Dr. P: mini ivf and pgd

[3boyz]

I'm wondering if you ever do mini ivf along with PGD? How many eggs do you usually get during a mini ivf cycle? Have you ever had anyone do PGD on a mini ivf? Have you had successes? Are there certain criteria in which you would consider doing mini ivf along with PGD? Are the eggs retrieved during a mivf cycle a better quality overall usually?

Sorry, lots of questions!

Oh, and do you do compassionate transfers? Do you know what the cost associated with that is? And when in a cycle would you do that? Also, how many embryos would you put back during a compassionate transfer and have you ever had anyone get pregnant from one?

Thank you for putting up with my questions!

[Dr. Potter]

I'm wondering if you ever do mini ivf along with PGD? How many eggs do you usually get during a mini ivf cycle? Have you ever had anyone do PGD on a mini ivf? Have you had successes? Are there certain criteria in which you would consider doing mini ivf along with PGD? Are the eggs retrieved during a mivf cycle a better quality overall usually?

Sorry, lots of questions!

Oh, and do you do compassionate transfers? Do you know what the cost associated with that is? And when in a cycle would you do that? Also, how many embryos would you put back during a compassionate transfer and have you ever had anyone get pregnant from one?

Thank you for putting up with my questions!

Hi, good questions. We do mini-IVF. The appropriate patient for mini-IVF is either older and has a poor response to high doses of stim meds or patients that are young (usually under 30) with normal ovarian reserve. The typical stim regimen is antagonist with 150 of FSH. We hope to get 2-3 eggs in the older patients and 7-8 with a younger patient. We have had patients do this with PGD for gender selection successfully but as you will see when you look around the site is that it is a numbers game and the more embryos the better. Quality is not necessarily better with mini-IVF. The costs are less (9000 for IVF/PGD) but I think that most patients with normal ovarian reserve are going to get a much better cycle and probability for success spending the extra couple thousand dollars.
I am not sure what you mean by compassionate transfers. Explain.

[3boyz]

Thanks for the quick response. Yeah, I know it's a numbers game, for sure. My reasoning for thinking about doing it would be because my husband is trying to decide if he feels PGD is ethical. His main concern is what we would do with the embryos we did not transfer. I have heard of compassionate transfer.....not sure what another term would be. How I've read is the embryo's are transferred during a time in the cycle where the woman has very little chance of becoming pregnant. I'm guessing during menstration, or something like that. I even read somewhere that sometimes the embryo(s) are just placed inside the vagina and not even all the way into the uterus.

I think my husband feels better about doing that than discarding or freezing indefinitely. What about your thoughts on doing something like that?

So would you usually not recommend doing a mini ivf with PGD because of the numbers? I would be 31 at the time of cycling and I haven't had any pretesting, so I don't know about my numbers.

Thanks!

[Dr. Potter]

Thanks for the quick response. Yeah, I know it's a numbers game, for sure. My reasoning for thinking about doing it would be because my husband is trying to decide if he feels PGD is ethical. His main concern is what we would do with the embryos we did not transfer. I have heard of compassionate transfer.....not sure what another term would be. How I've read is the embryo's are transferred during a time in the cycle where the woman has very little chance of becoming pregnant. I'm guessing during menstration, or something like that. I even read somewhere that sometimes the embryo(s) are just placed inside the vagina and not even all the way into the uterus.

I think my husband feels better about doing that than discarding or freezing indefinitely. What about your thoughts on doing something like that?

So would you usually not recommend doing a mini ivf with PGD because of the numbers? I would be 31 at the time of cycling and I haven't had any pretesting, so I don't know about my numbers.

Thanks!

Once I see your numbers, we can do a stimulation designed to get 12 or so eggs. We can also limit the number icsi'd to 12. 12 is an ideal number and not often reached with mini IVF.

[Dr. Potter]

Extra eggs can frozen. We can limited the number fertilized 8 and freeze the remaining eggs. Very good chance for a single embryo transfer and we do very well with frozen eggs. My preference is to have many embryos though. We want you pregnant on your first cycle.

[3boyz]

Hmmmm.....ok. I'm afraid to get a NT though. That's MY fear! Would you be willing to do a compassionate transfer? My husband agreed to PGD and I think a big reason was because of the option of compassionate transfers. PLEASE say you would be willing!! I really want the best chance possible to get a transfer and maybe some XX to freeze in case the first doesn't take.

[Dr. Potter]

Hmmmm.....ok. I'm afraid to get a NT though. That's MY fear! Would you be willing to do a compassionate transfer? My husband agreed to PGD and I think a big reason was because of the option of compassionate transfers. PLEASE say you would be willing!! I really want the best chance possible to get a transfer and maybe some XX to freeze in case the first doesn't take.

Yes on the compassionate transfer

[3boyz]

Awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all these questins for ua.