Can anyone talk to me about PGD??

wille2b · February 2012

we have has several miscarriages and it always seems to be a heart issue. we always have a strong heartbeat but then at 8 weeks exactly is starts to fizzle out. we have an appt with our RE next week to talk about our next cycle but I want to talk about PGD... do people still have miscarriages after a "clean bill of embryo health"?? im just looking for info and peoples stories.

TIA ladies

07may07 · February 2012

First, sorry you are going through this.

As a little background, I had 6 early losses (2 pregnancies before seeing RE, 2 with IUI, and 2 with IVF) when together with our RE we decided to do PGD testing. I know there are various forms of testing, but we did testing on day three with a transfer on day 5.

Prior to making this decision, we had decided against PGD for a couple of reasons: I never made enough eggs to feel comfortable going through with the testing; my RE explained that sometimes you can get a false positive, meaning that the embryo tested abnormal but was not; and my RE also explained that embryos have the ability to self-correct so that even if it tested abnormal, it could always correct itself. However, if PGD tests an embryo to be abnormal, the clinic would not transfer that embryo and it would be discarded.

However, after my sixth loss, MH and I were kind of at the end of the line. So, we figured we had nothing to lose in doing PGD. For some reason, that cycle, I made the most eggs I had ever made (15). Of the 15, 11 fertilized and were tested. Of the 11, 7 tested abnormal. 4 tested normal. We were able to transfer a blast and a morula and had nothing left to freeze. We got pregnant that cycle and suffered our 7th loss.

I was confused and lost. How could we have transferred "normal" embryos and still have the same results. At my WTF, my RE told me that based upon the test results, especially compared to my age at the time--32 (7 abnormal and of the 4 remaining, only the two transferred made it beyond 8 cells) she believed that I had bad eggs.

As hard as it was, I am glad that we did the testing to see the pretty dismal results we got. Having had 7 losses and seeing the quality of the embryos made it clear to me that I do have egg issues and it helped us to start looking into alternatives, specifically, DEs.

Sorry about the novel of my story. Even though I wish it weren't this way, it is definitely possible to still have a miscarriage after an embryo tests normal with PGD.

Sloane99 · February 2012

I'm so sorry for your losses.

Unfortunately, while PGD is a nice diagnostic or preemptive tool for some potential issues, it's certainly not the only reason that people miscarry or cover all the potential problems with an embryo development. As such, I think it's a really personal choice, we did it because we wanted to be sure we were trying everything we could and covered all our bases, but we went into with the understanding that even if we transferred these "normal" embryos there could still be problems or complications. As it turns out we only ever got two normal embryos from 2 rounds of IVF and while we transferred both, I'm pregnant with a singleton - so even though there was no real reason for both not to be successful things do still happen.

I hope you get some answers and can make the best decision for you guys. Good luck!