Anonymous wrote:Why don't you try a three-day transfer? I had two retrievals and each time made only six embryos. I did not want to risk losing them and having nothing by growing to 5 days since I did not have a lot to work with. My doctor also thinks a natural environment is best for embryos. I got pregnant on a fresh 3-day transfer (second retrieval).

Anonymous wrote:We did test the DNA of the sperm. All is normal. One thing was borderline but the doctor wasn’t concerned.

We did another retrieval. I had 7 eggs retrieved. Only 4 fertilized and then one made it to early blast then stopped.

When I research reasons why the embryo stops growing, other than the quality of egg, sub par culture issues for the lab was listed as a reason. Should I switch doctors?

Has anyone switched clinics all together and seen a difference?

This was our 5th retrieval this year. 37 eggs and only one made it to blast for PGS and it came back make and abnormal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I m 42 and started ivf last year when i just turned 41.
Cycle #1
14 retrieved 12 fertilized with icsi 4 blastocysts
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #2
15 retrieved, 11 fertilized with icsi 0 blastocyst

Cycle #3
Started taking coq10, dhea ( thermalogix) acupuncture (3or 4 times a month)
16 retrieved, 14 fertilized with icsi 5 blastocyst
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #4 ( took a break for couple of months)
At this point i lost my faith in ivf and just did it for heck of it. So i could tell my self in the future I did my best and try as hard as i can. Since insurance covered I thought what the heck.

18 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilized with icsi
Fresh transfer on day 5
1 early blast grade 1ab
1 doc said it looks like its about to blast
1 i ve no idea just wanted to transfer 3 due to my age..

I m pregnant with singleton.
First beta 14dpt. 1760
Second beta. 16dpt 4000
Third beta 20dpt 17000

Ultrasound normal heart beat..

I agree with the posts about pgs testing. They are not 100% correct. Studies shown mosaics embryos may self correct themselves in uterus. Please do some research and you will find out.
Also as far as i know ( i might be wrong) in ivf, most chromosomally abnormal pregnacies end up miscarriage. I remember reading somewhere also an embryologyst friend confirmed as well. But as i said i might be wrong..

Some embryos do better in moms belly rather than dish. I suggest try a fresh transfer. Transfer 1 or 2 and if there anything leftover for blastocyst you can freeze it.
I wish you the best of luck.. it doesn't have to try to try something different ())

PGS testing doesn't detect mosaicism at all. Yes, some studies say that there have been some cases (not massive studies that are methodologically controlled, but individual case reports) of aneuploid embryos self correcting. It doesn't mean that every PGS abnormal embryo can self correct, so it's still a big risk.

Also, on petri dish vs. "mom's belly" - transfer on day 5 places the embryo in the uterus. In a spontaneous non-ART pregnancy, embryos make it to the uterus sometime between day 7 and 9, so day 5 transfer places the embryo where it wouldn't yet be otherwise.

Would that contribute to early demise of many PGS normal embryos? They treat all FETs as day 5 transfers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I m 42 and started ivf last year when i just turned 41.
Cycle #1
14 retrieved 12 fertilized with icsi 4 blastocysts
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #2
15 retrieved, 11 fertilized with icsi 0 blastocyst

Cycle #3
Started taking coq10, dhea ( thermalogix) acupuncture (3or 4 times a month)
16 retrieved, 14 fertilized with icsi 5 blastocyst
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #4 ( took a break for couple of months)
At this point i lost my faith in ivf and just did it for heck of it. So i could tell my self in the future I did my best and try as hard as i can. Since insurance covered I thought what the heck.

18 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilized with icsi
Fresh transfer on day 5
1 early blast grade 1ab
1 doc said it looks like its about to blast
1 i ve no idea just wanted to transfer 3 due to my age..

I m pregnant with singleton.
First beta 14dpt. 1760
Second beta. 16dpt 4000
Third beta 20dpt 17000

Ultrasound normal heart beat..

I agree with the posts about pgs testing. They are not 100% correct. Studies shown mosaics embryos may self correct themselves in uterus. Please do some research and you will find out.
Also as far as i know ( i might be wrong) in ivf, most chromosomally abnormal pregnacies end up miscarriage. I remember reading somewhere also an embryologyst friend confirmed as well. But as i said i might be wrong..

Some embryos do better in moms belly rather than dish. I suggest try a fresh transfer. Transfer 1 or 2 and if there anything leftover for blastocyst you can freeze it.
I wish you the best of luck.. it doesn't have to try to try something different ())

PGS testing doesn't detect mosaicism at all. Yes, some studies say that there have been some cases (not massive studies that are methodologically controlled, but individual case reports) of aneuploid embryos self correcting. It doesn't mean that every PGS abnormal embryo can self correct, so it's still a big risk.

Also, on petri dish vs. "mom's belly" - transfer on day 5 places the embryo in the uterus. In a spontaneous non-ART pregnancy, embryos make it to the uterus sometime between day 7 and 9, so day 5 transfer places the embryo where it wouldn't yet be otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question to those that transferred on day 3 - why are you willing to take a risk with untested, potentially chromosomally incompetent embryo? This is an honest question. How would you deal with such a pregnancy?

Because no embryos ever made it to a full blast to be frozen and tested. Why do the same thing after it already failed 3 times? I was willing to take the risk with day 3 embryos because day 5 clearly didn't work. We agreed with DH that if I were to get pregnant and NIPT test revealed a chromosomal abnormality, we would terminate. I would do the same if there was no IVF involved and it was a spontaneous conception.

Yeah...why not just use the right word: abort.

Go away - no one needs this shit. This is an infertility board where people are struggling to have a baby.

I made the comment and I am struggling to have a baby. But I wouldn't abort. And I have a right to say that.

