What is the 5% chance at 42 based on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course women get pregnant at 42-44, but not many.

"Chances 'accumulate' for the future events but they don't for those in the past. so if the chance of conception per attempt is 5% and you do 20 attempts, at the beginning of those 20 attempts your chances are almost 70%. however, if you had 19 of those 20 attempts and nothing happened, you chances for something to happen on the 20th attempt are 5%."

If this were true, then 42-44 year olds would have little to no problem conceiving. Just try for 20 months and you have a 70% chance of conceiving. Yeah right. That's a rarity.

Something is very wrong with the analysis on this thread. I'm no statistician, but come on people. We wouldn't need a fertility industry or donor eggs and there wouldn't be much worry about AMA at all. Shoot, if all I had to do was try for a year or two, and 70% chance I'd get pregnant, no problemo, that sounds great, I didn't want to rush anyway.

But I am a statistician. Which doesn't make me an expert on this topic, btw, but you do appear to have problems understanding how a large number of attempts can improve odds in your favor. Of course, the question of 5% didn't get an answer and the probability of success changes as time progresses, so calculation is a little bit more complicated. Also - 5% (wherever it came from) is an average rate. Your own probability might be significantly lower - or higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is exactly what I mean. For lack of a better word, is the 5% statistic for "normal" people or only known for people TTC using a RE?

No, it's based on the fact that your eggs are 42 yrs old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is exactly what I mean. For lack of a better word, is the 5% statistic for "normal" people or only known for people TTC using a RE?

No, it's based on the fact that your eggs are 42 yrs old.

Please explain how figure of 5% follows from number 42.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is exactly what I mean. For lack of a better word, is the 5% statistic for "normal" people or only known for people TTC using a RE?

No, it's based on the fact that your eggs are 42 yrs old.

Please explain how figure of 5% follows from number 42.

It's a figure based on the data that shows about 5% of the women who are trying to conceive at that age get pregnant and even less deliver. It's simply the way it is. Even in the best of circumstances, two 18 yr olds, there is only a 20% chance of conceiving each month. It declines after 30 yrs old and even more sharply after 35 yrs old and take a nose dive after 41 yrs old. We are born with our eggs, they age with us. When reproductive endocrinologists quote you percentages, it's based on the SART data compiled from women in that age group conceiving and delivering a live baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is exactly what I mean. For lack of a better word, is the 5% statistic for "normal" people or only known for people TTC using a RE?

No, it's based on the fact that your eggs are 42 yrs old.

Please explain how figure of 5% follows from number 42.

It's a figure based on the data that shows about 5% of the women who are trying to conceive at that age get pregnant and even less deliver. It's simply the way it is. Even in the best of circumstances, two 18 yr olds, there is only a 20% chance of conceiving each month. It declines after 30 yrs old and even more sharply after 35 yrs old and take a nose dive after 41 yrs old. We are born with our eggs, they age with us. When reproductive endocrinologists quote you percentages, it's based on the SART data compiled from women in that age group conceiving and delivering a live baby.

I guess you haven't really followed the discussion. Nobody knows how many women are "trying to conceive" - all we have are births for women in a 40-44 age-group. The 5% figure is probably (though nobody here knows for sure) based on women who have trouble conceiving and decided to use IVF - not a random sample at all.

And please stop patronizing us with the spiel about aging eggs. Everybody on these forums knows those facts 50 times over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course women get pregnant at 42-44, but not many.

"Chances 'accumulate' for the future events but they don't for those in the past. so if the chance of conception per attempt is 5% and you do 20 attempts, at the beginning of those 20 attempts your chances are almost 70%. however, if you had 19 of those 20 attempts and nothing happened, you chances for something to happen on the 20th attempt are 5%."

If this were true, then 42-44 year olds would have little to no problem conceiving. Just try for 20 months and you have a 70% chance of conceiving. Yeah right. That's a rarity.

Something is very wrong with the analysis on this thread. I'm no statistician, but come on people. We wouldn't need a fertility industry or donor eggs and there wouldn't be much worry about AMA at all. Shoot, if all I had to do was try for a year or two, and 70% chance I'd get pregnant, no problemo, that sounds great, I didn't want to rush anyway.

