ERA Questions

prudence9-2

I will be doing ERA before transferring my last embryo.... Here are few questions for those who had it done:
- Did you have two biopsies done? One on the day of the transfer and the other one the day before or after?
- What was the result? and what was the outcome of your next cycle?
- If the result was receptive, was your next cycle successful? did you do other tests then to find a possible cause for the unsuccessful cycles?

hannahbulman

I did an ERA last year, after TW one CP and one MC.  We had one more PGD and PGS embryo and my RE wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could.  I did one biopsy the day of the transfer, and found out that I needed 12 extra hours of the POI, so instead of doing it at night, I had to start doing them in the morning.  My next FET was last August, and unfortunately that one didn't work.  I kind of think I was doing the FET earlier to over compensate.  We did another ER last November and an FET in April that TW ended in a CP.  We did our last FET on 10/16, my beta is on Thursday.  Good luck with the ERA, I found it helpful to find out more information, even though we still haven't had a successful PG, hoping this is our month.

prudence9-2

@hannahbulman you’ve been thru so much! Hope this is your month! GL on Thursday!

did you tweak your protocol this time around?

hannahbulman

@prudence9-2, Thank you so much, it's been a rough road for sure.

We did tweak it, so I do the POI at 9:30am, which isn't always a great time to do it at.  I also added a baby aspirin.  I do think that the ERA is helpful.

prudence9-2

@hannahbulman yeah 9:30am could be inconvenient. But if it works, it will be worth it!  

bethann1022

Hi, 

Two of us went through the ERA in June/July, there is a thread further back if you want to get more information from that.  For me, I had 3 previous failed transfers (not even a CP), first two in january and Feb were poor/fair embryos, third was in May and it was 2 fair-good quality embryos.  I was using Crinone twice daily for 4 days prior to each FET.  

So we did the ERA in June, after 4 days of Crinone, and my RE reassured me that they had done it dozens of times and if they did receive a non-receptive result, there was usually a narrow recommendation window (12-24 hours more or less needed) so we would be able to do FET in July.  Well, of course mine came back abnormal, my RE was shocked as it was 2+ days pre-receptive and I was only in a. 5% accuracy range of recommending 2 more days or Crinone.  So my RE said, I most likely was not absorbing.  We had to repeat the following month with 6 days of PIO and I got a receptive result so that will be our new protocol.  We do 6 injections of PIO in the evening and on the 7th day we do the FET.  

When I saw my new RE this past week I asked him if he had any additional insight and he said women can only absorb a very limited amount of progesterone vaginally (whether Crinone, endrometrin etc) and that while it may be enough during a fresh IVF cycle since the body is naturally making progesterone from cycle, during an FET full supplementation is needed and he only uses PIO for every patient.  I wish I had known this previously so I hadn't wasted 3 cycles with the Crinone prior to the ERA.  

This cycle I did the 6 days of PIO and while I got a BFN, it was our final and lowest quality embryo, so we are hoping that is the issue and after we have a retrieval, we will best case scenario end up with some higher quality blasts to transfer.  

I would definitely recommend it to anyone, it is not very expensive OOP (I believe between 600-800 per round) and the biopsy procedure should be covered by insurance.  It will at least help you rule out one possible cause for failures going forward.  

Good luck!

prudence9-2

@bethann1022 sorry about your failed cycle. I’ve always been on 6 mornings of PIO prior to transfer (transfer the afternoon of the 6th day) 

my RE thinks the result will be receptive but because I have one more embryo we will do this test to make sure the window is correct. 

I think it will cost me more than that. As only OOP Lupron is about $500. But at this point I stopped counting how much money I spent on all this.  

JamieH2000

@prudence9-2- Lurking, but I wanted to mention that I got lupron for my donor from Braun pharmacy (located in Chicago, but will ship anywhere I think), for only $250.. may be worth looking into!

prudence9-2

@JamieH2000 thanks for the info! I will def look into cheaper options rather than Freedom. 

prudence9-2

@JamieH2000 so I found out that you can get it cheaper by using a coupon from GoodRx.com! Wish I’ve known about it a year ago!!!