Mini IVF

JDW0325

Hey ladies- hope it's ok I started a new thread to ask this question

Can we chat about mini IVF? I'm not there yet, still going to try IUI 2 more times, but, I have been reading up on IVF and saw info about Mini IVF. Anyone do this or talk to their RE about it? 

Thanks! 

oxinfree

I just wanted to at least respond. I have heard of other women doing it, I have no experience with it myself. I guess it is becoming a more common next step, and likely in the future may be the go to process. The philosophy is quality over quantity, and that using your body's natural systems the eggs/embryos is better... I'm not sure if that's just because there's less synthetic hormones or what. I hope someone else can shed some additional light on this for you. Best of luck with the IUIs though. FX you don't even need it

JWatt5

I've wondered about this as well for a while now, the cost effective side gives more opportunity if it ever got there but I've read that the success rates aren't as high?

I've also found the "effortless IVF" path interesting but I'm not a candidate for that. There's a clinic opening in Alberta soon.

Katkirch

I've been looking into this as well so I'm joining to see what others say.  We are having a consult with our RE sometime in the next month to go over options and I plan on asking about mini IVF.

liljoy-2

Yes, my first IVF was only with low dose Clomid. my tolerance for hormones is low and I'm afraid of long term effects 

kangastein

I've done two mini IVFs. One was great, 5 days tamoxifen followed by low stims, 21 eggs, 15 mature and fertilized, 6 blasts. Second I used letrozole instead, 16 eggs, 9 mature, 4 fertilized, one blast transfered day 5, BFN. Never tried the clomid mini. Just be careful with it. The letrozole tends to create lead follicles which was disastrous to us. I'm too scared to try the tamoxifen protocol after that because my dr wouldn't say that the drug made the difference.
It's worth a try and works wonders for some ladies. I'm also looking back into this and more natural IVFs because my eggs seem to get fried in IVF 

liljoy-2

@kangastein Wow, the number of retrieved mature eggs with your mini-IVF is amazing, my doc had my hopes really down saying max. 4. What was the issue with letrozole? I don't know anything about it. 
On Clomid I also had one very big and another one small/immature, so it seems I'm prone to this anyway despite RE saying that Clomid is better than letrozole in this respect. 

kangastein

@bestofjoy we're doing IVF out of male factor so all the follicles they saw in my ovaries came out during mild IVF. I actually chose it with no understanding of it, only because it was cheaper. A dr told me that Letrozole really creates lead follicles but maybe when you have four follicles, that all four will be captured in the lead (?). Letrozole wasn't for me, I also had abnormal eggs on it (why 5 didn't fertilize). But but best cycle yet has been on tamoxifen! Even better than the long Lupron! 

kangastein

@bestofjoy consolidating from our other thread, I'm looking at natural IVF because I seem to have quite a few eggs after an IVF cycle and thought maybe we could capture them. My dr thinks we need more quantity than we would get, but I'm worried my problem may be egg quality due to overstimulation and a natural would help. They would do mild drugs also. I'm in the TWW with two day 5 early blasts that we thought we should just put in instead of PGD testing, but if it fails I want a back up.

liljoy-2

@kangastein Yes, natural IVF makes sense in a lot of cases. Docs are not very eager to do this, only a few clinics do this or advertise it.