Three failed rounds of IVF and time to talk to the doctor

[Anonymous]

In your position, I would ask for an order for the thrombophilia risk panel. It tests for lupus and the blood clotting diseases. Mine came back all negative, but I feel good knowing that I did a thorough job investigating. I also see an endocrinologist separately to manage thyroid. She likes to keep mine in the 1-2 range.

http://reprosource.com/reprosource_test/thrombophilia-panel/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely do PGS testing. I was 33/34 years old and did 2 cycles of IVF and both failed. I was a great responder and always produced "beautiful" day 5 embryos. On my 3rd IVF cycle, I had 11 day 5 embryos PGS tested and only one was normal. My first FET was successful after transferring a normal embryo. Good luck!

OP - this. Also, how many have you been transferring for each of 3 attempts? eSET?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In your position, I would ask for an order for the thrombophilia risk panel. It tests for lupus and the blood clotting diseases. Mine came back all negative, but I feel good knowing that I did a thorough job investigating. I also see an endocrinologist separately to manage thyroid. She likes to keep mine in the 1-2 range.

http://reprosource.com/reprosource_test/thrombophilia-panel/

Thanks for the info! That looks like it overlaps somewhat with the Quest panel I was looking at: http://www.questdiagnostics.com/testcenter/testguide.action%3Fdc%3DTS_Recurrent_Miscarriage

Anonymous wrote:
Definitely do PGS testing. I was 33/34 years old and did 2 cycles of IVF and both failed. I was a great responder and always produced "beautiful" day 5 embryos. On my 3rd IVF cycle, I had 11 day 5 embryos PGS tested and only one was normal. My first FET was successful after transferring a normal embryo. Good luck!

OP - this. Also, how many have you been transferring for each of 3 attempts? eSET?

We transferred one each for the fresh transfer and first FET, two for the second FET. (FWIW, we are okay with the idea of twins, but understand why it's medically risky and inadvisable.) We had seven embryos that made it to day 5. Shady Grove never told us why they discarded three of them, so I just assume that visually they appeared to be lower quality. Who knows.

I agree that PGS is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

NP here - somebody on here was asking about varicocele repair?

We also were at SG for primary diagnosis of MFI with mild PCOS. Went to Dr. Shin for the varicocele repair.

Prior to the surgery, DH was at around 1M count, 1% morphology, 20% motility. A year later he's improved quite a bit - 3M count, 2% morph, 40% motility. We knew we'd still need IVF (and proceeded with IVF/ICSI without waiting for surgery results), but I will say that DH has benefited a lot from the surgery. Besides having more favorable numbers (for inevitable future IVFs for us), he's also feeling a lot better. More energy, more facial hair, lost quite a bit of weight.

I will echo PP's comments about how recovery was actually kind of rough and he was in pain for 6w or so afterwards. But in retrospect I'm glad we did it for the health benefits he has realized.

[Anonymous]

I realize this is outdated now - but if the past poster reads this - were you successful with IVF / ICSI after the varicocele repair? We are about to start our second fresh cycle next month and hoping we get some better embryos! DH is going for a SA in 2 weeks - that will be ~4.5 months post surgery. His count was 2m before so we'll see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize this is outdated now - but if the past poster reads this - were you successful with IVF / ICSI after the varicocele repair? We are about to start our second fresh cycle next month and hoping we get some better embryos! DH is going for a SA in 2 weeks - that will be ~4.5 months post surgery. His count was 2m before so we'll see.

I'm not the PP, but if you're doing IVF with ICSI anyway, I don't see why a 2m count was a problem. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me very nervous. I'm just starting IVF. Male factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me very nervous. I'm just starting IVF. Male factor.

I'm the OP. What exactly makes you nervous about this thread? We are also male factor, so thank goodness for IVF! I just wish it had worked for us already and we weren't gearing up for a second fresh round...