But I am a statistician. Which doesn't make me an expert on this topic, btw, but you do appear to have problems understanding how a large number of attempts can improve odds in your favor. Of course, the question of 5% didn't get an answer and the probability of success changes as time progresses, so calculation is a little bit more complicated. Also - 5% (wherever it came from) is an average rate. Your own probability might be significantly lower - or higher.

You might be a statistician but your 70% figure is off, whether it is based on putting in bad numbers or whatever. Of course large no. of attempts can improve odds, but I think about 99 out of 100 people would bet you the Romney $10,000 that women ages 42-44 do not have a 70% chance of conception after trying for 20 months. That is 100% incorrect.

[Anonymous]

New to this thread, but seems like people are in serious denial in this thread about the consequence of age. Especially at 42-44. Conception = rare. Live birth = very rare. Possible, of course. As someone else said, the chance of conception or a live birth for this age range is of course not zero. You're going to get more conceptions resulting in live births from 40 year olds and 41 year olds, but you are going to see that rarely for 42 year olds, rarer still for 43 year olds, and whew rare for 44 year olds. Trying hard and often and for a long time ain't gonna change that.

[Anonymous]

PP, I don't think that people are in denial about the consequences of age (at least, I'm not). That is not the point. What is confusing to me, at least, is the MATH of all of this. The stats that are being thrown around are confusing to me, and to the OP.

I do think there is a point where your chances of natural conception if you have "unexplained infertility" are close to your chances of conceiving through IVF, and every couple has to decide how close they feel to that line. That's a separate issue.

The question under debate currently, however, is that when we talk about a 5 percent chance of 40 to 44-year olds giving birth in any given cycle, are we talking about ALL WOMEN, or ALL WOMEN UNDERGOING FERTILITY PROCEDURES. Those are two different groups of women. I was under the impression that this stat was derived from ALL WOMEN, which includes everyone from the most fertile woman in this country to a woman who has had 20 IVF procedures and finally strikes gold at age 40+

But because of the OP's good question, now I'm not so sure. Because, let's just say we're talking about the universe of "all women." Are women using donor eggs included? Because if so, one would expect that 5 percent figure to eventually start going up, because now women in that age range "appear" more fertile because they're giving birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, I don't think that people are in denial about the consequences of age (at least, I'm not). That is not the point. What is confusing to me, at least, is the MATH of all of this. The stats that are being thrown around are confusing to me, and to the OP.

I do think there is a point where your chances of natural conception if you have "unexplained infertility" are close to your chances of conceiving through IVF, and every couple has to decide how close they feel to that line. That's a separate issue.

The question under debate currently, however, is that when we talk about a 5 percent chance of 40 to 44-year olds giving birth in any given cycle, are we talking about ALL WOMEN, or ALL WOMEN UNDERGOING FERTILITY PROCEDURES. Those are two different groups of women. I was under the impression that this stat was derived from ALL WOMEN, which includes everyone from the most fertile woman in this country to a woman who has had 20 IVF procedures and finally strikes gold at age 40+

But because of the OP's good question, now I'm not so sure. Because, let's just say we're talking about the universe of "all women." Are women using donor eggs included? Because if so, one would expect that 5 percent figure to eventually start going up, because now women in that age range "appear" more fertile because they're giving birth.

Not to be rude, but IVF stats are just that, IVF stats. It's the data of all women trying to conceive using IVF or ART. There is other data of women trying to conceive naturally and it's different based on the age of women reported on L&D and to vital statistics. I don't know why this is so difficult for you to grasp. SART which is the data base required by all IVF centers to report to keeps separate data for donor egg conceptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I guess you haven't really followed the discussion. Nobody knows how many women are "trying to conceive" - all we have are births for women in a 40-44 age-group. The 5% figure is probably (though nobody here knows for sure) based on women who have trouble conceiving and decided to use IVF - not a random sample at all.

And please stop patronizing us with the spiel about aging eggs. Everybody on these forums knows those facts 50 times over.

It's not patronizing it's reality. Sometimes reality hurts, I get that, but make no mistake it's called "age related fertility decline" for a reason. Unless you are in peoples bedrooms surveying on if they are using birth control or not, no one will know if women are "trying to conceive."

