XP: Has anyone done low or mini stim IVF? Particularly with egg banking... (sig warning)

IBackBevo

Did you have success?  How many rounds did you do?

DoublePortion

@joules12 had success with a mini IVF. She doesn't post too often but hopefully this tagging thing will alert her to this message.

darby17

I am not sure if you would call my protocol "mini-stim" but I did egg banking. I stimmed on clomid and menopur. The banking part did not go well for me. If I had to do it over - I would not bank eggs. After two retrievals, I had 6 eggs. Not one survived the thaw process.  Did your Dr give a reason for banking eggs instead of embryos? 

IBackBevo

I meant embryo banking.  I frequently say it wrong.  Sorry.

IBackBevo

Darby17 - If you don't mind my asking, where did you freeze your embies at? Did they have vitrification?

GermanGirl2007

I am in the process of doing Mini  IVF right now. I am stimming with Clomid and Bravelle. I have the ER in about a week or so, and then an FET in a little over a month. my clinic does do vitrification, and as I understand it, have had good success rates. I guess time will tell whether it works for me. 

darby17

I don't mind at all.  Yes, they did have vitrificaiton. But we froze eggs - which is very different than freezing embryos.  Freezing eggs is much more experimental and risky.  It was at the Women's Institute in NC.  Now I am with a new doctor and we are banking embryos.  I feel much more confident in the embryo freezing process.  I just did a retrieval and we got 3 eggs. 3 fertilized w/ICSI and one made it to a day 5 blast for biopsy.  It is now frozen.  I am about to start my 2nd round of retrieval. We'll do 3 total and then do genetic screening on the embryos that make it.

I think embryo banking makes much more sense than egg banking (especially for those of us w/DOR and later 30's). Unfortunately I learned it the hard way!

So are you banking to do genetic screening? I'd like to hear more about your plans.  Good luck! 

IBackBevo

Darby 17 - I have DOR.  My AMH in February was undetectable. AFC around the same time was 4-5.  This is down quite a bit from just 14-15 or so months before (Nov.-Dec. 2011)  when my AMH was 0.54 and my AFC was  8-9.  Accordingly, it would seem my fertility is declining. 

My FSH is all over the place--I've had two normal readings (6-something) and two abnormal readings (13.3 with elevated E and 11.2).  The 11.2 was just a couple of weeks ago.

About 25% of women with the genetic mutation I have (Fragile X premutation) go through premature ovarian failure. I am very worried I am headed that way as my cycles are getting more erratic and I am having more "peri-menopausal" type symptoms.  I want to freeze embryos for later use in case I go through POF.   

Plus, while I am certainly not old in the IF world (I'm 33), I'm not getting any younger and better to freeze embryos now then to try to have to deal with age-related quality issues later on.  

I have consulted a local RE about regular, high-stim IVF and freezing so that is an option.  However, I am looking into and researching low stim.  With such a low AFC starting out, I think that the chances that I would have a lot of eggs retrieved would be very low anyway. My RE says, "We don't know until we try." However, in most of the women I have talked to who have similar stats to mine, they often times are lucky if they end up with even 1 or 2 embryos to transfer or freeze. This is basically the same amount you end up with low or mini stim anyway.  Yet, mini is anywhere from half to a third of the price.   

Plus, I have heard that sometimes the very high stim drugs they give to DOR women can affect quality and a person can better quality on the low or minimal stimulation drugs.  I have not seen any research on this so I don't know if it is true. I have only heard anecdotal stories from women with similar stats to mine. 

My other reasoning is just that I know I respond well to Clomid (which is often times used in minimal stimulation protocols) because of past experience.  My most RE thinks this is some evidence that I would respond well to high stims, but who knows?  I would rather be on something that I know I respond to and that I know does not compromise the quality of my eggs.  I also am scared of how badly injectables might screw with me emotionally/mentally because I was very moody just on clomid and they are even stronger. I would rather deal with the devil I know than the devil I don't know.

The only real downside to doing mini-ivf for me is that I think I would most likely have to travel.  None of the places in my city that I have looked into offer discounts for mini...so a full cycle ivf is the same prices as mini.  There is only one place in my city that offers mini for less and it is known to not be very good.  However, places like LIFE in Irvine, CA and Cooper in NJ (Dr. Check) give deep discounts for mini ivf. A mini ivf cycle at Cooper is something akin to $2200 and Clomid is very cheap.  A high stim cycle plus meds at my local clinic is about $15k.  So you can see where the savings is significant.  Even throwing in flight and hotel, I could still likely do 4-5 rounds of mini ivf for one round of high stim and I think I would likely end up with a lot more quality embryos over the span of several low stim cycles than over one high stim cycle.   

joules12

As DP said, I'm DOR and did a successful low-stim IVF cycle (prior cycles had been pretty lousy).  It was my first cycle with Dr. C.heck at C.ooper.  I didn't do any egg banking and didn't use Clomid (it was basically an antagonist cycle -- which I'd done VERY poorly on at max doses of stims -- with low doses of stims).  I think I posted in response to some of your prior posts related to this -- my details are in my siggy, but I can provide any additional info if you'd like.

IBackBevo

joules12 said:

As DP said, I'm DOR and did a successful low-stim IVF cycle (prior cycles had been pretty lousy).  It was my first cycle with Dr. C.heck at C.ooper.  I didn't do any egg banking and didn't use Clomid (it was basically an antagonist cycle -- which I'd done VERY poorly on at max doses of stims -- with low doses of stims).  I think I posted in response to some of your prior posts related to this -- my details are in my siggy, but I can provide any additional info if you'd like.

Thanks for responding!  I had looked into Cooper as it certainly seems like one of the more affordable places.  Did you meet with Check or have to go with one of the other doctors?

Was your experience good there?  Were you in-town or OOT? Do you know if their lab uses vitrification when it freezes? 

 

MrsSJE2011

I believe that my clinic in the Boston area does it at half the cost of a regular cycle.  PM if you want more info!