I’m 36F and I’m currently going through my third loss of this year.
We have decided to take a 6 month break from treatment to try to uncover what’s going wrong, help me lose as much weight as possible (my current BMI is 41) and give our heads and hearts a rest.
I have a follow up with my consultant next week and would like to go to that appointment prepared with some ideas of where we want to start with testing. My consultant is very experienced but very… matter of fact, it’s hard to explain but I feel like he is following a checklist of just adding meds for each FET rather than stopping and saying “this isn’t right, there must be a reason, and my gut feeling/experience says we should start with testing for… ??”
In 2023 we had a successful fresh transfer. My husband has azoospermia so we used a timed egg retrieval and mTESE surgery.
In 2025, we had an ICSI round with a frozen sperm sample which ultimately resulted in zero viable embryos. We then had a back to back egg retrieval using donor sperm. This ended in a freeze all as I had 30 eggs retrieved and my progesterone was also too high for a fresh transfer. We PGT-A tested 11 blastocysts. I very very naively thought things would be smooth sailing from here because using donor sperm closed the door on our male factor infertility.
We started 2026 with 7 euploid embryos and 2 segmental aneuploids. Our first FET ended in a chemical, I was using Cyclogest for progesterone support.
Second FET we added Prednisolone 15mg, Clexane and lubion, and had a failed FET.
Third FET we upped the Prednisolone to 20mg, and swapped lubion for Prontogest (PIO) but unfortunately we experienced another chemical.
During previous consultations, my consultant has mentioned a saline hysterosonogram, thrombophilia screening, immunology testing and ALICE/EMMA. If we go ahead with all of this now, we are looking at a bill for £4,300 just for the tests and quite frankly at this point we need to be budget conscious and start with the investigations that are most likely to help our specific situation if we can.
I have contacted the Implantation Clinic at Warwick Uni and they’re currently closed to new patients so I have joined the waiting list. I have contacted Locus Medicus in Athens and they can do thrombophilia screening and immunology testing for around €700, but that involves travel time and costs too, and I don’t know how beneficial those particular tests will be as a starting point given that we have had a previous success.
I am feeling so lost and overwhelmed with all of the information that I am trying to learn, I hate that I have this feeling that I need to almost become more expert than the experts in order to tell them what treatment or tests I should have next, I would just love for my consultant to take charge more and tell me what he feels is the best next step rather than letting me make these decisions.
If you were (or have been) in my position, where would you start now? What tests are the most obvious to start with? Where can I have them done at a reasonable cost? (I am in Yorkshire, England and my clinic is a 300 mile round trip away in London)