Inconceivable and beyond :-)

[Mrs W 11]

Ah ok and so it's quicker to go abroad I assume? And cheaper? It hadn't even occurred to be to be honest but if my next own egg cycle fails I need to start investigating. I want to be pregnant by the end of this year no matter which way, my egg or donor because it will make a 4 years age gap and I wanted 2, I really really don't want to wait any longer. Thanks for the reply!

 

[2have4kids]

Has anyone here other than mrs g had donor cycle and lives in uk? I hadn't really even thought about going abroad for a cycle and not sure if it would work for us but finding the convo really interesting.

Some clinics in the uk have quite a waiting list for a donor match.

We had an prior thread and a lot of the ladies were from UK and went abroad! I am only one from United States! When I went to my clinic in Prague most of the ladies were from UK and Australia doing regular IVF and Donor IVF! some of our successful ladies went to Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Czech Republic! They did not want to wait on the list!

Mrs W if you find you keep getting bfn's, chemicals or mc's, testing for immune issues is a smart thing to do. Dr. Beers clinic found that I had 2 severe clotting issues that kept me from implanting properly and if the babies did manage to implant I'd mc at 5-8 weeks. PC and Crystal both have immune issues too, it's good to know what your dealing with if you seem to be struggling with bfn's. More chance of success if you get treatment for hidden problems.

Serum in Athens can deal with immune issues, they have IVIg, lit therapy, can prescribe whatever dose of prednisone you require and have Endo scratch, endometriosis 'cuts' before transfer. Very good diagnostics there. Also willing to put back more than 2 they will also cycle a second backup donor for you and allow you the choice of using the second donor over the main 'proven' donor. Downside to Athens is they don't have perfect timing, you can wind up waiting 3 extra weeks for your donor to come to full eggie size before transfer. If you're flying from abroad this can be stressful and that kind of stress isn't needed when you're already stressed about getting IVF/a baby to work out. They also wouldn't show me the embryos they put back or froze, so I didn't feel their accountability was as good as Reprofit's. They didn't also have tall women for donor matching. In the end height is one of the most important things on my donor matching criteria, Penny refused to tell my how tall my donor was. I'm 5'9, surely I'm not THAT tall that they don't have someone close to my height? My DH is 6'5 so it would look a bit funny if we had a child 5'3 or 5'4 but since we were in the adoption list in December 2014 that's another silly notion I had to lay to rest too

Reprofit in Brno, Czech Republic has a huge donor base - one of the most extensive in the world and has timing down to a science. If they say in Sept that your transfer date will be Dec 8th, it will be exactly that day. No donor back up but always guarantee 'proven' donors and do have back up plans if something happens. I do believe the fees just went up Jan1, 2015 in Reprofit, they are one of the longest running IVF clinics in Europe.Downside to Reprofit is they only freeze absolutely perfect embryos, so if you have a cycle and get 10 fresh beautiful eggs, you might have none to freeze after they put back the 2 best of the lot. This can be both good and bad, you know that going there doing a frozen embryo cycle you'll get perfect gorgeous plump embies, also if you are able to freeze your embies the chances of an FET working will be really high compared to other clinics.

There are SO many clinics abroad to choose from and the ladies here have picked a nice handful of clinics with really great benefits in each one.

 

[Garnet]

Ah ok and so it's quicker to go abroad I assume? And cheaper? It hadn't even occurred to be to be honest but if my next own egg cycle fails I need to start investigating. I want to be pregnant by the end of this year no matter which way, my egg or donor because it will make a 4 years age gap and I wanted 2, I really really don't want to wait any longer. Thanks for the reply!

I don't know the cost in UK but most of the ladies did not want the wait! The Czech Clinics can get you in very quickly! I think I contacted them in Oct and went Feb! I had most of my clinical stuff and testing done at my local clinic in US and had to send all paperwork to Dr in Czech and only problem was decifering medications in US vs European standards! If you are in UK it is easier!

