. But it's worth digging deeper into possible uterine issues or other systemic issues since I'll be sinking a lot of money into our DE cycle(s). All our tests have been normal, and I'm super healthy overall as far as I know. PP, sorry your 4 DE tries didn't work. I can't imagine how disappointing that must have been, but that's awesome that you have a kid now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No insight to share, but wanted to give you a virtual hug. That’s a lot to deal with. I have a dear friend with DE teenagers and they are every bit her children. I know the genetic connection is hard to let go of, but life throws so many curveballs to us as parents and it’s the day in day out raising of that child that is the most important connection.

Thank you to you and all these replies. DCUM can be a brutal place at times, but y'all have helped me through one of the hardest days of my life. I am starting to feel hopeful again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, you’ve done 8 cycles at 3 different clinics. If you have the resources and want to keep trying—then do it. If you want to increase your odds of expanding your family sooner, I’d say it is time to move on to DE. Why do you think it will take long? How many months or years have you been doing IF treatments so far? (SG moves their egg donors along pretty swiftly—that was never a concern when moving from OE to DE.) Good luck whatever you choose.

OP here - I appreciate this. I'm lucky to have insurance that mostly covers IVF, but not DE IVF, so cost-wise, it's been easier to keep going with OE. I'm Indian, so will probably need to use an agency if we hope to find a donor who looks vaguely like us, so that's my concern re: it talking a while. I'll use SGF since I like my doctor there, so glad to hear they move quickly.

You are lucky. I had no insurance coverage for IVF. So finances played a large role in my decision making. (At the start of I had to see a fertility counselor who counseled me to make sure I reserved enough money for donor eggs in case it didn't work out) I did one cycle which produced 2 aneuploid blasts. I had been planning to go to Czech for cost reasons, when COVID hit. So I scraped together enough money for 1 more US cycle and fertilized frozen donor eggs along with my own eggs. (My clinic had no extra charge beyond egg thaw for fertilizing donor eggs in addition and also did not have to pay extra for PGS testing donor egg embryos since I was already doing it on my own - at most a nominal amount extra if I ended up with more than 6 blasts which I didn't.)
That had significant cost advantages and some psychological advantages (at least for me). I'm pregnant with one of the donor egg embryos. I admit if finances hadn't been such an issue I may have leaned toward trying again with my own eggs. But definitely shortened the whole process in terms of time.

[Anonymous]

OP, I’m so sorry to hear about your difficult infertility journey. It sounds very similar to mine. Ultimately, after 3 IUIs, 9 rounds of IVF, and three unsuccessful transfers of perfectly rated embryos with no pregnancies, we decided to use DEs.

Ultimately, our goal was to have a family. We had started looking into adoption, when I read someone on DCUM describe using donor eggs as like “winning the adoption lottery,” as you would have so much information about the egg donor and what happens in utero. Plus, I really wanted to experience being pregnant, having a baby, breastfeeding, etc. I was 42 and did the shared risk donor egg program with Shady Grove, chose a donor with frozen eggs, and got pregnant on my first transfer (I transferred 2 eggs and was pregnant with 1).

My baby is now almost 16 months old. He has felt like mine the entire time. My baby in my pregnant belly, my baby that the doctor held up for me to see when he was born, my baby that taught ME how to breastfeed, my baby to snuggle and hold. And I am 100% mom to him - he gives the sweetest little hugs and says, “Mom, mom, mom...” all day long. I was a bit apprehensive about DE at first, and clearly I was hoping for a biological connection or I would not have pursued IVF for so long. But our son is the best thing that has ever happened to us. And I can’t imagine my life without him.

I hope for you and all those wanting a baby so desperately that you find your path to your future family. DE ended up being a wonderful experience for us. Sending so many good vibes and so much love to you, OP. It is such a hard journey.

[Anonymous]

I'm struggling with this too. I've done a few more cycles, but I'm significantly younger than you. Before you go to donor eggs, I would rule out any MF (DNA frag) issues, uterine issues, etc. You don't want donor to fail. It's hard to give up on your OEs.

[Anonymous]

I was one of the first wave of DE. My twins are 25, and at that time there were less than 500 in the US. We looked into adoption but at 40 we were deemed “too old” at that time.
Oh they are 100% my kids! There were so many great things about my DH: his high intelligence, athletic ability, calm insightful nature that I wanted to have for my children. I did mourn the loss of my OE deeply but my ovarian reserve was very low.
Back then doctors wondered about things that seem ... strange now. Would we feel like our babies were aliens? Would we not bond? Would our families not accept them? This from a progressive RE clinic.
I can certainly say we lucked out in the baby lottery. They have the traits I wanted from my DH, they are 100% themselves: we couldn’t ask for better kids.
I don’t regret it at all. Although being human once in awhile I wish they looked more like me! They look a lot like him.

[Anonymous]

Has your partner had a complete work up including a sperm DNA fragmentation test?

[Anonymous]

42 is not too late to use your own eggs. Schedule an appointment for a review of your IVF medical history with one of the specialists at GW. (They work on the most difficult cases.) One of them will tell you whether you should go the donor egg route. The specialist I saw at GW recommended I go back and do one more cycle at Shady Grove and he was right. Successful cycle at age 43 with own eggs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now I’m sorry also. But DE is no guarantee either and even more stressful. Sorry.

I was thinking of DE as a silver bullet, so this is really hard to hear. But it's important for me to have a realistic view of things, so thank you.

DE isn't a silver bullet, but compared to IVF, it has a much higher chance of success. I think it's around 65% percent. But I agree it's good to be realistic -- my first DE didn't work, and I was devastated, but the second worked.