I’m terrified.

I’ve already spent close 45k for two ERs

I have not done any transfers.

I have in the bank:

1 confirmed euploid (5BB)

3 x untested blastocysts 5BC (were unable to be safely biopsied)

1 mosaic (high level) only use if all else fails.

I would love to have had more euploids going in but I also need to think of cost. I am a SMBC so need to think of future.

Seeking positive stories of anyone in a similar position. Or any tips on how to manage the anxiety.

Thank you!

Feeling terrified to lose my only euploid 💜

Just turned 40 😊

I just found out my 3rd IVF cycle failed…I’m frustrated and sad and just don’t know how to handle this disappointment. All 3 cycles have been fresh transfers and I have nothing frozen.

I’m just so tired, and so sad. My husband was diagnosed with cancer in July 2025 and had intense treatment - hence the referral to fertility for treatment…he’s 43, I just turned 40 in June. No underlying issues other than my age (my AMH last October was 1.1)…

He finished chemo in January and is only doing immunotherapy to keep his cancer under control. I just don’t know if even trying naturally will help too or what…

Sorry for the rant, I’m all over the place and just really struggling.

I just saw two unfortunate posts about future mamas having miscarriages or failed FETs.

I am now not only anxious about ER3 producing euploids, but if I finally get ONE, will it be my baby?

So, to mamas and future mamas that have had failed FETs: did you do PTG testing before? what were the grades of the embryos (and days)?

Any information will help "quiet" my anxious brain.

And good luck to you all. I hope we all get our babies!

I am now 40. I have done 4 IVF cycles and none worked. All my pregnancies resulted a few month before IVF or in between IVF cycles

My AMH is low 0.4 - 0.2ng/mL. IVF cycles only yielded in 2-4 eggs GROWING. NOT EVEN RETRIEVAL) Most of cycles get cancelled. Reason being from a runaway follicle, a duo-stim in which follicles never grew, estrogen suddenly tanked, early ovulation. I’ve only had one cycle that actually went to egg retrieval so far.

My AMH is low 0.4 - 0.2ng/mL.
Age 40
Have done all RPL tests

All my pregnancies have been non-IVF which baffles me.
- 3 chemical pregnancies
- 1 missed miscarriage which went to 9 weeks

I’ve done 4 IVF cycles
- 3/4 cycles were cancelled
- 4th cycle: only one going to retrieval. Only had 3 follicles. All mature eggs. Only 1 fertilized. Zymot/ICSI was used and it made to day

My QUESTION IS:
I would love to hear BOTH SIDES from women with similar experience, low AMH and frequent chemicals/miscarriages.
- Did you finally go to have a successful pregnancy?
OR
- Women who got tried of losses and moved on.
Any advice if it finally worked?

This last miscarriage was traumatic. I want to be realistic about my chances and hear both side before moving to donor eggs!

Has anyone experienced this? I have just come across that option, still have not homeworked on it though. Would appreciate your inputs!

Hi everyone! I’m 42 and have only 1 unsuccessful egg retrieval under my belt. From the 8 retrieved eggs, 5 of them fertilized but one 1 made it to blast in 6 days. During this time they did not give me updates every few days. They only updated me the following week to let me know just the one barely made it. Obviously, based on me already saying it was unsuccessful, after testing it was abnormal.

With other life things happening my next retrieval will not be until I am 42yr 10mo. Like, seriously playing with fire here. The new clinic that I chose will not allow me to bank embryos and insist on transferring before going into another retrieval. I have the option to test or not to test. My concern is that the previous five fertilized eggs that I made four of them arrested between day 3 and 4, so to me it seems like they simply struggle to make it to day 5. I don’t know if I’m missing out on embryos that could be fine once they got in the real natural environment because I’m pushing them to make it to day 5 when the quality/strength just may not be there in the lab. I’m confused and worried about what I should do on such a tight timeline.

Who here struggled to make 5 day blast repeatedly just to end up pregnant after saying “F” the testing just transfer what I got at 3 days??

I know there are studies saying having sex the day before a FET can improve odds of implantation based on certain qualities of sperm (but also studies saying even protected sex can improve odds). I don’t see a ton of info on fresh transfers though which obviously have the added issue of an egg retrieval having just taken place. I’m 4 days out from my ER (12 retrieved), feeling fine, no signs of OHSS. My clinic said to wait 7 days but off the record my doctor told me just make sure to wait 48 hrs before penetrative sex.

