3 Chemicals .

J

jyothipriyanka

New member
TW: Living child, recurrent chemical pregnancy

Me and my partner are both 31, healthy BMI. I'm kind of not really sure what I want from this other than to rant a bit, and maybe get some second opinions.. I have a 2.5 year old who I conceived on cycle 4 (and really conceived the first time we really tried)

In May 2023 we decided to start trying for #2, and have been trying ever since. I've had 12 cycles, including chemicals in September 23, November 23 and February 2024 but nothing that has progressed as far as even 5 weeks. I'm confused, sad, frustrated and impatient.

Regular 27/28 day cycle with easy 5 day periods my whole life

In January I began getting tests

- All thyroids were fine

-3D ultrasound showed no issues with my uterus, no polys/fibroids etc

-Lupus Anticoagulant 7 iu/L

-Cardiolipin AB IGG 4 GPL kU/L

-Cardiolipin IGM 3.6 MPL kU/L

-Nuclear antibodies - negative

-Clotting screening test - normal time no issues

-Normal AMH and FSH (clnic didn't give me my levels but said they were find, 'good')

-Progesterone was fine. I supplemented with progesterone pessaries on Chemical 3 but it didn't have an impact and I still lost the pregnancy

so basically everything looks... totally normal?

The fertility clinic I've been seeing have said to take 75mg baby aspirin, get a Beta 2 Glycoprotein test which I had been due to get when I got pregnant with the February chemical so never got. Then it sounds like they think my options are

Karotyping (seems strange and unlikely since we have a living healthy child) and sperm DNA fragmanetation... keep trying. This feels kind of pointless to me since if I pick up an issue i'd just have to progress to the option below, and if there's no issue maybe I should have just kept trying without the testing..

or

Do IVF with PGT-A and an 'Alice' test (I think she said it was Alice but I could have that wrong, it's to check if you need antibiotics before transfer I think)

So basically I think I'm left with,.. keep trying blindly and hoping it just .. works? (We're 12 cycles in now so surely it would have done by now? Three chemicals in 6 months makes me think surely there's something wrong??? how likely is it to have 3 from pure bad luck???) Who knows how long that will take, and I wanted a smaller age gap. I feel incredibly lucky to have one child already, I know many here are struggling to conceive number 1 but I really want him to have a sibling.

or the IVF etc route, which is so expensive as well as of course medically invasive. We're in the UK and our insurance won't cover IVF but can't go NHS funded as we already have a child (which I think is reasonable, and they should absolutely prioritise those who don't have a child yet)

Just wondering what people think.. what would people do in this situation? Should I suck it up and keep trying accepting I may well have more chemicals or it might just take a lot longer than I hoped, or stomach the cost of the IVF.

My heart hurts.. :(

Ps - thanks so much to everyone who posts here, I have been able to advocate for the tests etc all through the info I've learnt from this amazing community. I am very grateful for you all.
 
@jyothipriyanka Are you able to get on the IVF wait list while pursuing additional work up? I can’t speak to the “1 LC is dna fragmentation etc. really a good suspect here” question but I think that’s a fair question you ask. I don’t have as much knowledge on that so hopefully someone else can chime in. Possibly post in r/IVF and r/IVFaftersuccess
 
@bloodborn It's not a wait list as such because I'd be paying privately. So they are happy for me to have it done as soon as I'm ready to stomach the cost. I'll have a look at the other forums though thank you!
 
@jyothipriyanka We are in the exact same boat! I’m also 31 and healthy, and also conceived my first quickly (3 cycles, with a loss on cycle 1) and also started trying for our second in May with no success except 4 losses: 2 chemicals at 4-4.5 weeks, 1 chemical/early miscarriage at 5 weeks, and a 7 week loss of twins after heartbeat. We are completely unexplained as well. I have extremely regular cycles (pretty much almost always exactly 29 days) with confirmed ovulation, and plenty of eggs (high AMH). There is no reason why we shouldn’t be getting and staying pregnant and yet here we are. We are also seriously contemplating IVF, I’m pretty much sick of TTC at this point and anything that takes it more out of my hands and into “science”, the better.
 
@michaelwayne57 I'm so sorry for your losses. Completely relate to being sick of TTC... the impact it has on us as a couple is so difficult.. I'm just feeling sick at the idea of spending what is most likely to be 10k on IVF given the clinic has recommended we'd need the PGT-A etc...
 
@jyothipriyanka I'm so sorry for your losses. Unfortunately around half of recurrent miscarriage cases will be unexplained after all the testing. We just don't know why it happens.

Aside from progesterone and baby aspirin which your doctor has already recommended then the treatment pretty much is just expectant management. This feels really frustrating because it's hard to feel like anything will be different the next time round. However statistically you are still more likely to have success with a future pregnancy than not, even after three miscarriages. Although stats can really lose their comfort after you've ended up on the wrong side of them enough.

Tommy's in the UK have a bit of info on recurrent miscarriage: https://www.tommys.org/baby-loss-support/miscarriage-information-and-support/recurrent-miscarriage

They also have a calculator that made me feel better when I was particularly miserable but your mileage may vary: https://www.miscarriagetool.tommys.org/

In terms of IVF most of what I found when researching rpl didn't really suggest much benefit. It didn't generally have an impact on live birth rate from what I remember. Some people do go down that route using pgt-a to at least avoid a miscarriage due to chromosome issues.

I found the ESHRE guidelines helpful when I was researching this. You can find them here: https://www.eshre.eu/Guidelines-and-Legal/Patients . Just scroll down to the management of recurrent loss patient leaflet.

If you want to hear about others experience with loss there is a podcast called worst girl gang ever that interviews different people about their experiences. It helped me not feel alone.
 
@nlu Wow this is such a thoughtful and helpful comment. Thank you so much for the time you took to write it. It helps a lot to feel the companionship of the other people on this group. I'm very grateful.
 
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