[Anonymous]

If your husband has over a 1M count, you should be fine for IVF with ICSI. I would not stress. However, your chances of conceiving naturally are very low. IUI is also not an option.
My husband has the same issues (2M or less for each test)
He will undergo the surgery if (or once) we are successful with IVF. My numbers are good but not great; and my RE is afraid that my numbers will go downhill if we wait for the surgery because I am older (I'm told that you would have to wait 6 months or longer).
Bottom line: low sperm count is a breeze for your RE compared to low egg count or bad egg quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. This kind of thing makes me so mad. Really? You want to wait to see if I have recurrent miscarriage prior to administering a simple test? I don't understand why EVERYTHING isn't tested prior to jumping into something as major as IVF. I hate finding out about tests I could have had after I've already had a bunch of failed cycles. Makes no sense.

Yes! My thoughts exactly. I am so nervous to do IVF and wish they could test me for more things first but my RE says its not clinically indicated. So I just have to jump in, do IVF and HOPE it works. It seems antithetical to all other types of medicine. Can you imagine an oncologist saying, "why yes, there are more tests we could give you to determine what type of cancer you may have but instead of those tests we'll just start you on this generic chemo that works for half of patients like you."

[Anonymous]

Not all the tests are simple or cheap. (PGS for example.) Also, the "simple" version of IVF works for a lot of people, so I can see why that's where doctors recommend starting.

But if you're willing to put the extra time and money into testing, tell your doctor you insist on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. This kind of thing makes me so mad. Really? You want to wait to see if I have recurrent miscarriage prior to administering a simple test? I don't understand why EVERYTHING isn't tested prior to jumping into something as major as IVF. I hate finding out about tests I could have had after I've already had a bunch of failed cycles. Makes no sense.

Yes! My thoughts exactly. I am so nervous to do IVF and wish they could test me for more things first but my RE says its not clinically indicated. So I just have to jump in, do IVF and HOPE it works. It seems antithetical to all other types of medicine. Can you imagine an oncologist saying, "why yes, there are more tests we could give you to determine what type of cancer you may have but instead of those tests we'll just start you on this generic chemo that works for half of patients like you."

They don't test because the end result is almost always the same - IVF. Also many of the tests are invasive.

[Anonymous]

OP -- any update? I hope you've gotten your BFP (or, if not, at least some answers)!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -- any update? I hope you've gotten your BFP (or, if not, at least some answers)!

Not a happy update. We did another egg retrieval (our second) in February, then did PGS testing on the three embryos that made it to freeze. Two of those tested normal (exactly what you would expect at my age, 35). We did a transfer of one embryo two weeks ago and got a negative beta today. I was getting faint lines on HPTs, so I think it was a CP. My theory is that the embryo hung on a little longer this time (no CPs from our three previous transfers) because I did two endo scratches. I will talk to the doctor later this week and he can tell me if my ideas are crazy or not.

We're doing the ERA process next and hoping that gives us some info we can use. Maybe my uterus is just inexplicably evil. My husband keeps saying what if the problem is him (he has MFI), but shouldn't the IVF/PGS process basically rule that out? It's got to be either me or some really shitty luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -- any update? I hope you've gotten your BFP (or, if not, at least some answers)!

Not a happy update. We did another egg retrieval (our second) in February, then did PGS testing on the three embryos that made it to freeze. Two of those tested normal (exactly what you would expect at my age, 35). We did a transfer of one embryo two weeks ago and got a negative beta today. I was getting faint lines on HPTs, so I think it was a CP. My theory is that the embryo hung on a little longer this time (no CPs from our three previous transfers) because I did two endo scratches. I will talk to the doctor later this week and he can tell me if my ideas are crazy or not.

We're doing the ERA process next and hoping that gives us some info we can use. Maybe my uterus is just inexplicably evil. My husband keeps saying what if the problem is him (he has MFI), but shouldn't the IVF/PGS process basically rule that out? It's got to be either me or some really shitty luck.

My husband was the main problem (1% morphology) while I had PCOS. The doctor recommended IVF/ICSI, but also said we only had a 20% chance of it working...