 

[Garnet]

Oh mind you some of the Ladies have not had success going abroad and some had immune issues that they had to get correct medication in order to carry pregnancy! One gal had 3 tries and she was on tons of immunity medication to carry her twins, my suggestion is if you have more that one or two IVF failure, I would have immune testing done and get in the best shape of your life to carry a successful pregnancy! I mean it a lot of money to invest and only to lose a pregnancy because of immune issues! I know my 6 losses could have been prevented!

 

[2have4kids]

Oh mind you some of the Ladies have not had success going abroad and some had immune issues that they had to get correct medication in order to carry pregnancy! One gal had 3 tries and she was on tons of immunity medication to carry her twins, my suggestion is if you have more that one or two IVF failure, I would have immune testing done and get in the best shape of your life to carry a successful pregnancy! I mean it a lot of money to invest and only to lose a pregnancy because of immune issues! I know my 6 losses could have been prevented!

I completely agree with Garnet on this. I've only ever had natural bfp's after getting my weight below BMI of 23 and exercising like a mad woman / restricting pasta/bread/noodles/crackers/rice (carby sugar foods) completely out of my diet. I lost over 60 lbs because my friend who's a nurse said I prob wouldn't respond well to IVF drugs being over weight. Fat renders your hormones useless - it slows them up and doesn't allow them to function properly. It never crossed my mind that my infertility could be related to my being overweight. I was terrified that my infertility was my own fault after she said this to me. And when you're plugging in thousands of $$$ into IVF I didn't want us failing just because I was over weight-not fair to my Dzh either! Her with her good advice and skinny little nurse bum (size 2 pants and me with my big fat arse at that time size 16 pants-I felt truly the worst I've ever felt in my life with all the guilt that I was was the cause of us not being able to have a family). My DH was nothing less than supportive, he loves me at any shape (how lucky am I - even I can't do this for myself!!) This was a deep self loathing of myself for not being who I wanted to be.

I was a BMI of 30 and got down to 23 over a year. For a diminished ovarian reserve diagnosed lady with only 1 antral follie showing in jan 2011 at 35 when I should have had between 11-30 follies, I was told I had less than 5% chance of getting pregnant naturally. I got my fam doc to test my vit levels as vit D, E as those specific deficiencies are directly associated with infertile women (turned out I had almost NO vit D in my system, way below minimum). So been on liquid vits for a few years and along with the weight loss, exercise had 2 natural bfp'sLost the first due to clotting issues that my Calgary fertility clinic had supposedly cleared me of HA! Right. After being thoroughly diagnosed with Dr. Beers clinic in California (just had to mail them ~15 vials of blood didn't travel there), I have 2 clotting issues causing implantation failure & early mcs. Anyways, worth the effort, even if I'd never got pregnant, I feel like a million bucks and can outrun my future kid(s) anyday. Got another natural bfp this year and being treated for clotting issues has allowed us to make it to 15 weeks today and hoping for a nice 18 week scan soon. Good things do happen when you get determined about making things work. Even if it means going down the adoption route.

 

[SKP]

Is there a way to tell you have clotting issues?

I dont think i had deep testing, i always had the basic screening done every 3 months.
Never tested to see if my body is lacking anything.

For this round of ivf im going to see if i can have close monitering, like while in the meds phase have blood tests for progesterone, estrace, and thyroid numbers.

I am a bit over weight im 190 and 5"3. Waist 30-32, which is 16-18 i believe. Bmi around 30, bf 35%.
I blame all the fertiliy meds, not eating healthy, not exercising. And alot of that is fear, im afraid to go crazy to fix health and it hinder my chances of pregnancy.
Plus being sensitive to gluten and milk doesnt help.

 

[SKP]

Ps, how is other countries more advanced in ivf than Canada and US

 

[2have4kids]

Is there a way to tell you have clotting issues?

I dont think i had deep testing, i always had the basic screening done every 3 months.
Never tested to see if my body is lacking anything.

For this round of ivf im going to see if i can have close monitering, like while in the meds phase have blood tests for progesterone, estrace, and thyroid numbers.

