23 replies to this topic

[mrscargie]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm new to the board from a referral from a friend. My hubby and I have been TTC for baby #2 for the past 2 years. I've had 2 miscarriages in the past 10 months, and have done 2 IUI. I'm 40 years old.

 

My fertility doctor has suggested that based on all my tests, hormone screening etc...that we try and IVF cycle.

I'd like to get some feedback as to what some other people have gone through. My husband's "stuff" is fine and the doc believes that it's my eggs that are "old".

 

I' haven't gone to get a second opinion yet, but am thinking about it.

 

I don't know if I see this happening naturally for us at this point, because the odds are exactly in my favour. Just looking for feedback/success stories on the topic.

 

I'm taking a couple months off fertility treatments as I recently had my second miscarriage and hoping to move forward in April.

 

Thanks ladies!

[Dori77]

Hi mrscargie - I say go for it if its not too much of a financial strain. Your miscarriages were likely due to lower egg quality. There are no guarantees with IVF but it will increase your chances. I wouldn't waste your time on a second opinion as long as you are comfortable with your current RE. Second opinions can take months and your other RE is likely to tell you the same thing.

Trying naturally in the meantime is always an excellent idea. That is our strategy anyway and it worked for us. We move forward with the treatments but try at home also.

Good luck

[Discouraged]

Hi Mrscargie, I am also close to 40 and trying for my second and have had 3 miscarriages, one a few days ago which was devastating. It was through our first IVF treatment since I found out I have a balanced translocated chromosome. So i am meeting with a PGD dr. I too am wondering about it. I believe the screening eliminated genetic deficiencies. If you were tested and don't have anything wrong with genetics I would say to try regular IVF treatment.

 

I find it so difficult to deal with especially since my 5 yr old keeps asking for a sibling and everyone around is asking when the 2nd one is coming.

 

If you're taking time off and would feel more comfortable with another opinion I would say go for it since you have a few months of not going through treatment. 

 

Good luck with it

[MeAgain101]

I am 41- used my own eggs @40 or should say egg a the was only one after a full max dosage of Gonal F .. I had one follicle, one egg which fertilized naturally (no ICSI) he is now 7mo old I didn't do any PGS..

[MeAgain101]

I was 40 - used my own eggs or should say egg a the was only one after a full max dosage of Gonal F .. I had one follicle, one egg which fertilized naturally (no ICSI) he is now 7mo old I didn't do any PGS..

I am now 41 so tried to fix that the cycle was done at 40

[gibasgirl]

I am 40 - used my own eggs or should say egg a the was only one after a full max dosage of Gonal F .. I had one follicle, one egg which fertilized naturally (no ICSI) he is now 7mo old I didn't do any PGS..

  

I was 40 - used my own eggs or should say egg a the was only one after a full max dosage of Gonal F .. I had one follicle, one egg which fertilized naturally (no ICSI) he is now 7mo old I didn't do any PGS..

I am now 41 so tried to fix that the cycle was done at 40

Just curious.

How old are you?

40?

41?

42?

You've said that you are all three of those ages today.

[MeAgain101]

Actually to be precise .. I was born Oct , 1973

did my cycle in Nov..at 40 month after my b-day) Gave birth August .. @41 ... Sorry about the confusion .. This October I'll be 42..

I get confused ..lol.. Must be the age

[gibasgirl]

Whew.

 

I was worried for a bit. You know my husband does something very similar.

[JennyVan]

^{My first IVF I didn't research much I just trusted the IVF doctors to know to tell me to do certain things. Which they do in a very quick list of facts along with the other facts. So with that said I had 6 embryos retrieved 5 embryos fertilized and they implanted 3 3day embryo IVF at the age of 39 in July.  Which failed to implant.}

 

^{The next time around cause of the heartbreak I went through and the financial loss we decided to get outside help. Via Fertility Acupuncture at Acubalance for 3 month before. We had all the test done previously sent to the acupunturist so they could evaluate it. She put us on a strict diet of organic everything throw out all herbs over 1 year old. Also finding out what food allergies I had. She put me and my hubby on better quality Omega oil, CoQ10, Vit D and Antioxident. Lowered our liquor to 5 a week for the three months before. On top of all that she worked on lowing my thyroid levels. Which the acupuncturist thought was high at first. I told the IVF clinic and they got me on Synthyroid, a thyroid balancing medication. It went from 3.9 which was excessive to 2.35 which she described as "acceptable" for fertility but not as good a she would want. Eventually I was down to 1.43 by cutting out all gluten products. The acupuncturist said she thought this number was great! She also put me on Myo-insitol to balance my B vitamin it also worked great on my mood. Then of coarse the needles to help with my clotting issues that the IVF clinic also had me on low dose asprin but I found that the acupuncture helped heeps with my circulation. After 3 months of all these changes we started the 2nd IVF. Did the follicle stimulation. I had way more follicles at a more even rate of growth. They retrieved 9 embryos this time 8 became fertilized. 3 survived to day 5 blastocycst. I had 1 3ab blastocycst and 2 4bb blastocycst. They implanted the 2 4bb's. March 16 the day before my 40th birthday I got my beta back of 349 BFP. Went for my second beta today.}

