# Not sure what to do next



## kayobee (Oct 1, 2014)

Hello Ladies
I turned 40 a few weeks ago so now that I am a member of that illustrious club I wondered if I could ask for some advice please.
You'll see my history from my profile. Our clinic forgot to do the PGS on our most recent cycle and so our 2 blasts were put straight in the freezer without testing. The clinic tried to assure me that it would be ok to de-frost them, biopsy them and then re-freeze them BUT I am nervous because of the increased risk involved.
We have therefore reluctantly decided to do one more cycle in April / May time as I want to give my body enough time to recover from all the birthday celebrations (lots of champers has been consumed !!) and if we have any blasts from that cycle we will then do PGS on all of them at that point in time.
I am considering three options for the next cycle:
Same hardcore stimms cycle - would this lead to exact same issues
Mild IVF - would this lead to fewer eggs but better quality which in truth is far more important
Donor Egg Cycle - is it time to move on?

I think our problem is the quality of my eggs, on the cycle that PGS was done all our blastocysts were chromosomally abnormal. On that basis (and I realise this is very negative of me) I am also assuming the ones currently in the freezer are the same. 
Do you ladies think I should try Mild IVF? DO you think it is time to consider moving on?
I am meeting the clinic director next week to discuss our complaint about the PGS not being done, interestingly they haven't refunded me the money for that either yet.
Feeling very let down by the clinic and also potentially considering moving elsewhere but not sure if that will achieve anything.
Thanks for reading 
XXX


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## KLconfused (Jan 2, 2010)

kayobee - what a hard question. I have no experience of PGS so Im maybe not the best person. Ive just moved to DE so in my experience I would say you have to feel you have done everything you can to put your mind at rest with OE before moving to DE. I wasn't sure if maybe I had immune issues so I went to a top immune clinic. That wasn't my issue as I still had a miscarriage with them and a BFN with donor sperm (our sperms been our problem the last 8 years). So I changed sperm and treated immunes and still no success so I think ive narrowed it down to old eggs and so ive moved to DE. There is something in the back of my mind telling me I have got a good egg in there somewhere but I don't have an endless pot of money or emotional strength to find it. I have been very emotionally challenged by the last 2 years trying for baby 2 and its put a huge strain on my family and finances. So im putting my family unit first and going for a compromise of DE that will be so wonderful if it works. Its certainly different doing IVF with a 60% chance of success than OE with 15%. But im at peace because ive tried everything with my OE and all that's left is doing more of the same and I just cant face it.


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## Rosalind73 (Apr 25, 2012)

Hi KL,

I've had two PGS cycles - one at aged 41 1/4 which involved banking embyros (3 of them) at the 2PN stage, then a second IVF cycle 2 months later which produced 7 embyros, and the lab also defrosted the 2PNs and did CGH on the combined haul. On day 3 I had 10 embyros, which then became one that was ready for testing at day 5 (abnormal), and 3 more at day 6 (of which one was normal and frozen)...so essentially 1 normal from 10 day 3 embyros or 1 from 4 blasts (interesting the normal was from the first IVF cycle from which I produced far fewer eggs....probably more a case of producing a lot more crap eggs on the second cycle rather than anything else).

Then 2 months later (by then aged 41 and 7 months) I had another CGH cycle - 4 embyros, which became 2 blasts that were tested on day 5, resulting in one normal (which I'm now 30 weeks pregnant with).

I've had a lot of miscarriages (one of which tested positive for Trisomy 21 and others were mosly likely to be due to chromosomal abnormalities) yet still had a couple of good eggs left despite probably having worse than average quality eggs for my age (I had more miscarriages than you'd expect at aged 39 and 40). Or I could have just been very unlucky. So I would say at aged 40 you may still be able to produce a chromosomally normal embyro (so far you've had 3 blasts tested and all abnormal - remember in my first cycle I had one normal from a batch of 4 blasts, and then 1 normal from 2 blasts second time round) - the trouble is you just never know when that golden egg is going to show up.

That's rubbish of CRGH to forget to do your PGS. I had a few IUI cycles with them and ultimately decided to change clinics when I moved on to IVF. I would recommend the Lister as their lab is fantastic and they do 24 hour CGH (which means you can have a fresh transfer if you have a blast that is biopsied on day 5) and they are about to introduce (may have already done so in fact) some even cheaper and faster PGS techniques e.g. that can be done in 4 hours....which gives you even more chance of having a fresh transfer from a PGS cycle.

Let me know if you want to chat about this some more.


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## kayobee (Oct 1, 2014)

HI KL 
thanks so much for your post. What you write really rings true with me and I think I need to reach the end of the road with my own eggs first just like you describe.
I am getting very close to that point as I am just so physically and emotionally shattered from all of this. It's my OH's birthday today and we had a bit of a heart to heart this morning as he was feeling quite blue about there being no babies in our lives. We chatted some more about the DE option and he's not ready for it yet either.
I think the plan now is to just go with one more full on stimms cycle and see what that brings in April / May time. 
Rosalind thanks also for your post. It really gives me strength that you have had success. Like KL says it sounds like you had faith that one good golden egg was in there  I had a look at the Listers web-site so thanks for that info. The clinic director cancelled our appointment last week (really making me feel important!) so stlll haven't a chance to either build or burn some bridges with them yet.
Thanks again ladies - really very much appreciated 
XXX


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