Heading to IVF with unexplained IFV

[Anonymous]

My suggestion (since step one would obviously be leaving Columbia Fertility!) would be to pic your next fertility clinic. The intiial consults are expensive, but I think it is worth it to do your research. Find someone who will listen to your concerns and spend time mapping out a plan specific to you. I checked out SGF, CCRM, and VCRM, and ultimately landed at VCRM. I've been happy with their approach and protocol. I found they do a lot more testing upfront than my friends at other clinics, like the HSG for example.

Also check out Dr. Aimee, the Egg Whisperer. She has a podcast that can shed a lot of light on the process, I found it super helpful.

I have done the first round IVF at VCRM but banking for future transfer as DH was deployed at the time. 12 eggs, 11 mature, 8 fertilized, 3 *DAY SIX blasts (ICSI w/ assisted hatching, no male factor) and 1 PGT normal 3ab. I'm 42. Planning for another retrieval to hopefully get at least one more normal embryo to boost our odds before transferring. Financially DH and I decided we would only commit to 2 rounds regardless of outcome. I did ovarian PRP before this next round just as a hail mary. From what I've read it can be promising, but not a guarantee of improvement.

For reference and positive encouragement, my GF (39) also at VCRM, did PRP before her last round of IVF and got 3 normal embryos from 12 eggs. She is currently 12wks pregnant after the first single transfer. My other GF (39) is at SGF and did 1 round IUI and is now 20wks pregnant with twins!

As others mentioned its a grueling journey, but IMO thats regardless of whether you do IVF. IVF is just the same grueling journey, but with shots.

Stay positive! You'll get your baby <3

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. We went through IVF at Columbia Fertility. 6 eggs retrieved, two transferred at early morula and 8 cell stage, three more discarded. Was not informed about remaining embryos being discarded. Not pregnant. This has been an awful experience, and we are where we started - no pregnancy, no eggs.

For those that had to do multiple rounds and had "late developing embryos", was assisted hatching successful? Dreading doing this again, especially after the disregard shown by Columbia Fertility.

So I don't think ANY of these clinics are honest about the numbers game with embryos. I'm at Walter Reed so they have no reason not to be frank and just aren't. Shady Grove was the same. I had 28 follicles, 13 mature eggs, 11 fertilized and only 3 made it to day 5 and after PGT I'll be lucky to have 1 normal embryo. After reading odds that's very typical outcome. Except most people don't start with that many eggs. So in other words 1 cycle is unlikely to result in a baby 😑.

Agree that RE world isn't very transparent about the odds of one cycle working. I am more upset about the fact that the only thing I got from Columbia Fertility about the three that weren't implanted was an email that literally says "Day 6: 3@degenerate and discarded." This is the only update I have received from a medical professional. I only know about what stages they were at due to forcing a coordinator to go through my charts the day of my pregnancy test in the office because I refused to take the test until this was explained, along with breakthrough bleeding that had begun and was report via email and phone, not on my chart. As far as mature eggs, they told me they couldn't tell which ones were mature????? They also did not do a follicle count throughout the process, just measured three biggest follicles at each stage. I don't even know how many follicles I had. Do not go to Columbia Fertility.

I am looking for insight from people who have had "late progressing embryos" and ICIS, not assisted hatching as I said earlier. If you had late progressing embryos in one cycle, did ICIS help? Going back to Dominion for next cycle but curious what other's experience has been.

Its very common to lose most embryos by day 5 in development. Hence I went from 11 to 3. There is a visual difference in mature vs immature egg, but that would also be caught in the fertilization rate.

Since we had to do ICSI for PGT they said we wouldn't need assisted hatching or other interventions before transferring.

Was yours a fresh transfer? There is more and more evidence that transfer from frozen is better than fresh transfers, but if they transferred early because of quality concerns it may have been likely that the embryos wouldn't make it to freeze (like the other 3 did not).

It was a fresh transfer, but I am really looking for anyone's experience dealing with developing embryos and ICSI as ICSI was not something we did in this round.

ICSI doesn't improve the odds of embryos making it to day 5, it only improves the fertilization rate if you had a problem with that.

+1. I had 20 retrieved, 16 fertilized via ICSI, and only 3 made it to PGT testing. None were ready on day 5, the few that made it were all day 6.

[Anonymous]

Also dx work unexplained infertility. Also did a few IUIs and timed sex. Never worked. IVF with ICSI worked on first round. First and third transfers (both frozen) worked. Conceived naturally while awaiting start of fourth transfer. Now have 2 embryos waiting.