Unexplained ladies/IVF

noelcallum · January 2013

Hi Ladies,

I'm just wondering how many of you were dx "unexplained" and had success with IVF or FET? I need some encouragement that IVF can work for unexplained, I keep looking at siggys but am mainly seeing PCOS dx or MFI.

Also was anything discovered during IVF to change your dx from unexplained?

thanks in advance and congrats to all of you!

Whales124 · January 2013

I had a dx, but my cousin was unexplained and did ivf. She has two beautiful girls from two different fresh cycles. They never found out exactly what the problem was but they did continue to tweak her protocol as she went along. Good luck!

noelcallum · January 2013

Ducky - thanks so much for your response! I agree with you, It's a total grass is greener thing but not having a dx does suck!

lesalyric · January 2013

We are unexplained. I am 27, DH is 29, everything in our testing is "perfect", I got 20 eggs during ER, 99% that were mature fertilized, we ended up with frosties and I am currently 7w. So it definitely can work on the first shot.

I also understand your frustration with having no diagnosis. Though you are glad nothing is "wrong" it's also annoying to be told "well, everything is great, just bad luck!" My doctor told me to remember that the field of fertility treatment is still a pretty young field comparatively, that the tests that exist just test for the most common issues and that the technology just doesn't exist to test everything. This didn't give me a ton of comfort but it did kind of make me think a little more.

LnR70707 · January 2013

I had/have Stage I Endo, but it wasn't enough to be considered the cause of our IF, so we are unexplained. IVF #1 worked for us and brought us DS. Nothing new was discovered during that process. FET #2 worked this time....only thing semi-new was the first 2 attempts confirmed that my lining royally sucks on top of everything else and pregnancy didn't "fix" anything.

GL!

mrskitton · January 2013

I was unexplained as well! What other ppl said is that it definitely sucks to not have answers. This was our first attempt at IVF, with 9 mature eggs, 8 fertilized with ICSI, 3 made it to the end with 1 put back in. I thought I read somewhere that someone who went through IVF had like 14 eggs retrieved and decided to do 7 with ICSI and 7 naturally. Turns out that all 7 from ICSI fertilized and only 1 or so did naturally. She said her RE then concluded it was the actual fertilization that might have been the issue. I don't know if this info helps or not, but its something to always consider.

noelcallum · January 2013

mrskitton:
I was unexplained as well! What other ppl said is that it definitely sucks to not have answers. This was our first attempt at IVF, with 9 mature eggs, 8 fertilized with ICSI, 3 made it to the end with 1 put back in. I thought I read somewhere that someone who went through IVF had like 14 eggs retrieved and decided to do 7 with ICSI and 7 naturally. Turns out that all 7 from ICSI fertilized and only 1 or so did naturally. She said her RE then concluded it was the actual fertilization that might have been the issue. I don't know if this info helps or not, but its something to always consider.

Hi Mrskitton - thanks for you response. Can I ask why you decided to do ICSI if you are unexplained? My RE said we can do it if we want and are leaning towards it right now just to avoid wasting a cycle if fertilization is the issue. I asked if she can do half and half and she said no. Would be interested to know your decision process. thanks so much.

mrskitton · January 2013

noelcallum:

mrskitton:
I was unexplained as well! What other ppl said is that it definitely sucks to not have answers. This was our first attempt at IVF, with 9 mature eggs, 8 fertilized with ICSI, 3 made it to the end with 1 put back in. I thought I read somewhere that someone who went through IVF had like 14 eggs retrieved and decided to do 7 with ICSI and 7 naturally. Turns out that all 7 from ICSI fertilized and only 1 or so did naturally. She said her RE then concluded it was the actual fertilization that might have been the issue. I don't know if this info helps or not, but its something to always consider.

Hi Mrskitton - thanks for you response. Can I ask why you decided to do ICSI if you are unexplained? My RE said we can do it if we want and are leaning towards it right now just to avoid wasting a cycle if fertilization is the issue. I asked if she can do half and half and she said no. Would be interested to know your decision process. thanks so much.

My clinic did not give us a choice, if I remember correctly (being 8 months ago and yes I don't remember things from yesterday!). I guess I never really thought twice about not doing ICSI just because I wanted to ensure we got an embryo out of everything we went through. I'm surprised they won't let you do half and half....but I supposed every clinic is different. Good luck in what you choose though!!

cdale86 · January 2013

We are also in the unexplained category. DH and I were both 24 when we started TTC (now 26). We are both "perfect" as well. Stumped many physicians as to why we weren't getting pregnant. I had 22 eggs retrieved, 15 fertilized (conventional only, no ICSI). We transferred 2 and have 10 frosties. Both embryos stuck and we are expecting twins in July! They never found any reason for our infertility with IVF either. It is ridiculously frustrating to have no apparent reason for being infertile. I'm just ecstatic that we were able to conceive our own children and that I get to experience pregnancy. Good luck you!

Killer Tomato · January 2013

We were officially unexplained, but the RE thought there was a good chance there is some endo present (I had a couple of endometriomas on the ovary, but no other indications of endo.)