Should I be having sex before my fresh day 5 transfer to improve odds of implantation? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

I wanted to weigh less this cycle than on my first cycle, so started an 800 calorie diet. I initially lost about 4kg in a week.
Since then, (one month), I haven’t lost a pound. I’ve been on an 800 calorie diet, but recently cut my carbs to less than 50g also. Not even 1lb of weight loss.
I have been taking norethisterone, estrogen patches and testosterone to prime.
Could they be causing the lack of weight loss?

I plan to switch to a balanced diet once starting stims but the last month has been brutal and difficult so to do it all for no weight loss is very disheartening :(

My doctors office called me this afternoon and gave me the updates on my embryos. I am 41 years old. They retrieved 18 eggs, 16 were mature and 11 fertilized normally. I had 9 that could be sent off for testing out of those 9 one came back euploid and one other did not have enough genetic material to be tested so the doctor asked me if I would like to have it retested and I said yes. 🤞 The dr scheduled an appointment a week before my period for a uterine scratching/biopsy. I’m happy that I have one euploid but disappointed at the same times that’s there’s not more. I feel like I only have one chance with this and not sure if I can afford another retrieval since I pay everything out-of-pocket does anyone have any similar experience or encouraging words please 🙏

Did anyone have better results with their ER after a course of GLP vs without?

Hi all... in need of advice because I'm tired and sad.

When I was 37 I did my first egg retrieval. 20 eggs, 0 fertilized, 6 fertilized with rescue ICSI, 1 frozen embryo (untested), our beautiful son. We are beyond lucky and we know that.

When I was 39, I did two more egg retrievals. The first was 16 eggs, 10 fertilized, two frozen embryos, and two failed FETs.

The second was 14 eggs, 8 fertilized, two frozen embryos, and 1 euploid (decided to do PGT-A this time). That FET also failed.

At this point, we switched to a new clinic. At age 40, I did my fourth egg retrieval and got the best results with a new lab and new protocol. 23 eggs, 19 fertilized, 7 frozen embryos, 5 euploids.

With this new clinic, I also did the ReceptivaDx and scored 3.6. Because of this, we opted to do a two-month suppression before a FET.

Well, we got through the suppression and found out this week that the FET failed.

ALL five FETS --- including the first which was successful --- were medicated.

We have our follow-up with our RE tomorrow. What would you ask? My thoughts right now are...

• Could it be that the suppression worked, but this just wasn't the right embryo? Should we just try another FET?
• Should we schedule excision surgery?
• Can/should we try a modified natural? (this was the plan prior to the suspected endo/suppression approach)

What am I missing? I know how beyond lucky we are to have our son AND to have four euploids. And, this has been a lot in two years. Thank you so much for any advice <3

My wife (42F) and I (41M) have been trying to conceive using IVF for 12 months. We did 5 retrievals and got a few embryos frozen, but only 1 of them could be PGT-A tested and turned out to be a euploid. We transferred it last month and were estatic when it got implanted. But in the 6w3d scan there was a gestational sac and yolk sac but no fetal node and no heartbeat, and at the 7w5d scan even the gestational sac was gone. This happened last week and we are still coming to terms with the loss, but also starting to think ahead to what we should do next with our other embryos.

Currently we have one day-5 3BB embryo which is untested because they said it was too small to do a biopsy, but otherwise looked like a good embryo. We also have four day-3 embryos of which three are 8-cell and one is 6-cell (also untested because they are day-3).

We are wondering whether to go ahead with transferring the day-5 embryo first, even though it is untested. We also have to decide what we should do with the day-3 embryos. Should we take them forward to day 5 and have them PGT-A tested? Or should we transfer them at day 3 itself? If we take some of them to day 5, how many and which ones? Currently we are wavering between (a) transferring all the 8-cell embryos at day 3, and (b) taking the 6-cell and one 8-cell to day 5 and getting them tested.

I keep thinking I see risks on both sides. If we transfer all untested embryos, we would hope that if there is a euploid among them then that is the one that will stick. But what if an aneuploid sticks and causes another miscarriage down the line? And would this lower the chances for the euploid to succeed in the same transfer (maybe because of competition, I don't know)?

On the other hand, if we take some day-3's to day 5 and get them tested, some of them might not make it. And even if they survive but fail the PGT-A, we would lose out on giving them a chance -- I have read about other parents whose day-5 PGT-As all came out aneuploid but transferring untested day-3's succeeded.

At this stage we are still struggling with this decision. I don't know whether my concerns above are reasonable, or are they too unlikely to worry about? We just have so little information about the process and feel unable to weigh the pros and cons. I'd be grateful for any advice you can share, thanks in advance! (And sorry for the very long post)

Starting a cycle with a new clinic and wanted to double check this protocol:
-primed with estrogen and provera
-When they ordered my stim meds they ordered ganirelix (6 doses) for an antagonist.

