Some of the things to start educating yourself on right now that will help guide your conversation with your reproductive endocrinologist would probably be looking into whether you want to consider embryo genetic testing, whether you would be more inclined to do in a fresh or frozen transfer (although your body might override your choices there anyway), if you’re doing a frozen transfer if you want medicated or natural cycle start, and your feelings around donor eggs. I know some clinics really pushed on her eggs on Women as soon as they hit 39 or 40, and so going in with some information about your own odds to get a feel on if the clinic is just trying to push that for their own success rates or if it’s actually in your best interest is a really good idea to kind of wrap your brain around ahead of time.
ETA:
And they’ll talk you through all of this stuff. I just feel like it can be really overwhelming if you’re not familiar with it and you go in blank. And some of the big clinics really feel like they’re just trying to sell you on stuff and kind of put you through a profit process- not all by any means, but some. I feel like it helps especially when you’re a little bit of an outlying case to have a good grasp of all the factors so you can have a little bit more of an informed conversation and not waste the time that you do have for talking to the doctor.
Honestly, the only thing I am super hesitant about donor eggs for is that I’ve read it’s a lot more expensive. It’s less important to me that my genetic material be in the mix than it is to Swan’s that his be, so if it came down to donor eggs, and I felt like I could make that happen without bankrupting myself, then I would be fine with that. Obviously my own eggs would be ideal in a perfect world, but I lean toward at least TRYING to get my own to start with and then seeing what happens.
Donor egg is more expensive than own eggs and way more expensive than donor embryo, which is the route we went… BUT you might qualify for a money back guarantee for donor egg, and if you are looking to have just one child, frozen donor eggs are available, like, immediately and many donors are willing to be contacted after the child is 18, if that’s a consideration for you. We didn’t do donor egg because we had already spent maybe thirty grand on egg retrievals and failed transfers, and the Boy didn’t care about the genetics, he wanted to do the easiest, most likely to work thing. We were burned out on waiting for results.
Obviously I wasn’t successful with my own eggs; many people our age are and we did have the added challenge of bad sperm (which was actually why we were doing IVF, but then I didn’t make good eggs). All the decisions involved are soooo tough and sooo expensive and everything is so unknown and so dependent on personal priorities that most people never have to rank. I’m pulling for you!
Yeah, we haven’t ruled out embryo adoption either, because I do have a friend who has offered me some of hers. But I think it’s like . . . Plan C? After trying my own eggs at least once and then seeing if we can find a way to afford donor eggs, if that doesn’t work.
Does anyone happen to know whether donor eggs are less expensive if you know the donor? Like is it the PROCESS that is expensive, or the egg itself? I feel like if I asked my younger sister to donate eggs, she probably would. She’s only 20 months younger than me, but that’s something, and she is the most selfless person I know and has two living children, having gotten pregnant each time at the drop of a hat.
My moderately informed guess is that it wouldn’t be a way to save money? (Edit: this is fake news, see below) Depending on lots of factors, it might take longer or be more complicated than to obtain eggs from her, vs. a donor who has been screened for this in particular. You’d also have to get your own legal paperwork in place: even when everyone involved is a reasonable person, there are some absolute horror stories out there of what can go wrong. CA has good laws about this stuff and I have to imagine there are lawyers out there that have figured this out and make it an easy process.
That said, if it ends up being the right fit, this could be an incredible way to go! One benefit is that if you end up with a kid who wants to know who their bio relatives are from an early age, you’d have that accessible to them. You also have some built-in screening to know that it’s someone you like and trust, in case it’s important to the kid to build a relationship with them and they’re present in your life.
From what I’ve read, yes it’s less expensive. Because then there’s not all the matching fees and recruitment fees and donor compensation. But I think most clinics will only take donors that are under 34 or 35 and have good reserves and such.
This makes sense! I wonder if one way to approach it might be to find a clinic that does a lot of reciprocal IVF for double uterus couples, since they’d have to be comfortable with using “donor” eggs from someone in particular.
@wooljaguar this is just to say that fertility clinics can be less onboard with “grownups get to do what they want with their bodies,” than you might expect, so if you run into initial resistance to a plan like this, there are big informal networks of people sharing info to get around it. For legal reasons this does not apply to me
Our legal fees were “only” $1500ish total, so assuming similar expenses, it would be cheaper to go this route. TIL! And maybe this number already accounts for legal fees?
The calculator seems to think my peak chances of success will be if I lose about 15–20 lbs. Given that it sounds like there will be a couple of months before I’m able to go through with trying, should I be working on that between now and then? That’d still be within the “one to two pounds per week” deemed healthy. I ate all the things over the holidays and was planning a cleanse anyway . . .
I think this is a case of correlation versus causation in most cases. A ton of women have PCOS, and that makes you more likely to carry extra weight and also more likely to be infertile. The weight is secondary to the disease process there. I think rather than thinking about the number on the scale at all, it’s best to just eat in a way that you know is health promoting for your body, makes you feel strong and energetic, includes lots of fruits and vegetables with lots of phytonutrients, and covers the macros that we know are essential for growing babies like plenty of good quality fats. weight changes either will or won’t follow that depending on your current setpoint, genetics, and disease processes.
Not on the IVF train at this time, but it’s very discouraging how many articles there are on weight vs conception chances without clear detail on the correlation vs causation deets. They’ll say “it seems as though there is a reduced chance of success in overweight women, even those without PCOS.”
But it doesn’t mention the many other things that correlate with higher weight that could in theory be the cause of lower odds of success. Is it weight, or higher sugar intake? Or less exercise? Or lower intake of vegetables? Or any number of things that can be changed instantly and with less psychological impact than drastically changing your weight?
Weight, more specific/my own #s
I’m mainly grasping at these potential other causes that are correlative, because I’m 60 lbs from the top of a “good” weight and there is almost no way I could get down to that weight in a healthy way by the time I would want to start looking at IVF if things don’t go as planned. I can change my sugar intake and increase my exercise and produce consumption much more quickly.
OK, that’s a good way of looking at it. I was already planning to do no booze, lots of healthy green smoothies and homemade juices, homemade full-fat yogurt, and big salads with nice fatty dressing, as just part of an overall cleanse. Because I really did eat all the things and feel puffy and sluggish in an unhealthy way because of it. Plus, I went to the dr. today and my BP was up by, like, a lot, like 20 points on both measures since I last got it taken! I blame absurd amounts of greasy Thai food, wine, baked goods, and pizza recently. Plus not being able to exercise a lot recently either.
OK, so, success rates…SART lists 18 clinics within reasonable driving distance of my apartment (~15 miles in L.A. traffic). I looked at success rates for both 2018 and 2019 for my age group (38–40). What I wanna know is how can the clinics vary so very wildly in their success? Are some docs just THAT much better at this stuff than others?
I averaged each clinic across the two years and there’s a range of 10.25%—50% success rate for the first transfer. (Depending on what stats I put in, the calculator for my specifics gave me anywhere from 20% to 33%.) The clinic with the best rates actually recently opened a location within walking distance of my place! And the next best one is less than three miles away. I have no idea yet what any of these cost—next step is getting $$ numbers—but I’m just wondering: are some docs just THAT much better than others?