We did 4 unsuccessful IUIs and had success on IVF #1. They did ICSI on all our eggs. The original plan was to do half and half, but they felt with only 7 eggs, they preferred to ICSI all of them. For the most part, the ICSI and AH decisions were left up to the embryologist to determine the best course of action once they could see what they had to work with.

The problem with IF is that there are so many steps that lead up to a successful pregnancy, and most of those steps have no way of testing if there is a problem. My RE said that, because IVF bypasses a lot of the natural steps that have to occur successfully in sequence, it can therefore bypass many of the problems that can't be tested for. Being unexplained isn't like inspecting a whole house and determining it is perfect. It is more like inspecting a house when you are only allowed to look at the boiler, the kitchen, and the wall A/C unit. There are a million other things in the walls and floors that could cause problems. And even if you do find a problem with the boiler, that doesn't mean that there isn't also a junction box in the attic shorting out that you don't know about.

My somewhat rambly point (sorry) is that being unexplained does not mean IVF is less likely to work than someone who has a diagnosis. In many cases, I think it gives IVF a very good chance, since you are just skipping past a whole bunch of potential places where the problem could be.

GL!

Mrs.AmyDylan · January 2013

We were (and still are) unexplained. We had success on our first IVF cycle, yet we didn't have a super successful cycle otherwise. Low follicle count (5 mature), but high fertilization rate. However, none of our unused embies made it to freeze.

We tried for two years of TI, 2x clomid, but elected to go straight to IVF since we had some very modest insurance coverage that we wanted to avoid using up before getting a take home baby. My clinic quoted me a 65% success rate with my stats.

Good luck!! It can absolutely happen!

MichelleDis · January 2013

Unexplained for us too. We used fertility treatments for our son- now 5 years old. That time, i went through all the basic testing, temping etc. DH and I have been together 20 years, married for almost 12, so we had been having unprotected sex for a decade with nothing. We weren't trying, but not preventing, so I knew something was up.

All tests were normal for me, he did two SA that showed slightly slow sperm at first, second one was fine. I did a lap for some very minor endo, but nothing that should have impacted conceiving. I did 6 months of clomid- 2 of those months with IUI. Then two more IUIs with injectables. I had great response every cycle- lots of great follicles, all levels looked good in b/w. No problems to be had.

But BFN every single time. I had a dye test as well and both tubes were clear. no luck iwth IUI after dye test (i know sometimes people say it can help after it).

We finally settled on trying IVF and it worked our first time. I used BCP, follistim, menpur and lupron with ovidrel trigger. I had 13 good follies, but only 8 retrieved. All 8 fertilized on their own (showing no problems from DH!)- we did a 5 day transfer, all 8 continued growing/survived to day 5. Only two good blasts though, so those went back in me and the rest were tossed- didn't meet their strict freezing requirements. I ended up pregnant and had my son, now 5.

This time around, we were ready for another and figured since none of the other stuff worked last time, why bother- why not just go straight to IVF? We are paying out of pocket, so I didn't want to throw money at more IUIs that wouldn't work. So we went straight to IVF. Due to my age now (39), I knew I wouldn't have as good of a response- I had 11 follies- they were able to get 7. All 6 of the 7 fertilized (DH is 41) and we did a 3 day transfer this time. I had two excellent 8 cell, one good, one average and 2 poor. We put in two excellent and one good (THREE). I am now pregnant with TWINS! It worked first try this time too. We are very blessed and excited.

But it is VERY frustrating to not know what the problem is. We've continued having unprotected sex all the years since I had DS5 and nothing. There's obviously something going on, but no diagnosis.

Gregermis · January 2013

I was basically unexplained (according to RE) as our MFI was essentially a non-factor when doing IVF+ICSI (DH's little guys had great morph, just not great motility and borderline numbers)

3 of my 5 pregnacies were from embryo transfers. I went GF for this one, and based on some bw, doc thinks I have a mild glucose intolerance that was affecting implantation.

HTH

noelcallum · January 2013

Thanks all! I have bookmarked this thread so I can come back to it.

Wishing you all very non-eventful pregnancies! Big Smile

dimples128 · January 2013

I have a close friend who had an unexplained dx and went on to have 3 children via IVF. It is possible! Good luck!

KdgTeacher · January 2013

We are unexplained and MH and I were successful on IVF #1. We had 12 retreived, 8 fert, and 5 embies make it to transfer. We transfered 2 and froze 3.

Excitedtostart · January 2013

Unexplained here. IUI 1&2 didn't work, 3 ended in a CP.

We retrieved 10 eggs, of which 8 were mature. None fertilized on their own, so they proceeded with ICSI. Of those, 7 fertilized, but only 2 survived to a 5 day transfer. We transferred both and are pregnant with frat twins.

Going into IVF our RE had feelings that there was something "wrong (for lack of a better term) with either of us. We both look pretty good on paper (I have hypothydoid but am well controlled on synthroid). However, after the failed fert without ICSI, and the fact that none survived to freeze, he thinks there may be some unexplained issues with my eggs and DHs sperm.

Our plan is to try TI for our next, but if it doesn't happen quickly we'll jump back into IVF for future kids as well.

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