Anonymous wrote:I have been thinking of donor egg, but those are harder to come by when you’re Asian.

I finally decided to look for donors after a long and unsuccessful IVF road, and found two South Asian donors (I'm South Asian) within a few hours of searching. One was at Genesis and the other at The Donor Source (both agencies). They weren't listed yet, but I had previously talked to the coordinators at each agency a few months ago when I was doing research, but hadn't committed to DE yet. I emailed them both asking if they had any South Asian donors and they initially said no, but then emailed me back later saying they found one. One of them was matched with someone else, but the match fell through. We have a long way to go, but this approach has at least gotten me this far. One of the donors is from the same part of India where my grandmother is from and we speak the same language. Really wasn't expecting that. I also thought it would take forever or be impossible. I think what helped was me telling the coordinators what I was looking for, and then they contacted me before posting the donors. This is such a hard process. Good luck and I wish you all the best.

Many clinics focus intently on growing embryos to blasts and doing PGS testing. Both of those practices can get you closer to a take home baby so long as you have a high volume of embryos to work with. But not everyone does (I didn’t) and not all embryos can make it to blast and testing (mine didn’t).

Talk to your doctor about the possibility of planning for a transfer/freeze of day 2 or 3 embryos. I had success with this method with older eggs (37) and not a huge volume (6 embryos each of my two cycles). I think it would certainly be worth a shot before you begin to look at other avenues (donor egg/embryo, etc). Wishing you so much luck.

For poor responders, it might make financial sense to try natural IVF at Dominion, but the time investment is the same as stim IVF so it is not perfect but worth looking into.

I have been thinking of donor egg, but those are harder to come by when you’re Asian.

At 41, your numbers sound typical. Yes miracles happen but if you really want a live birth, consider DE. I’m not trying to be insensitive but you’ll save yourself a world of heartache.

I went through this. I was 36. After 3 unsuccessful cycles we were at the end of the road on cycle 4 when only one egg lived long enough to be transferred back in. I'm currently watching this miracle egg, my now 8 year old daughter, dance around the living room. The odds are against you, but you only need one to work. Hang in there. Most people don't know how hard this is unless they've been there themselves.

Good luck! I can relate to how hard this is...

I’m 41, had my egg retrieval yesterday. 5 mature eggs but only 2 fertilized. 1 st cycle at 39, 9 retrieved, had 4 embryos tested 1 normal, fet that didn’t take
The second cycle , 6 retrieved, 2 blasts, both abnormal. Got pregnant spontaneously twice that both ended in missed miscarriage at 6 and 8 weeks
I’m trying to keep my hopes up — hoping that at least one of these 2 will be normal.

Side note: does anyone know the costs for Cornell in nyc?