Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP who just had #2 here. I don't know about GW MFA, but we were at Dominion and they had their own donors. We got a bunch of background info on them to pick from. One thing to think about is how you feel about the potential for lots of half siblings out there. Some banks the donors may provide eggs to many individuals, some places do a shared risk where you split a donor cycle eggs with one or two other couples, and some (like ours) you can get all of the donors eggs from the cycle. Cost varies depending on which route you take.

It's really concerning that egg donations are not mandated to be fully open for this reason that has health as well as ethical consideration. Half-siblings from various families could meet and unintentionally fall in love in future and have their own children with genetic defects.

That potential has been there for many decades via sperm donation, as well, you know.

Luckily the research supports “talk & tell” vs the taboo hush hush.

OP: If you have the resources, do one more IVF and then if that doesn’t work know that you’re u did everything in your power and move on to DE.

op. how old is your partner? i imagine you considered using her eggs.

I have not tried but a lot of people on this board swear CoQ10 made a huge difference in egg quality for them.
Also curious if you could use partners eggs.

It is a hard call, but you sre a good reason der and with unexplained infertility you just never know how a cycle will go. But, if I were you I would do another cycle with my own eggs. Wishing you lots of good luck!

Anonymous wrote:Just a thought...what about your partners eggs?

+1

Just a thought...what about your partners eggs?

Anonymous wrote:PP who just had #2 here. I don't know about GW MFA, but we were at Dominion and they had their own donors. We got a bunch of background info on them to pick from. One thing to think about is how you feel about the potential for lots of half siblings out there. Some banks the donors may provide eggs to many individuals, some places do a shared risk where you split a donor cycle eggs with one or two other couples, and some (like ours) you can get all of the donors eggs from the cycle. Cost varies depending on which route you take.

It's really concerning that egg donations are not mandated to be fully open for this reason that has health as well as ethical consideration. Half-siblings from various families could meet and unintentionally fall in love in future and have their own children with genetic defects.

PP who just had #2 here. I don't know about GW MFA, but we were at Dominion and they had their own donors. We got a bunch of background info on them to pick from. One thing to think about is how you feel about the potential for lots of half siblings out there. Some banks the donors may provide eggs to many individuals, some places do a shared risk where you split a donor cycle eggs with one or two other couples, and some (like ours) you can get all of the donors eggs from the cycle. Cost varies depending on which route you take.

In your situation I would try one more time with own eggs but only if I had resources to move onto donor egg if not successful. If not - then the DE may be best path to baby. Will you have same sperm donor? Good luck with your decision.

OP here. These are really helpful responses so far. We already have extra vials of the sperm we used to create our first kid, so I think we'd go the donor egg route instead of the donor-embryo route.

While we did a lot of research on sperm banks, we haven't done any on egg donation. Where'd you go for that information? Do you have a bank to recommend? I would love specific advice. We're being treated at GW MFA. I have an appointment in two weeks to discuss next steps, and I'd like to go in with as much information as possible.

For those of you who stuck with your own eggs after a failed medicated FET, is there anything you did differently in the next round? Did anyone go the unmedicated route as a means of improving egg quality? Anything else you did to improve egg quality?

Hmm. If you can do it, time and money wise (and emotionally), I would do one more try with your own eggs, then move to donor egg. But that’s just me.
Just don’t give up!

I was in a similar situation but a little older. Had my first naturally at 43, then just couldn't get pregnant to give her a sibling. Did 4 rounds of IVF and was also a great responder, up to getting 4 or so 5-day blasts each round, but they all tested abnormal. For us we decided having the second was more important that it being genetically mine, so we did donor eggs. Just gave birth to #2 a couple of weeks ago and couldn't be happier. You will get a lot of strong opinions on both sides here, but it really comes down to how important it is to you that the child have your genetics.

I agree with PP. Move to donor eggs or donor embryos since you need a sperm donor any way. I have three donor egg kids (first with one donor ab$ second and third with another). The success rate is very high and you can move o from infertility.

It's a hard choice. Would you be open to using a donor embryo? If you need donor sperm already if money is a concern this will be a much cheaper option. I'm doing my 1st IVF right now, and honestly if the first goes really badly I think donor embryos are my next option. It's such a personal decision though, I think only you and your parent can really answer this. But for me personally I'm not so tied to my genetics and really want the best chance to have 1 child.

I have unexplained infertility. We had one child two years ago via IFV after a number of years of trying. In that cycle, we got 8 embryos. With the first 4 attempts, we got pregnant twice and had two very early miscarriages. We then unfroze the remaining 4 embryos and did PGS testing. Only one of the remaining 4 was good. Used that one and had our child. Yay!

We just did an FET again with eggs frozen at 39. Had 15 eggs, resulting in 4 5-day blasts, PGS tested all of them, and only one was normal. Used that one and got a negative pregnancy test recently.

So, now we're trying to figure out what to do, if anything. We are considering:

OPTION 1: Another IVF with my eggs. I'm now 42. I'm a good responder in the sense that we got a bunch of eggs. My numbers haven't changed much since the last retrieval at 39. Even though I'm a "good responder," in that there are lots of eggs, it seems that I create crappy eggs. Out of the 15 eggs in the last round, we only got one usable embryo.

OPTION 2: IVF with a donor egg. This sounds like we'd have a much higher likelihood of success. I admit that I feel a little sad about not using my egg. We're a same sex couple, so we're also using a sperm donor, so the kid would not be biologically related to either of us (though he/she would be a biological half sib to our existing kid).

I'd love to hear from others who went through a similar process. Any tips/advice? Does anyone have a bio first kid and then use an egg donor for the second?

Would anyone recommend a natural cycle FET given what I've written above? Are the meds the thing that's screwing up my eggs?

All (kind) thoughts and insight would be appreciated.