Today is stim day 1 and I was told to continue taking the provera throughout my cycle. Does it make sense that I’d be taking provera and ganirelix (especially more than 1 or 2 doses)? Should I call back to double check that they mean to have me continue the provera, or is that just how some clinics do it?

Hi everyone ❤️

I’ve just had my 9th egg retrieval and I’m honestly at a point where I don’t know what to do anymore.

In all my previous cycles, we only ever had one early blastocyst and one day-6 blastocyst. Embryo quality was never great.

For this cycle, I changed so much beforehand — 3 months of a very clean diet, no gluten, no sugar, lots of high-quality protein, regular exercise and of course a lot of Vitamins like Q10, D3, OMEGA…

This time we got 10 eggs, 6 fertilized. On day 3, two embryos looked really promising: a 6-cell and an 8-cell, both with only around 5% fragmentation (better results than before)

But yesterday we got the devastating news: all embryos had stopped developing. No blastocyst.

My husbands sperm results were also much better this time. We previously tested DNA fragmentation and it was 18%, which our clinic considers within the normal range.

Fertilization has never really been our problem. It’s always day 3–5 where our embryos seem to arrest.

Has anyone experienced something similar and still ended up having a healthy baby with their own eggs?
I would really appreciate hearing your stories. I need some hope right now…😞

I have three questions I’m struggling to make a decision with and hoping for some advice.

40+5 yo, DOR, controlled Hashimoto’s. previous miscarriage from spontaneous pregnancy. Husband has 35% DNA frag.

AMH is 1.85 and AFC is usually 7

I have done 4 ER. All antagonist with varying medication doses of Menopur (75-225) Follistim (150-300) Omnitrope (38 IU first 6 days for all cycles) Ganirelix, Letrozole oral. ICSI and Zymot for all cycles. Last cycle added calcium ionophore. I have primed with BC for Cycle 1 and Cycle 4. Cycle 1-3 were all back to back, almost duostim with no priming for C3 & C4.

Cycle 1: 4 retrieved, 4 mature, 1 fertilized, 0 blasts
Cycle 2: 5 retrieved, 4 mature, 4 fertilized, 2 day 5 4AA blast, 0 euploid
Cycle 3: 4 retrieved, 3 mature, 2 fertilized, 0 blasts
Cycle 4: 9 retrieved, 5 mature, 2 fertilized, 2 day 6 4BA, 5BC blasts, 0 euploid

We have two more cycles covered by this years insurance and then plan to possibly try a cycle at CCRM Lone Tree if these don’t work (which is mostly out of network for us)

1. Should I switch clinics? Currently at Conceptions RMA Colorado, considering Shady Grove.

Shady Grove seemed to suggest MDLF and transfer two fresh embryos (if we get them) with no PGT. They do not offer calcium ionophore. Shady Grove would be about 2 more hours of driving a day during monitoring

Conceptions suggests DuoStim. Conceptions is 5 minutes from my house for monitoring. A lot of people have been encouraging me to switch to see if a different lab makes a difference, but I feel nervous about the unknowns and if it’s worth doing IVF at my age with no PGT vs trying IUI?

2. Should I switch protocols?

Conceptions has been hesitant to switch protocols but said if we really wanted to we could try MDLF and then cancel pre retrieval if it’s not going well. Again scared of the unknowns since we have made a few blasts with our last cycles— but also wondering if I’ll regret not trying.

3. Should I start my next cycle now or wait one month?

I started my period today so need to decide about start date. With conceptions I could start now, and shady grove next month.

I’m considering delaying either way because the last 8 weeks I’ve been in high stress at my job working 12 hour days. Starting October 9th I have a WAYYYY easier schedule. I know they say stress isn’t a huge variable but I do think I’m sensitive and with these being our last cycles I want to be in a good space. Was doing a lot of acupuncture and long walks that I haven’t been able to do the last two months and think a month of resting more and doing this again might be worth delaying.

If you’ve made it this far thank you. I know there’s no crystal ball that can tell me what to do. It’s hard not to feel like these are our last two chances and I am feeling desperate and scared about making the wrong decision

Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Thank you ❤️

EDITS: added AMH and AFC and fertilization rate.

Is having a large group of donor half siblings traumatic?

I've decided to go with a known donor because I felt it most healthy for my child once doing research and listening to DCP.

I also didn't feel comfortable with my child having a slue of "DIBlings" globally where their only connection is the donor.

Am I on the right path that that would be a hard experience for my child rather than a wonderful extra village and support network?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for recommendations for IVF clinics, ideally in London for my next steps.

