[SunUmbrella]

Hello 👋🏻
This is my first time posting on the site. Found you last week through another forum. Wish I’d known you were here before!! There is so much helpful information.

In brief, I am living in Ireland 🇮🇪 We’ve sadly like everyone else here had a traumatic journey to get here which has so far taken four years. I’m 44 now, we spent 3-4 years trying to address poor sperm quality and in the meantime of course my eggs weren’t getting any younger 😑 After 4 failed rounds of ICSI we switched to donor sperm. We didn’t get any embryos to pass PGS, however. Then switched to double donor but found out last week that our cycle with a Ukraine clinic failed to produce any embryos.

Despite Covid (and Brexit...) we have decided to try UK next as I need an expert in immunology (NK cells) and Dr Gorgy has been recommended by a number of people. Someone also recommended the New Life Egg Donation Agency and I wondered if anyone had had a positive experience with them?

A bit in the dark and would love some advice. Thank you so much 😊

 

[K jade]

So sorry for the tough time you've had
Its very disappointing and surprising that a double donor cycle would fail to produce embryos , how upsetting for you

I don't know alot about DE in the uk as had my cycle in Czech republic,
However I do hear that both aultri and new life are great agencies so I imagine youd be in good hands there.
Many clinics also have their own egg banks .
Care is one of them I think

Now Dr Gorgy is someone I have had direct experience with.
Honestly I'm still very on the fence about him years after seeing him.
He certainly has a devoted fan of people on here who have indeed finally had a successful cycle after his immune protocol.
However there's also a similar number of people for whom his immune diagnosis and treatment did diddly squat and was a big waste of money.
It pains me to say it but I sadly fall into that category .
At my first dr gorgy appointment my bill came to £1600 , and if I'm honest I just paid it as was desperate for answers and solutions to my failed cycles.
Looking back I wasnt really thinking straight. It was donor eggs that were the way foward for me in the end. Although I did have a low dose of steroids and intra lipids with my successful cycle too.

Honestly I'd go foward with a double donor cycle 1st and lay off dr gorgy as it is likely that donor eggs are probably the answer for u, as they were for me.

Should you still not have sucess then I'd look at immune treatment after that ,

Best of luck x

 

[Claudia H]

Hi Sunumbrella - I'm so sorry for the trauma you have been through.

After 8 rounds of OE IVF at various clinics, I swapped to DE with New Life. Anna (who runs it) was amazing, finding me a fabulous donor, complete with childhood photos, in just 6 days when The Lister had made me wait a year! On her recommendation we had treatment with Dr Gorgy in London (the donor had donated there before so they knew what drugs worked best on her) and he was great. He is very softly spoken and I would say concentrates more on the medicine rather than holding your hand but he managed to get 32 eggs from our donor and on day 5 we ended up with 7 beautiful blasts. We now have two amazing daughters and 5 embryos still frozen!

I didn't however have any immune treatment with Dr Gorgy, just straight up DE IVF and it worked first and second time. I'm not convinced Immunes actually work - but I know a lot of people who know more about it will disagree with me on that...

best of luck whatever you decide!
x

 

[snowdropwood]

Gosh, so sorry for your traumas , heartbraking. I dont know anything about this Consultant but just to say that I am solo and had DD IVF in the UK this year, long long journey like so many of us.  Non anonymity of donors was important for me and i stayed in the UK, also the DCN (donor conception network ) for me have been helpful.  The clinic have been very supportive , esp with  the covid shut down and I used Cryos for the sperm donor .  The clinic did not have a wait list for egg donor IVF at the time. I was lucky, currently pregnant but early days, sorry not to have more specific insights, but lots of good things moving forward for you xx

 

[SunUmbrella]

K Jade:
Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I’m so sorry to hear that Dr. Gorgy wasn’t helpful for you but delighted that donor eggs brought your long journey to a happy end. It is reassuring that you had at least heard of the donor egg agency as it’s not a route I’m familiar with at all. My reason for considering Dr. Gorgy is my history of rheumatoid arthritis and very high NK cells. Our last immune specialist left her post following our first donor cycle and I’m worried that if we do finally get good embryos my body will reject them if I’m not on the right meds 😟 Will mull it over though before spending all that money - it is very expensive, thank you!!

Claudia H: That is so reassuring that you know Anna and it sounds like a really fantastic experience with her agency. She is so efficient- spoke to me on the phone immediately and already has a donor in mind for us, who, like yours, has been to Dr Gorgy previously. What a brilliant outcome to your cycle! Yes, I wish we didn’t have the extra complication of the immune issue as the science is still emerging and not well-established just yet for some treatments. I think I’m just very nervous of trying a transfer without an immune “expert” involved and Dr. Gorgy’s the only one recommended to me so far.

Snowdropwood: Delighted for you that things are going so well. Everything crossed for you that this continues 🤞🏼🤞🏼
Thankfully our counsellor recommended Donor Conception Network which has been really helpful, along with NISIG, the Irish fertility support group. We have also used Cryos for last two cycles which sadly failed, but egg quality was the most likely reason I would think. Their website is very good and they do provide loads of information on the donors. We would prefer non-anonymous donors too, which is now built into law I think in UK and Ireland in any case now. Wishing you all the very best for your pregnancy ❤

 

[Pognut]

SunUmbrella (brilliant name btw!), it's worth looking into the other school of thought on reproductive immunology - there's an NHS research lab partly funded by Tommy's at Warwick University which is researching a link between high uterine NK cell levels and implantation failure/miscarriage, but which thinks that there's almost certainly no link between your overall immune system and the way uterine NK cells work, while Dr G etc think there is. The Coventry clinic thinks that the way NK cells in our blood and our wombs work aren't the same (and that the cells aren't actually the same), so supressing the immune system won't necessarily affect our chances of implantation.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/biomedical/tem/bru/

I'm not saying that one is right and the other wrong - the jury is still out on both, and there are people here who have had luck after years using the ARGC approach - but having tried the Gorgy/ARGC approach and then discovered this one, which a) is run by a not-for-profit NHS outfit and b) does seem to have a proper, peer-reviewed scientific research base - I wish we'd gone straight for them. Their tests are only £500 for everything (2 biopsies, pre-consultation and post-results phone consult with a protocol), so it might be worth looking into alongside the other, at least.

Best of luck...

 

[SunUmbrella]

Hi Pognut,
Thank you so much for your really detailed reply. You have given me food for thought there (and explained the theories really well!) I’m not sure if I could access the Tommy’s clinic if I’m not a UK citizen (as it is part of NHS) but I will do some research to find out. Have never heard of this research team before so thanks a million for sending on the link and info! xx

 

[Pognut]

No problem. It is a total bloody minefield and no-one knows anything for sure, which is really NOT what you need on top of all the stress and uncertainty IVF brings, especially when you're using DE (as we are too). Not fun.

The Coventry clinic is an NHS one but you can self-refer there - I did - and it's £500 for everything at that point. So it shouldn't matter if you're not a UK national.

Very best of luck. xx

 

[SunUmbrella]

Pognut,

That's exactly it, a minefield!   It is a very inexact and emerging science which results in a rollercoaster ride in terms of emotions! 

My husband is now determined that we are going to Dr. Gorgy, as I've obviously overdone my sales pitch over the last week   

It is great to know about the Coventry clinic though if we have anything left in the tank in terms of trying again if this (seventh!) attempt fails.  I really do want to know all of the options!

I think we won't be able to settle/ move on until we have literally exhausted every obvious avenue, and that's what's keeping us going.  We are very fortunate to have enough saved to be able to try again, as I know lots of people on this forum aren't so lucky.

Thank you again for your help and mind yourself 
xx