[Anonymous]

Not to be rude, but IVF stats are just that, IVF stats. It's the data of all women trying to conceive using IVF or ART. There is other data of women trying to conceive naturally and it's different based on the age of women reported on L&D and to vital statistics. I don't know why this is so difficult for you to grasp. SART which is the data base required by all IVF centers to report to keeps separate data for donor egg conceptions.

Argh. I GET THAT. Please, if you have to start a sentence with "Not to be rude..." it is likely you might be coming off as rude.

I'm going to skip trying to re-explain what I'm saying because there's no real point in it.

FWIW, I just checked SART. For women 41-42, the percentage of IVF cycles resulting in a live birth is 12.4. For women over 42, it's 4.1 (that's for the year 2010).

So if I were 41-42 and at a good clinic that could meet that average stat or offered even better odds, IVF might be worth it because its more than the 5 percent chance per cycle I'd have on my own.

If I were over 42 and/or not at one of those top clinics that offers good odds, it might be a harder call to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I guess you haven't really followed the discussion. Nobody knows how many women are "trying to conceive" - all we have are births for women in a 40-44 age-group. The 5% figure is probably (though nobody here knows for sure) based on women who have trouble conceiving and decided to use IVF - not a random sample at all.

And please stop patronizing us with the spiel about aging eggs. Everybody on these forums knows those facts 50 times over.

It's not patronizing it's reality. Sometimes reality hurts, I get that, but make no mistake it's called "age related fertility decline" for a reason. Unless you are in peoples bedrooms surveying on if they are using birth control or not, no one will know if women are "trying to conceive."

It can be reality and still be patronizing. And, for as long as "no one will know if women are trying to conceive" nobody will know what conception/pregnancy/delivery rate is, either.

[Anonymous]

Personally I don't think it makes much sense to get hung up on the stats because every woman, every egg, and every pregnancy are different. For every woman who is 25 and can't get pg there is a 45 yo who experiences a miracle baby. But there's no way to know where you are in the distribution. (Heisenberg's Unexplained Infertility Principle?) And the bottom line is still the same. You have two options: 1) DE and 2) luck.

IVF is actually just luck on steroids if you think about it. You are taking your 20 chances and going for all (or a portion) of them all at once - but it's still the luck of the draw whether you get a good egg. There's nothing magic about IVF that somehow makes the good eggs show up.

And BTW, ovarian reserve is just a proxy for egg quality. It's not an unequivocal indicator. If you really want to know what your egg quality is like, you need to do PGD. But I would only recommend PGD if you are like me, and you have a hard time accepting that it is age related decline because you eat organic and exercise and take good care of yourself and you just can't fathom that all those Chinese herbs and acupuncture haven't made you the exception to the rule that you've always been in every other area of your life. When you get those results though, it will be like a cold bucket of water over the head. You'll get unequivocal proof that age related decline is absolutely real, but it's cost you $15k. Ha! The price of stubbornness.

OP, I agree with your RE. Just keep trying and stop when you can't take it anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I guess you haven't really followed the discussion. Nobody knows how many women are "trying to conceive" - all we have are births for women in a 40-44 age-group. The 5% figure is probably (though nobody here knows for sure) based on women who have trouble conceiving and decided to use IVF - not a random sample at all.

And please stop patronizing us with the spiel about aging eggs. Everybody on these forums knows those facts 50 times over.

It's not patronizing it's reality. Sometimes reality hurts, I get that, but make no mistake it's called "age related fertility decline" for a reason. Unless you are in peoples bedrooms surveying on if they are using birth control or not, no one will know if women are "trying to conceive."

I don't understand why are you treating reasonable questions - to which you have no answers! - as mere coping mechanisms by desperate bozos, while it is perfectly clear all along that everybody here is aware of the fertility decline. The discussion is about something else entirely.

And yes, sometimes reality hurts, thank you for the news, though given that most of us here have had trouble conceiving, we are kind of aware of that. On the other hand, I already have a child and, while I would love to have more, can definitively be happy with what I have. So your attempt to school me in the life's hardships is kind of beside the point.

[Anonymous]

OP, instead of relying on luck or donor egg, find a fertility clinic that will do PGD testing on your embryo's. This will maximize your chances. And make sure to implant only blastocysts as they have a high chance of taking. I had my baby at age 45 with PGD testing and pushing them to blastocysts.