I am a bit over weight im 190 and 5"3. Waist 30-32, which is 16-18 i believe. Bmi around 30, bf 35%.
I blame all the fertiliy meds, not eating healthy, not exercising. And alot of that is fear, im afraid to go crazy to fix health and it hinder my chances of pregnancy.
Plus being sensitive to gluten and milk doesnt help.

https://www.repro-med.net <-- for immune testing
No amout of eating properly (dropping sugary carby foods increasing vegetables & clean protein) and exercise will hinder your chances of pregnancy - it's not doing anything that hinders. Get your vit D & E levels tested, Canadian women are usually low in these and it has reprocusdions on fertility.

Canada has no immune testing and the fertility clinic doctors don't believe in it.

Canada is behind by decades, the world knows all about how immune issues can effect implantation & mc Canadian doctors sadly don't even know what a Reproductive Immunologist is.

Canada's legislation makes it impossible to deal with donated fresh or frozen embryo transfers, both are the very best chance at pregnancy per cycle.

Once you go abroad you tend to learn a lot from other specialists. They provide much more diagnostic options and treatments include immune side of fertility.

 

[SKP]

Hmmm weird,
Why wouldnt they not believe in immune issues.
If you really wanted it is it possible?

 

[2have4kids]

If you wanted what? SKP not sure what you're question is here. If you really want immune testing you must go to an immunologist, a fertility specialist is a different sort of doctor (was that what you were asking?)

Britain's docs test for immune issues, there are several reproductive immunologists in the States, Crystal had 2 of them in Australia and when I spoke to Dr Foong about it she said yea, well you can go spend your money with Dr Beers but we still see a lot of women not get pregnant. She missed the point and was very dismissive. My family doctor had NO clue what the whole thing with immunology was. Canada is still in cave man status. That's the quality answers that I got from the Calgary clinic was that reproductive immunology was hokus pokus. If I had stayed with them the only way we'd have kids is through adoption!

 

[Mrs G]

Has anyone here other than mrs g had donor cycle and lives in uk? I hadn't really even thought about going abroad for a cycle and not sure if it would work for us but finding the convo really interesting.

Some clinics in the uk have quite a waiting list for a donor match.

Hi
Pussycat is in uk (South Coast too!) but went abroad. I waited 6 months to be matched at Wessex.

Hope everyone is ok.

Xx

 

[Garnet]

Minno and Pussycat went abroad! Minno went to my clinic in Prague! My clinic I would say was not progressive in Immune issues! I pretty much had to direct my Dr by via the Ladies with their knowledge on the older thread with some of my medical protocol! He had never used Lupron and apparently I was his first patient! They normally synced BC with egg retrieval and implantation! I almost missed my cycle because of his failure to details! I really think my placenta ruptured when I lost my DE baby because I never had such blood loss with my other MCs!

 

[Pussycat1]

Hi ladies, interesting discussion! SKP I'm not sure why Canada would be so far behind, however I do know that immune issues is a controversial subject amongst fertility specialists. The problem is noone wants to be part of a trial so proper clinical trials are virtually non exist any, HOWEVER, from what I understand it is an area that most specialists are now exploring to varying extents. The following is on the HFEA website https://www.hfea.gov.uk/fertility-treatment-options-reproductive-immunology.html
I personally had the tests done by a private clinic in the UK, though I feel they offered no proper follow up to the results. The tests show I had raised NK cells which may or may not be a cause of my failure to conceive. I think it's important to see both sides of this debate, however I for one am willing to try the treatment if it means even the slightest increase in chance of my getting pregnant. SKP it's a minefield of info and you have to read and educate yourself on the subject. It's never easy.
Mrs W, as Mrs G says, I am on the south coast of England and was treated at a clinic here using my own eggs (IUI and IVF) and then they told me my chances if getting pregnant with my own eggs were less than 5% and I should consider donor eggs. The clinic offers an egg sharing program, where the recipient effectively pays for the donors treatment in return for half of her eggs. It still took almost a year for them to find me a good donor match and when they did it cost almost £9k (including meds) and sadly it did not work. The same clinic then did testing for thrombotic risk and NKC assay but offered no follow up unless I stayed with them for treatment. For a variety of reasons I started looking overseas and decided to go with Reprofit in Brno. The quality of care there is excellent and cost (including meds, flights, accommodation) was half that of UK. My only negative about Reprofit is the immune side of things (which I didn't realise when I went with them), however I know the protocol my UK clinic would have me on and Reproft are happy to go with that. Sadly our first attempt failed, however we have 2 top quality hatchling Blasts frozen and I go back next week for a scratch, followed by FET next month. PM me if you want any more info, happy to chat.
Ladies I have another query, does anyone know the difference between Gestone and Agoluton? The latter is hugely cheaper and I can pick this up in CR next week. Is it as effective as Gestone? There has to be a reason for the price variation! x