^{Hopefully everything sticks the questionable 3 months.} 

Bottom line is that you should try IVF now. While you still have viable eggs to use but consult an outside source about any abnormalities that could lower the possibilities of conceiving.

[jenmort]

I am 40, as well, and can attest that IVF with PGS is the only option I am pursuing at this time.  My first attempt resulted in only 2 of 9 retrieved eggs making it to Day 5 (blastocyst).  They looked good, so it was only because of PGS that we discovered that both were chromosomally abnormal -- had we implanted without PGS, I would be in a much different boat because they would've miscarried or resulted in BFNs.  Even though I knew it going in, the hard reality is that egg quality is significantly diminished at our age -- in fact, my RE told me that only 40% of embryos that make it to Day 5 are chromosomally normal for a woman my age, which is why PGS makes so much sense.  IVF with PGS creates the best chance of achieving the outcome we're all looking for, in my opinion.

 

Good luck to you, whatever route you end up choosing!

[mrscargie]

Hey Jenmort,

 

Yeah, I'm starting to believe that the only way to have a better chance at a sucessful pregnancy at our age is PGS. I did a full IVF cycle back in May, and had a 5 day blast transferred which resulted in a BFN. I have one frostie and I'm scheduled for the transfer in August. I didn't do PGS on this frostie, we'll just see what happens. Worst case scenerio is a fresh round of IVF, PGS whatever I get (I got 4 on my first cycle) and then go from there. My major concern was that I didn't want any trauma to the eggs, if it could be helped. The fresh embryos fertilized on their own with no ICSI or anything so I was hopeful that doing a fresh transfer was my best option and my Dr. was on board.

I'll see what happens with my FET and take it one step at a time.

 

Good Luck!

[Miss_Boos]

hi ladies,

I'll be 40 in December, and we're just trying for our first, and I'm very worried about egg quality. My grandmother had my mom at 40 and my uncle at 45, so I'm hoping I have some of her genes

my DR and I are newlyweds, but we both had a practice marriage before, so trying at 40 isn't what I imagined, but, I wouldn't trade my guy for it

[mrscargie]

Miss_Boos,

 

I wish you much luck on your first IVF cycle!

[Shawn29]

I think you should get the second opinion regarding this and if you are ready to take the fertility treatment then I would like to suggest you to try fertility acupuncture as I have heard it is very effective in most of the cases. You can consult a good acupuncturist for more details.

 

 

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[A.Anne]

Hi, I just turned 43 and my husband & I decided to go the IVF ICSI CCR route. I was pregnant at 41 but miscarried. Since then we have been trying naturally again until Aug/Sept when we tried 2 IUI cycles...no success
I am on the Estrace Priming with HGH (human growth hormone) injections currently. Then start stims on Oct 30th...possible ER on Nov 12th. If we are lucky enough to have a blastocyte at 5 days, that or (those) will be sent for biopsy in the USA and if chromosomes look good, implanted on the following cycle.
Is there anyone else with similar timing or protocol? This is our first IVF (and only-no coverage in our province).....

[CdnHockeyGal]

Hi Anne - glad you found us!  Many members on this site have done the estrogen primed protocol with HGH to great success.  Hoping you will count yourself among those numbers.  IVF can be a bit of an experiment...learning how your body responds and different people respond to different approaches but the most important opinion is your RE's...so...as much as is possible...I'd tune out as much noise as possible...trust your instincts and take each day as it comes.

 

You may wish to consider joining a cycle buddies thread or the 40+ & ttc community....great support systems with women going through the exact same thing you are...

 

https://ivf.ca/forums...tober-ivf-2015/

https://ivf.ca/forums...ember-2015-ivf/

https://ivf.ca/forums...r-trying-to-be/

 

Best of luck to you!

[ideagirl]

I agree. I did IVF with CCS testing at 41 and we had no normal embryos. Knowing that, we were able to move on to donor egg (and now have wonderful gorgeous healthy twins, we're so happy!). Knowing that the embryos were abnormal helped me accept that that was probably why our previous IVFs had failed, and so it helped me decide to take a different path.