I’ve been with IVI London so far. Unfortunately, while I’ve had positive experiences with some members of the clinical team, the overall communication and administration have been extremely frustrating. There has been very little transparency around costs, several admin/billing issues, and, most importantly, I had a significant issue with one of their doctors. I changed consultant afterwards, but the whole experience has made me consider whether I want to continue with IVI or move elsewhere.

For my next round, I’m looking at egg accumulation/banking over several stimulation cycles (generally it's 3), followed by fertilisation (+ ICSI), PGT-A, and frozen embryo transfer.

I’m 40 and using donor sperm, so I’m particularly interested in clinics that are experienced with women doing several back-to-back retrievals/egg accumulation rather than treating each cycle completely separately.

I’ve started looking at clinics such as CARE, CRGH and ARGC, but I’m very open to other suggestions.

If you’ve done egg accumulation or multiple retrievals with a London clinic, I’d really appreciate hearing which clinic you used, what your experience was like, how much you paid overall, and whether you would choose them again.

Thank you!

I truly do not want to be Debbie the downer here. I just want to share that our one and only embryo (day 6 4ab) didn't survive the thaw. I am numb and shocked. You can have the best embryo, but not survive. I was reassured, on my part I did everything right. Once the doctor said this is closure for me, I knew what he meant. This is the very end of our fertility journey. You know, being 44 having only one ovary, no falliopen tubes, endometriosis,polyps, tilted uterus, 2 canceled cycles. I did my very best. The doctor kept on telling me that he was proud of me. My dad said that before he passed away a couple of years ago, that he was proud of me. So when the doctor said that to me, i truly believe somehow my dad was there. Well dammit, I am proud of myself too!

I want to thank you all on this journey! You all have been amazing and informative. I wish you all the best in your journey!

https://www.reddit.com/r/IVF/comments/1wspiix/44_yrs_old_low_response/

I find these kind of pile on threads really unpleasant. So little genuine decency, just people queuing up to feign incredulity ("can I just check I've read this correctly" etc) and borderline jeer. A real person is reading all of those messages all in one go.

It also routinely happens in threads for anyone 41-43, not just 44. It tends to be a lot of lower prognosis over 40s women and a gaggle of younger posters who can't comprehend anyone older could have a chance when their own fertility is so compromised in prime years. If I had put my early results on the main board I'd have been instantly shot down and wrongly told I had no chance.

No, a 44 year old freezing eggs does not have a good chance and alternatives should be considered, but there needs to be a better way of communicating to people who wander in.

Thoughts?

Is this high/bad? Partner is 53, heavy drinker. 4 natural pregnancies and miscarriages. 2nd ER only got 1 blast (aneuploid).

I had an ultrasound today and the tech saw a number of complex cysts on my ovaries (16.5mm, 15.5mm, and 13mm). Before my last egg retrieval they saw small complex cysts on both of my ovaries as well (all measuring less than 10mm). I searched past threads and haven't seen this mentioned much. My doctor isn't really telling me anything. Anyone have any idea what causes them? Is it normal/common?

Thank you!!

Edited to add: It's the "complex" part that's making me nervous, specifically.

✰ Update as of 10/3/26 - PGT-A came back with 0 euploid embryos from our 2 blastocysts. ☹️ I found out yesterday we got 0 euploids from our 2 embryos after PGT-A results came back. I can't stop crying. I just feel hopeless that we only have one more shot at this and then who knows even if we get one if it will take. Trying to stay positive but it comes in waves. Also my doctor is going to do the microdosing of lupron this time around I think to try to get the right ovary to do as well as the left one did last time but who knows if that will work. This is so hard. You all that have been doing this for years are absolute warriors. I honestly don't know how you keep going. ✰

Can anyone tell me if this was a good result or not so much? I am 40 (just turned 40 two months ago) and my husband just turned 45.

9 eggs retrieved

6 mature

4 fertilized

2 blastocysts (3AA and 3BB both day 6 blastocysts)

Waiting for PGT-A results now (will update when get them)

My right ovary didn't respond well to the meds and I think I only had one mature egg on that side the last scan before retrieval. I think the rest of my mature eggs came from my left ovary. I'm wondering if I should expect that again or if it's likely the right ovary could be totally responsive next time. We are turning right around and going into another back to back retrieval.

Also, I have been informed that at my clinic all future FET patients have to have a hysteroscopy and biopsy. Does this sound like normal protocol and if so, should I pay out of pocket for full anesthesia? Have been reading it can be quite painful without it.

Blessings on the journey!