NP - You have no f'ing idea what you'd do if you found yourself in that unfortunate position so STFU, thx.

No need to get angry. I read your blog and you expressed how peaceful you are with your decision. So no need to get angry at those that will not do it.

Anonymous wrote:I m 42 and started ivf last year when i just turned 41.
Cycle #1
14 retrieved 12 fertilized with icsi 4 blastocysts
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #2
15 retrieved, 11 fertilized with icsi 0 blastocyst

Cycle #3
Started taking coq10, dhea ( thermalogix) acupuncture (3or 4 times a month)
16 retrieved, 14 fertilized with icsi 5 blastocyst
Pgs - all abnormal

Cycle #4 ( took a break for couple of months)
At this point i lost my faith in ivf and just did it for heck of it. So i could tell my self in the future I did my best and try as hard as i can. Since insurance covered I thought what the heck.

18 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilized with icsi
Fresh transfer on day 5
1 early blast grade 1ab
1 doc said it looks like its about to blast
1 i ve no idea just wanted to transfer 3 due to my age..

I m pregnant with singleton.
First beta 14dpt. 1760
Second beta. 16dpt 4000
Third beta 20dpt 17000

Ultrasound normal heart beat..

I agree with the posts about pgs testing. They are not 100% correct. Studies shown mosaics embryos may self correct themselves in uterus. Please do some research and you will find out.
Also as far as i know ( i might be wrong) in ivf, most chromosomally abnormal pregnacies end up miscarriage. I remember reading somewhere also an embryologyst friend confirmed as well. But as i said i might be wrong..

Some embryos do better in moms belly rather than dish. I suggest try a fresh transfer. Transfer 1 or 2 and if there anything leftover for blastocyst you can freeze it.
I wish you the best of luck.. it doesn't have to try to try something different ())

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also had a very low blast rate but am a high responder. Even at 150 Gonal F and 75 Menopur, I still just retrieved 14 eggs, yet I typically make 1 blast or even none.

Like PP, I also tried two fresh transfers of 5 Day 3 embryos each. I don't think those were good quality cycles for a few different reasons, and they weren't on immune treatment, so who's to say whether that approach would really work any better for me. My current RE doesn't think the Day 3 approach is good for me because I always have too many to choose from at Day 3 and there is no good way to discriminate between them. She said the most recent normal embryo I had would not have been among the ones selected for a Day 3 transfer. So I feel a little bit stuck.

I've already had 3 miscarriages due to chromosomal abnormalities, and two were late in the 1st trimester, so I am not eager to repeat that without PGS testing.

I've had two normals, tried transferring one so far and it did not take. I'm going to try again next year with the one in the freezer on immune protocol.

Thanks for your post. What will immune protocol include? And how did you conclude you needed one?

Immune protocol for me will involve a steroid like prednisone, intralipids, and maybe Neupogen. I'm not seeing Dr. Braverman, but he believes high dose fish oil is just as good as intralipids.

It used to be that I could get pregnant somewhat easily with bad embryos (hence the three miscarriages due to chromosomal abnormalities), plus one live birth in the middle of all of that. Right after the 3rd miscarriage, it seemed like a switch flipped and I couldn't get pregnant even though it seemed like implantation was in process (implantation bleeding and cramping). After 6 IUIs, a failed FET with a normal embryo, and Day 3 transfers of 10 beautiful looking embryos, I just felt like I should have had SOME pregnancy, even a bad one, given my history. I had heard that immune issues can be triggered by pregnancy, especially a male, and that third miscarriage was a male fetus. I don't know if that's for sure what happened or not, but I just felt something wasn't right. I already knew I had Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, so I went to have testing done with Dr. Abbasi at CFA. I do have natural killer cell activity and cytokines outside the normal range.

Anonymous wrote:Seem like you have a high number of eggs but low quality.
Might be worth have fewer eggs but of higher quality, which might be achieved by reducing your dosage of stims.

What is your current IVF protocol and how much medicine are you taking?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also had a very low blast rate but am a high responder. Even at 150 Gonal F and 75 Menopur, I still just retrieved 14 eggs, yet I typically make 1 blast or even none.

Like PP, I also tried two fresh transfers of 5 Day 3 embryos each. I don't think those were good quality cycles for a few different reasons, and they weren't on immune treatment, so who's to say whether that approach would really work any better for me. My current RE doesn't think the Day 3 approach is good for me because I always have too many to choose from at Day 3 and there is no good way to discriminate between them. She said the most recent normal embryo I had would not have been among the ones selected for a Day 3 transfer. So I feel a little bit stuck.

I've already had 3 miscarriages due to chromosomal abnormalities, and two were late in the 1st trimester, so I am not eager to repeat that without PGS testing.

I've had two normals, tried transferring one so far and it did not take. I'm going to try again next year with the one in the freezer on immune protocol.

Thanks for your post. What will immune protocol include? And how did you conclude you needed one?

Anonymous wrote:I've also had a very low blast rate but am a high responder. Even at 150 Gonal F and 75 Menopur, I still just retrieved 14 eggs, yet I typically make 1 blast or even none.

Like PP, I also tried two fresh transfers of 5 Day 3 embryos each. I don't think those were good quality cycles for a few different reasons, and they weren't on immune treatment, so who's to say whether that approach would really work any better for me. My current RE doesn't think the Day 3 approach is good for me because I always have too many to choose from at Day 3 and there is no good way to discriminate between them. She said the most recent normal embryo I had would not have been among the ones selected for a Day 3 transfer. So I feel a little bit stuck.

I've already had 3 miscarriages due to chromosomal abnormalities, and two were late in the 1st trimester, so I am not eager to repeat that without PGS testing.

I've had two normals, tried transferring one so far and it did not take. I'm going to try again next year with the one in the freezer on immune protocol.