 

[Coolstar]

PC, I am myself on Gestone. Don't have idea about Agolutin but I searched Google and found the link. You can have a look
https://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=267664.0;prev_next=prev#new
But I think it will be better if you talk with your Dr. So just few days left for your scratch. Keeping my fingers xed for you Hun.
2have, hope you are enjoying your vacation.
Hope all the ladies are doing good.
SKP, how are you ? When are you planning to go for your FET?
AFM, I had my ET. So officially I am in my TWW. I hate this phase the most. I am on POI and anticoagulant shots. Had all the 3 embryos transferred on day 3, 2 embryos being of grade A quality and 1 not good ( she did not tell me the grade, says she is not hoping much from that particular embryo). Now keeping my fingers xed so that I don't lose my mind in the TWW like last time.

 

[SKP]

Coolstar- when the miscarriage is complete, I am still spotting, been over 12 days now altogether. Once this is over and another period comes then I will start meds I believe, Im hoping for sometime in the summer.

 

[Pussycat1]

Coolstar, congratulations!! Got everything crossed for you this time round. Really hope it works out. When's your test date? Thanks for the link! x

 

[2have4kids]

Coolstar fx for a bfp!

I think with immune treatments they could break them up into what should be pretty solid easy to treat and should be tested absolutely by fertility specialists and then others that are more difficult to test for and treat requiring an immunologist. For those with clotting issues it's pretty straight forward. They know enough about it to say that Thrombophelia and Antiphospholipis Antibodies cause stroke in elderly people and implantation failure/mc and blood clots in pregnant women. It's genetically passed on and easy to treat.

NKC's are less straightforward to test for, the main treatments of NKC's are UVIg and intralipids which aren't available in all countries. Crystal was fairly confident from her 2 immunologists that prednisone alone wouldn't allow her to carry a baby so even if women can get prednisone it can be really difficult to get the infusions (thankfully she's in a country that offers IVIG for fertility immunological reasons and recognizes immunology as a medical practice).

Then there's LIT (this is the treatment to which diagnosis - I forget). The least proven, who knows if the treatment really works. They told us we need to get the white blood cells from DH's blood spun off from the red and then they inject this under my skin (that is LIT treatment). USA have banned it, there's 1 doctor in Toronto who does it but apparently he doesn't do a proper job of it and charges a fortune. Mexico has been doing it for quite a while and the doctor there trained in the States. This treatment is apparently needed when the maternal immune system rejects cells from husband (has a huge immune reaction bunting the embryo out). DH and I read the studies on this and they're pretty wishy-washy at best however when we did the treatment I had a massive reaction at first and the next month no reaction at all. Does that mean it worked to get my system building antibodies to DH's cells? Who knows but like PC said, I'll try anything to have a family!

 

[Mrs G]

Coolstar, congrats on being pupo. Relax and rest as much as you can. Sending When is your test date?

Xx

 

[Garnet]

Good Luck Coolstar! Tripletts? We had another gal with triplets for a bit!

 

[SKP]

Congrats coolstar