[mrscargie]

Hey ladies,

 

Quick update on the thread I started almost a year ago...WOW! Time really flies!

 

After a lot of research and taking a few months off TTC my hubby and I decided we really wanted to try for a sibling for our DS, and so project sibling began in May 2015 with our first round of IVF.

 

I was so disappointed that after all the meds, tears, and stress, we retireved 6 follicles total and only 2 made it to day 5 blast. We transferred a fresh ebryo in June, which resulted in a BFN.  I was devastated. We had one frostie left... what were we going to do??

 

We decided to go for it one more time in August and transferred our one remaining frostie.....

Guess what??  OMG!!!!  

it's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride and I'm happy to say that we are now 17 weeks along, had a recent ultrasound and everything is measuring on track. We didn't do any PGS at the end of the day, we decided that the less interference, the better, and the embryo was a 5AA which is pretty well the best you can get!

Hoping for the most uneventful pregnancy for the next 23 weeks or so.

 

Don't lose hope. It can happen!

[nkpdds]

Hello there,

Do the PGS, I would encourage all women over 40 to do it (and do IVF, don't waste time on IUI). Its the best way to make the best decisions without wasting too much time and money on repeated failed treatments. In the past 1 1/2 years I've had 2 failed IUI's and 3 failed IVF's. With the most recent 2 IVFs we did "batching" where you do freeze all IVF cycles and at the end do PGS on all the embryos. It saves on the cost of doing PGS after every cycle. Unfortunately we had very poor results (no chromosomally good embryos) but this helped me realize I need to move on to donor eggs. I wish I had done it from cycle 1 because we had 17 eggs retrieved then and if I had known exactly how poor my egg quality was it would have shaved 1 year off our journey. Over the past 1 1/2 years I've had 50 eggs retrieved thru IVF only 6 in total made it to the 5 day blastocyst stage, 2 did implant but both failed early (within 3 weeks, probably due to chromosomal defects). The facts are over 40 most of our eggs are of poor quality, PGS can give you a measurement of exactly how poor and help you make decisions.

[smurfette_w]

Yes, agree with nkpdds.  Mrscargie was very, very lucky, it's not the norm to have 1 out of 2 embryos for to be normal for a woman over 40, same goes for women who naturally conceive in their 40s.  These are rare.  If you can afford it and the embryos are growing well on Day 3, then get the PGS testing done. 

[salty15]

Congratulations, Mrscargie – that's wonderful news! We too have one frostie awaiting us, so hoping that we'll get our BFP (and carry to term!) with that one. We can't afford PGS, so it will be luck of the draw ... fingers crossed!

 

***Today the doctor advised us going forward to do PGS, so we are going to try our darnest to save up enough to get them all tested.

[AMexicanInHamilton]

I am 44. I contacted several clinics and all said I should do donor egg (without even seeing me). When I absolutely refused, one said, "Ok, then IVF with PGS" and I said OK. At this point I would only do IVF with PGS...

[nkpdds]

I understand wanting to try with your own eggs. When we started I was 41 and was told chances were very poor to get pregnant due to age. My fsh, amh, antral follicle count were all good which gave me hope. But these all measure quantity not quality. In the end PGS proved that even though i had lots of eggs none were good enough for a viable pregnancy. So if you must do IVF do it with PGS. But think about what's most important to you. Donor eggs would likely get you a baby (45-65% successful), IVF and PGS probably not (less than 2% successful over 43)

[mrscargie]

Yes, agree with nkpdds.  Mrscargie was very, very lucky, it's not the norm to have 1 out of 2 embryos for to be normal for a woman over 40, same goes for women who naturally conceive in their 40s.  These are rare.  If you can afford it and the embryos are growing well on Day 3, then get the PGS testing done. 

 

I do consider myself truly so very, very, very lucky. We were considering batching our eggs and doing the PGS but at the end of the day, we decided that we had a stellar frostie and transferred our last one. I'm still in shock that it ended in a BFP. That being said, this pregnancy hasn't been without it's share of worries. I've still had to do the IPS and NIPT screen, I'm high risk and taking blood thinners (a complication with my first pregnancy) and I don't really feel "out of the woods" even though all tests have come back normal so far. Even when you do PGS, it doesn't screen for things like Autism, intellectual disabilities, sensory issues etc. That's always a chance you take no matter how old you are, however, there's a higher chance of this the older you and your eggs are.

I was also considering donor eggs as a next step and adoption if this didn't work out and I was happy that I had other plans and confident that we would be able to expand our family at some point. We got lucky with IVF!