Last week my husband and I met with our RE to discuss the failure of our fresh IVF cycle last month. We transferred 3 embryos and none of them stuck.
Basically, our RE said he thinks our embryos are arresting (stopping growth), but he doesn’t know why. This arrested development theory would certain explain our chemical pregnancy and the fact that we only had one embryo (out of 11) make it to freeze the first fresh cycle and none on our second cycle.
The bad news is that this shouldn’t be an issue in someone my age (I’m 33) who responds as well as I do to the stims. The RE said that he usually sees this happen in women in their late 30s and early 40s.
Testing for immune and/or clotting issues is a possibility, but he’s already been treating me as if I had those (with the heparin, aspirin, and Prednisone). He said he’d be willing to refer me to a reproductive rheumatologist, but in his experience, they find immune issues in everyone they see. However, I have been seeing a rheumatologist annually since I tested positive for antinuclear antibodies (ANA) in the past, so I think I may pursue this further.
We also talked about the possibility of trying intra-lipids, and that’s something I’m going to consider. (I’d love to hear from you if you’ve done that).
We asked about pre-implantation testing, and he said that is definitely an option for us, but our embryos need to make it to Day 5 in order to test. So far we haven’t had any make it there, so that would be a risk.
He told us he wanted us to delay our next cycle by a few months (which we were planning on doing anyways) and that I should continue taking my low-dose aspirin and also add CoQ10 and Omega 3 supplements. He said it won’t hurt if I use over-the-counter progesterone after ovulation.
My husband told him he wanted to do everything that could possibly help improve his sperm quality- even if it technically wasn’t proven to help. As long as it can’t hurt he wants to try it in order to eliminate any regret or guilt later. The RE said he’d be happy to recommend some “voodoo medicine” (stuff that might help but hasn’t been proven to) and suggested we try Proxeed. My husband is also going to quit drinking completely (he usually has one drink each evening) starting in September.
So that’s the plan. We’ll do another cycle in January or March after our bodies have had time to benefit from the supplements and “voodoo” medicine. In the meantime, we’ll try on our own and pray for a miracle. Our RE is going to do some more research and speak with colleagues about other treatments options for us.
Thanks again for all the support! I’d love to hear from you if you’ve had any experience using Proxeed or intra-lipids!
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