Chemical Pregnancy & PGD

[busybee]

Hello Ladies,
I am overwhelmed by all the wonderful support and encouragement that you all share. I have been reading the boards for some months now and have finally grown enough courage to join and reach out to those who totally, completely, 100% understand what I'm going through.

I have a question that maybe someone can give me insight on. We just found out last week that my beta dropped and another chemical pregnancy occurred. (this is our second argh!). My RE suggested a fresh cycle with PGD. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me since genetics is a major factor in early loss. I just wanted to know what others think or have experienced.
Many Thanks
-Heidi

[AmandaM]

Hi Heidi

First off welcome to the board Second, sorry for your second chemical pregnancy.

I myself did three cycles of IVF all with PGD due to a known genetic condition. The first two resulted in chemical pregnancies. The third resulted in my twins which are 2 weeks old. I think it is a good option for eliminating non viable pregnancies. The only reason it took three tries for me is because it was originally thought to only be a PGD issue for genetics, but after the second failed attempt there was also a egg quality issue.

Good luck

[Ghost]

As AmandaM pointed out, you can still get biochemical pregnancies after PGD. In fact, she had as many as you did.

A failure to implant or a loss of the pregnancy do not automatically point to bad embryos.

There have been numerous recent studies showing that PGD is of no value in improving IVF success rates in the general population of IVF patients. It seems to reduce the chance a little, because of the slight damage to the embryos.

Also, using PGD to improve implantation makes little sense in many patients because they just don't have all that many that the doctor is in any doubt as to which to transfer. Transferring the embryo is cheaper than PGD.

Still PGD has a place. Some patients want to screen out genetic disease in the family. And some few produce vast numbers of embryos that look good but aren't, so they need PGD to find the good ones among the many bad ones. That beats transferring one or two again and again and again.

If you happen to be one of those super-high responders, the good news is that PGD costs the same no matter how many embryos you have biopsied.

[busybee]

Thank you so much for your responses!

Amanda- Congrats on your twins! I actually just found you on another topic pregnant after pgd I think it was. Was PGD able to determine it was an egg quality issue or did they do further testing? Sorry for asking so many questions I'm new to the concept of PGD and eager to learn

Ghost- You brought all the things I've been thinking in my head together! Which is exactly why I'm still on the fence with spending all that darn money on PGD, however, with that said, for me, knowledge is power and I'll never know if I'm in that category of having great looking embryos but not genetically compliant. I was an excellent responder for my first (and only) fresh cycle. I had 18 eggs removed and all fertilized. Of those only 10 were C quality blasts whereas the other 8 were FEB A's and B's. I still have one A and one B left but my RE suggests we not use them in case they're bad. She also mentioned putting me on heparin with this next cycle as well. Until now I've only been on a baby ASA.
-Heidi

[AmandaM]

busybee

No, PGD wasn't able to determine the egg quality issue. Originally we were doing IVF just for PGD for a known genetic condition. They built a test based on my DNA to detect it. The first cycle there was a lot of fragmentation and uneven cells (small and big). They thought this was due to OHSS. After the same thing happened on the second cycle they determined an egg quality issue.

[Ghost]

Ghost- You brought all the things I've been thinking in my head together! Which is exactly why I'm still on the fence with spending all that darn money on PGD, however, with that said, for me, knowledge is power and I'll never know if I'm in that category of having great looking embryos but not genetically compliant. I was an excellent responder for my first (and only) fresh cycle. I had 18 eggs removed and all fertilized. Of those only 10 were C quality blasts whereas the other 8 were FEB A's and B's. I still have one A and one B left but my RE suggests we not use them in case they're bad. She also mentioned putting me on heparin with this next cycle as well. Until now I've only been on a baby ASA.
-Heidi

Let me see if I have this correct?

The RE that charged you money to freeze some embryos and to keep them frozen, is recommending that you don't use those embryos because he/she wants you to pay to go through another fresh cycle?

Bad embryos, if that's the problem at all, generally don't implant or stick around, so there is little risk in transferring them. If they do implant, you can then get an amnio to verify quality. There is, however, significant risk and cost in another round of ovarian stimulation.

[busybee]

Ghost-
Yes! Isn't that crazy? At this point I feel that if I do another cycle (been having lots of doubts) it would seem more reasonable to use the two embryos I already have frozen and be put on heparin...which I think is being done as a last attempt, but whatever... Right now I don't feel PGD would do anything for me.
Here's something else to chew on that's been in the back of my mind. Before I started the IVF thing I saw a regular progressive endocrinologist (very well known) who did a whole slew of tests including Free T3 and Reverse T3 and found that I was horribly hypothyrodic. I was taking compounded T3 and felt the best I had in 10 years. Mind you my T4 was normal. Well, my RE made me stop taking the T3 and tested my T4. No surprise there it was normal. I wanted my T3 tested and RE refused stating "we don't use that indication here". RE said that I couldn't take T3 and pursue IVF. In hindsight I'm peeved because thyroid function and ovarian function go together! Low thyroid levels make the ovaries produce less progesterone! There's a lot written about how low thyroid tissue levels can contribute to infertility.
...PGD can't fix that...
-Heidi