Hope after RPL & Switching Clinics (GW vs. CCRM)

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! First time poster here seeking some advice and support.

My husband and I (both 29 years old) have unexplained infertility and have been at the IVF game for the past 1.5 years. During that time, we’ve endured 3 fresh cycles (one of which was cancelled), 7 transfers, 3 miscarriages, and 4 negative cycles (all at GW with Dr. Frankfurter). Of the 3 miscarriages, one had Turner Syndrome and one was chromosomally normal. After miscarriage #2, we underwent the full RPL panel and extensive genetic testing (karyotyping). My RPL panel was essentially normal. A slightly elevated aCL IgM level of 27 was the only thing remotely off. I’ve read that couples with 2+ miscarriages have been found to have a higher number of embryos with chromosome abnormalities, but I’ve also read that sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. I’d love to hear from others with similar experiences, as I’m really starting to lose hope.

Also, I trust Dr. Frankfurter, appreciate how thorough he is, and don’t fault GW in any way for what’s happened. I truly believe they’ve done all the right things up to this point. (Moving forward, we’ll opt for PGS testing. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.) That being said, we’re considering switching clinics in the New Year. We’ve been with GW a long time, and it seems we’ve had only sad experiences there. We also live in Baltimore, which makes the morning monitoring treks to DC a nightmare! I recently met with Dr. Moragianni of CCRM Northern Virginia upon learning they have a monitoring office in Columbia, MD, and I was really impressed by both her experience and bedside manner. Has anyone here used her before? I do feel kinda guilty for leaving GW and Dr. Frankfurter. They’ve been sad for our failures and happy for our successes, and I really like all the doctors and staff there. But at the same time, I think a change of scenery could do us some good.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and for sharing your experiences!

[Anonymous]

I’m very sorry, OP. I am also a patient of Dr. F. I’ve had three unsuccessful cycles (one with nothing to transfer, one with 4 blasts that were all abnormal, and one transfer of a day 3 embryo that I miscarried, and another day 3 transfer that was a chemical pregnancy. I’m also thinking of moving on. I totally understand how you feel about Dr. F and the team. They’ve been wonderful to me and I appreciate them. But I’ve often heard the quality of the lab can make a real difference and for that reason I am thinking of CCRM. They’re known to be top notch, particularly their lab in CO. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean the labs here would be as good but still I feel it’s a fair consideration. If you feel confident in the protocol suggested by the new doctor, maybe you could compare it with what Dr. F thinks you should do next. Good luck!! Keep us posted!!

[Anonymous]

I did two rounds at GW and just finished up the retrieval for my third round at CCRM with Dr. Moragianni. I have no regrets in moving clinics. GW wasn't open to trying different protocols and I had no desire to do the same protocol for the third time. With CCRM, we talked through all possible protocols, their pros and cons, and decided on one that was never on the table at GW. So far, our numbers are significantly better than either round at GW but we are still waiting to see how many make it to blast.

Dr. Moragianni has been incredibly accessible, our nurse Maureen was beyond responsive, and I have a lot of faith in their lab. The entire experience smooth as an IVF cycle can be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did two rounds at GW and just finished up the retrieval for my third round at CCRM with Dr. Moragianni. I have no regrets in moving clinics. GW wasn't open to trying different protocols and I had no desire to do the same protocol for the third time. With CCRM, we talked through all possible protocols, their pros and cons, and decided on one that was never on the table at GW. So far, our numbers are significantly better than either round at GW but we are still waiting to see how many make it to blast.

Dr. Moragianni has been incredibly accessible, our nurse Maureen was beyond responsive, and I have a lot of faith in their lab. The entire experience smooth as an IVF cycle can be.

I’m the first PP. This is interesting to me because I did the same protocol for all 3 of my cycles and I just don’t understand why we kept trying something that didn’t work!

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for responding! I’m sorry you’ve been on this path for quite a while as well. I’ve been having feelings of guilt about switching, and I feel much less alone now. Interesting that Dr. F didn’t try something different with either of you. With my first cycle, I produced only 3 eggs. With the next, he drastically switched things up, and I produced 20. My third was canceled because only one of my ovaries responded, and Dr. F said we have evidence that I can do better. Because of these experiences, I really trust him. I know trust can be hard to come by in this industry.

I’ve been working with Maureen so far at CCRM, and I must say it’s been a drastic improvement from my nurse at GW. I’m naturally the kind type of person who asks a lot of questions. Maureen makes me feel like she appreciates my thoroughness whereas my GW nurse kinda makes me feel like a nuisance. I’ve also had a lot of communication issues with my GW nurse. For instance, she emailed me the wrong medication dosages at one point and even sent me someone else’s monitoring results (during a cycle in which I was doing an FET). Luckily, I caught the wrong dosages and questioned her, but it’s been really frustrating experience feeling like I need to micromanage her and triple-check everything.

To the second poster, are you doing PGS testing at CCRM? At GW, we did not test our embryos, but will moving forward no matter where we wind up. Do you know the embryo quality necessary for biopsy at CCRM? If I recall, GW freezes only those of 2BB+.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP that just finished up my retrieval with CCRM (apologies for the slow reply - cold and flu season hit). I am doing PGS/CSS testing the CCRM. I don't know the threshold for freezing but I know one exist because my day 7 2BC embryo didn't make the cut. I honestly didn't think to ask because I agreed that a day 7 embryo with that grade probably isn't worth testing. Of the six that fertilized, 2 made it to blast both with a 4AA grade. I will say that the lab updates from CCRM were much more thorough than anything I received from GW including their protocol for eggs and embryos that were growing slower than normal. At GW, I'd get the lab update and then the doctor would always ask what I wanted to do. I kept getting frustrated because I'm not a doctor, I don't know!

To the PP with three rounds at GW that were all the same protocol, when looking for other clinics and going over our past protocol, it was mentioned more than once that the protocol I was at GW was the one that gave doctors the most control in terms of scheduling and keeping retrievals to a M-F schedule. I can't confirm this statement or really shed more light on the why and how, but it came up a couple of times. I didn't want to spend a lot of time digging into what went wrong in my past cycles and getting frustrated, I just wanted to focus on using the information to craft a better cycle.

[Anonymous]

I think you should definitely give CCRM a shot. They may have a different approach which could bring you success.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks all for the input. We’ve decided to give CCRM a try. Though we are still early in the preliminary stages, our experience so far has been positive.