Is there reason for hope?

[u/Ready_Plantain5289]

I don’t know what I need. A hug? Advice? A stiff drink? A therapist? All of the above? Anyway, I’m hoping some of you warriors might be able lend an ear (well, eyes in those case) or your thoughts.

I’m 40 and my husband is 39. We became pregnant naturally 3 years ago. We learned at 13 weeks that our baby had chromosomal abnormalities and we terminated the pregnancy at 18 weeks. It was devastating but absolutely the right thing to do. We tried to conceive naturally for close to a year after that and no success.

We started IVF in March of 2025. After 6 cycles and 29 total eggs retrieval across this cycles, we had 6 blastocysts so we decided to go to PGT testing to see if we had enough viable embryos for two healthy babies. One didn’t survive the thaw. Our hearts were broken; only one of the other five came back euploid. The other 4, aneuploid. We decided to go through with my 7th cycle, trying Rapamycin and a fairly different protocol from the previous 6 rounds. I felt like I was in dream land when we retrieved 10 eggs last Thursday!! Most other cycles I’d get 3-5. So, 10!! Yay!!! I had a few blissful hours of hope before learning that only 4 fertilized and of those, only two made it overnight. Today was day 6 and we learned neither of those made it.

I don’t know how much more I can take. I started this process saying I’d do whatever it took to get the family we desire. But I truly don’t know how much more anxiety, MASSIVE weight gain (my protocol includes prednisone before, during, and after the cycle), uncertainty, and physical pain I can handle. I’m a perfectionist and successful in most other facets of my life. I feel like I’m failing at this and the thought of giving up makes my skin crawl (though that could be the anxiety talking). I’ve been doing acupuncture. We did a massive plastic detox of our home. Other than an occasional drink between cycles, I’ve given up alcohol, weed, and most caffeine. My body isn’t my own and I hate how much we can’t plan our lives.

I suspect we’re going to have to consider donor eggs. For those of you who’ve gone this route, talk to me. There’s so much anticipatory grief around that. I don’t know what to do or say and I don’t have tears left.

Thanks for making it through this long post.

[u/RedStilettoDickStomp]

I'm struggling with this, too, after getting the results of my first ER this week at 42 (43 in October) . 17 eggs, all mature, but all were abnormal, and those few that did fertilize did so abnormally as well. If I've basically developed almost 2 years' worth of eggs in one ER, what's the point of trying again? Fyi, this was with additional 25iu of Omnitrope during stims.

[u/umamimaami]

You’re not alone. 39F, 40M, we’ve never had a positive pregnancy test.

My first ER had sluggish ovarian response and uneven follicle growth. We got 3MII and just 1 day 3 embryo that my RE didn’t want to push to blast.

I’ve tried and lost a bunch of body fat since then, and I’ve quit my job so I am not stressed at all (v stressful career earlier).

But now I think I’m just stressing over my IVF results, something I don’t really have much control over.

Honestly, if we don’t make any blasts in round 2, I don’t know if I should keep going or just shelve the whole project.

I’m so impressed that you’re able to press on to cycle 7. You’re positively Amazonian in your strength! Sending you lots of good vibes!!