Has anyone with severe endometriosis had success with IVF?

[rockrat71]

Hi girls. Sorry to barge onto your board. I was hoping to join you over here, but I just failed my first IVF. I'm wondering just how much my endo had to do with the failure and am looking for ANY success stories from girls with severe endo. Thanks so much!

Melanie

[dixiegal1]

Melanie,
I have had stage four endo pretty much since i hit puberty. I just finished my first full round of ivf and am now six weeks and 2 days pregnant with twins.
I have had three surgeries over the years to try and help control it and the pain but it comes back so fast i didn't have time to get pregnant before it took over again.
Anyway i hope this helps. stay positive and don't give up!

[faithful]

rockrat71,

I am 33 years old and have had severe endometriosis since the onset of menses at the age of 15 I also have an extensive surgical history, including surgeries for two ruptured ectopic pregnancies (the right in 1998 and the left in 2000). I got pregnant on my first IVF try and am now 11 weeks pregnant with 1 baby (they transferred two embies).

I never thought that I would be able to get pregnant, let alone carry a baby successfully in such a "hostile" environment, but everytime we've gone to the doc for an ultrasound, we get a very strong heartbeat and the baby is growing at the appropriate rate.

I wish you lots of luck. In this fertility game we all have to stay positive. God Bless.

[wendy30]

Hi Melanie

I have severe endo as well and am 37weeks pregnant with my first baby.

I was told that for me the endo affected implantation, basically halving the normal odds, this was due to fluid seeping into my womb from my tubes. They tried to clip or remove the tubes but when they did the last laparoscpy everything was so stuck together they couldn't get near them.

The last 2 attempts I had, I was given antibiotics for a week before the egg collection and a week after the transfer to help with the fluid. Seemingly there is research to show this helps.

I was also given zoladex, a hormone injection, for the 3 months before I started any ivf drugs, it induces temp menopause the same as your first stage of ivf drugs but the thinking was it may calm the endo more if I took it for longer.

I credit our pregnancy to the antibiotics, the fact we were lucky enough to be able to do a blastocyst transfer (first time for this) and Reiki, which completely relaxed me.

I never thought I'd get pregnant, its been a long hard road but worth it.

Hope it all works out for you.

Wendy x

[Ems1971]

Hi

After years of extremely pain periods I was diagnosed with severe endo by laparoscopy in 2003, a year after starting ttc. I was told that our chances of conceiving naturally were pretty much zero as I had whats known as a "frozen pelvis", basically all my pelvic organs are stuck in one big lump. I have endo on my tubes, ovaries, bladder, bowel. I was put on a course of Zoladex for 6 months followed by extensive surgery to divide up all the adhesions. We were given 6 months to ttc naturally but nothing happened so we were put on Clomid but 2 months in I was taken in with a twisted endometrioma (cyst). Another laparoscopy showed the endo had come back worse than before so once again 6 months of Zoladex followed by more major surgery and two months later our first attempt at IVF which failed. We tried again in Jan and hey presto it worked! I am now 26 weeks pregnant with one baby.

It really IS a long old road with lots of ups and downs but in answer to your quesion it IS possible for women with severe endo to get PG. I was told that my problems are outside of my womb, the actual womb is healthy, so it was just a case of getting the sperm and the egg together.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

Emma xx