Can y'all help me with IVF timing?

[chocolatepie]

I spoke with our IVF coordinator today and she said I can't start the birth control until my period in January due to the surgery I'm having this month :/ She said that I have already done all the testing they need so we don't have to do anything other than an IVF info class (?), which she'll schedule at my post-op appt assuming all goes well. 

I know all these answers will come but we're looking at possible travel in early spring and I'm so hesitant to do ANYTHING if it'll screw something up. Do y'all mind helping give me an idea of timing? 

- How long after starting the birth control can they start the meds to prepare for egg retrieval? Is that done the next cycle (February)? Or do they start those along with the birth control? 

- He wants to use frozen embryos but recommended biopsy prior to transfer. Will they do a frozen transfer the same month as egg retrieval or do you have to wait another month? And where does the biopsy fall into play? Does that slow things down another cycle?

Thanks for any insight  

[icedcoffee]

It really depends how long they have you on BCP. Some people are on it for a week and others for 4 weeks. Once you go off that you’ll start the IVF meds only a couple days later. From start of BCP to retrieval my IVF cycles have been about 40 days give or take a few days. Since they’re doing the biopsy they will likely have you get your period after retrieval and do a frozen embryo transfer which will likely end up being about another 25–40 days later depending on if they want you to do BCP again.

[seeyalater52]

So all of this is going to vary some based on your particular clinic’s protocol preferences, your specific circumstances (diagnosis, etc) and the lab your clinic uses for embryo testing.

Here’s how it would work at my clinic:

Approximately 3 weeks of birth control priming before IVF stims start. Could be longer if you’re trying to plan egg retrieval around something in particular.

After embryo biopsy the samples are sent for testing. Some labs can turn them around faster but it often takes at least 2 weeks to get results. So they would typically start prep for a frozen transfer with your second period after retrieval (the first being the bleed you experience right after retrieval.) You could also delay transfer longer if you needed to, including by using birth control to manipulate your next cycle start. How long your prep is for FET depends on what protocol you are on.

[seeyalater52]

Actually, I read biopsy as a biopsy of the embryos for PGS testing. If you mean a biopsy on you, of your uterus, that could potentially require a full mock FET cycle. Whether your clinic allow you to do that cycle immediately following egg reteieval or wait a cycle and how long it takes for results to come back really depends on what they are biopsying you for.

[chocolatepie]

Nov 27, 2018 17:54:03 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Actually, I read biopsy as a biopsy of the embryos for PGS testing. If you mean a biopsy on you, of your uterus, that could potentially require a full mock FET cycle. Whether your clinic allow you to do that cycle immediately following egg reteieval or wait a cycle and how long it takes for results to come back really depends on what they are biopsying you for.

Yes I definitely wasn't clear - he recommended a biopsy of the embryos due to my age. I'm not sure how much insurance covers of that so if it's out of pocket and extremely expensive, we may opt against it. 

[seeyalater52]

Nov 27, 2018 19:14:38 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

Nov 27, 2018 17:54:03 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Actually, I read biopsy as a biopsy of the embryos for PGS testing. If you mean a biopsy on you, of your uterus, that could potentially require a full mock FET cycle. Whether your clinic allow you to do that cycle immediately following egg reteieval or wait a cycle and how long it takes for results to come back really depends on what they are biopsying you for.

Yes I definitely wasn't clear - he recommended a biopsy of the embryos due to my age. I'm not sure how much insurance covers of that so if it's out of pocket and extremely expensive, we may opt against it. 

No worries. That usually takes about 2 weeks to get results. I will say it’s a little pricey and almost never covered by insurance unless you have a known genetic issue (and sometimes not even then.) It’s typically in the 2k-5k range depending on whether and how much your clinic charges to biopsy the embryos (sometimes a separate fee from the testing) and how many embryos you end up with depending on how the test company charges. For reference my clinic quoted us 1,500 for the base testing fee, plus 250 an embryo and that’s just for testing, they don’t charge extra for performing the biopsies.

One of my biggest regrets in this entire process is not just testing all our embryos from the start. I was 30 and everyone was confident we wouldn’t need it and now there’s no way to tell if the issues we are having are due to the embryos or due to my uterus or some combo of both. To me it would be money well-spent even though our insurance fully pays for all transfers and medications so the extra transfers aren’t costing us anything monetarily. But the emotional toll has been very steep.

[chocolatepie]

Nov 27, 2018 19:21:50 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Nov 27, 2018 19:14:38 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

Yes I definitely wasn't clear - he recommended a biopsy of the embryos due to my age. I'm not sure how much insurance covers of that so if it's out of pocket and extremely expensive, we may opt against it. 

No worries. That usually takes about 2 weeks to get results. I will say it’s a little pricey and almost never covered by insurance unless you have a known genetic issue (and sometimes not even then.) It’s typically in the 2k-5k range depending on whether and how much your clinic charges to biopsy the embryos (sometimes a separate fee from the testing) and how many embryos you end up with depending on how the test company charges. For reference my clinic quoted us 1,500 for the base testing fee, plus 250 an embryo and that’s just for testing, they don’t charge extra for performing the biopsies.

One of my biggest regrets in this entire process is not just testing all our embryos from the start. I was 30 and everyone was confident we wouldn’t need it and now there’s no way to tell if the issues we are having are due to the embryos or due to my uterus or some combo of both. To me it would be money well-spent even though our insurance fully pays for all transfers and medications so the extra transfers aren’t costing us anything monetarily. But the emotional toll has been very steep.

This is super helpful - thanks. Gives us good insight to consider. 

[King26]

Nov 27, 2018 19:14:38 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

Nov 27, 2018 17:54:03 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Actually, I read biopsy as a biopsy of the embryos for PGS testing. If you mean a biopsy on you, of your uterus, that could potentially require a full mock FET cycle. Whether your clinic allow you to do that cycle immediately following egg reteieval or wait a cycle and how long it takes for results to come back really depends on what they are biopsying you for.

Yes I definitely wasn't clear - he recommended a biopsy of the embryos due to my age. I'm not sure how much insurance covers of that so if it's out of pocket and extremely expensive, we may opt against it. 

We had full insurance coverage for IVF but biopsy od the embryos was not included and totally out of pocket which costs several thousand dollars and take 7 to 10 days on average.