PGD - pros & cons?

I've read up on this and was wondering if anyone had any input...

Thanks!

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

I would like to know more about this, as well.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

I've had PGD twice. The cons are the cost...its outrageous. I have a balanced translocation. They had to create probes for my issue. They charge you for drawing blood to create the probes, the actual removal of the cells from the embies and then obviously for the testing.

The first time I did PGD, I was having them only test for my balanced translocation. I was considering doing the aneuploidy panel (they test 5 other chromosomes for other common birth defects such as Trisomy 18, Down's and some others). I didn't opt to do that test, but they ended up doing it anyway. I'm very glad they did. One of the embryos that they would have put back because it looked the best was a Down Syndrome embie. I had 12 eggs, 7 fertilized and of the 7 one was "good." They transferred that 1 and I had a chemical. Since they don't look at every single chromosome, there could have been something besides the common aneuploidy or my translocation that could have been wrong with the embie.

The second time I did PGD, I had 14 eggs, 6 embryos and all were bad (unbalanced).

I stopped doing IVF for now and decided to go back to IUI. Because of my particular problem, it seems I'm having the same results with IVF that I had with IUI. I had no pregnancy and a chemical with IVF, and I've had 6 IUIs, 2 chemicals, a miscarriages and 3 failures.

The positive of PGD, of course, is knowing if your genetic issue is present in the embyos and choosing which are the best embryos to transfer. Also, you do a 5 day transfer with the embryos because it takes time to test. I think this is better for 2 reasons. Firstly, the embryo is "stronger" if it can live outside your body for longer (IMO). Also, your body is more "prepared" to accept a fertilized embryo 5DPO rather than 3DPO. In a "normal" cycle, at 3DPO the embie is still traveling down your fallopian tube. It reaches your uterus by 5DPO. That's when your uterus and lining are really "ready" to accept an embryo. In my opinion, looking at different studies and reading different things, I felt that 5DPO would be a better idea, if I could do it.

If you have any other questions, feel free to FM. I'm obviously no expert or a doctor, but can give you some real life experience

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

I appreciate all the information for me, as well. Thank you for all that. I didn't know it was so costly either.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by LaurenExp

Posted by CAH127

I appreciate all the information for me, as well. Thank you for all that. I didn't know it was so costly either.

For me, the cost of the balanced translocation testing and the aneuploidy, its more than $7K

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by CAH127

Posted by LaurenExp

Posted by CAH127

I appreciate all the information for me, as well. Thank you for all that. I didn't know it was so costly either.

For me, the cost of the balanced translocation testing and the aneuploidy, its more than $7K

Oh my gosh! I take it that even if you are insured for IVF, you are not covered for this. Thanks again for sharing.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

I did PGD with IVF because my husband and I are both cystic fibrosis carriers.

It is costly - I think mine was about $5K but our insurance was pretty good.

I am now 16 weeks pg with our baby and we were very pleased with the information.

It's a personal choice but for us we wanted to make sure our baby would not have CF.

I wish you luck.

Aimee

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Thanks for all the points of view!

Any others would be greatly appreciated.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by LaurenExp

I've had PGD twice. The cons are the cost...its outrageous. I have a balanced translocation. They had to create probes for my issue. They charge you for drawing blood to create the probes, the actual removal of the cells from the embies and then obviously for the testing.

The first time I did PGD, I was having them only test for my balanced translocation. I was considering doing the aneuploidy panel (they test 5 other chromosomes for other common birth defects such as Trisomy 18, Down's and some others). I didn't opt to do that test, but they ended up doing it anyway. I'm very glad they did. One of the embryos that they would have put back because it looked the best was a Down Syndrome embie. I had 12 eggs, 7 fertilized and of the 7 one was "good." They transferred that 1 and I had a chemical. Since they don't look at every single chromosome, there could have been something besides the common aneuploidy or my translocation that could have been wrong with the embie.

The second time I did PGD, I had 14 eggs, 6 embryos and all were bad (unbalanced).

I stopped doing IVF for now and decided to go back to IUI. Because of my particular problem, it seems I'm having the same results with IVF that I had with IUI. I had no pregnancy and a chemical with IVF, and I've had 6 IUIs, 2 chemicals, a miscarriages and 3 failures.

The positive of PGD, of course, is knowing if your genetic issue is present in the embyos and choosing which are the best embryos to transfer. Also, you do a 5 day transfer with the embryos because it takes time to test. I think this is better for 2 reasons. Firstly, the embryo is "stronger" if it can live outside your body for longer (IMO). Also, your body is more "prepared" to accept a fertilized embryo 5DPO rather than 3DPO. In a "normal" cycle, at 3DPO the embie is still traveling down your fallopian tube. It reaches your uterus by 5DPO. That's when your uterus and lining are really "ready" to accept an embryo. In my opinion, looking at different studies and reading different things, I felt that 5DPO would be a better idea, if I could do it.

If you have any other questions, feel free to FM. I'm obviously no expert or a doctor, but can give you some real life experience

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by JsWife

Posted by LaurenExp

I've had PGD twice. The cons are the cost...its outrageous. I have a balanced translocation. They had to create probes for my issue. They charge you for drawing blood to create the probes, the actual removal of the cells from the embies and then obviously for the testing.

The first time I did PGD, I was having them only test for my balanced translocation. I was considering doing the aneuploidy panel (they test 5 other chromosomes for other common birth defects such as Trisomy 18, Down's and some others). I didn't opt to do that test, but they ended up doing it anyway. I'm very glad they did. One of the embryos that they would have put back because it looked the best was a Down Syndrome embie. I had 12 eggs, 7 fertilized and of the 7 one was "good." They transferred that 1 and I had a chemical. Since they don't look at every single chromosome, there could have been something besides the common aneuploidy or my translocation that could have been wrong with the embie.

The second time I did PGD, I had 14 eggs, 6 embryos and all were bad (unbalanced).

I stopped doing IVF for now and decided to go back to IUI. Because of my particular problem, it seems I'm having the same results with IVF that I had with IUI. I had no pregnancy and a chemical with IVF, and I've had 6 IUIs, 2 chemicals, a miscarriages and 3 failures.

The positive of PGD, of course, is knowing if your genetic issue is present in the embyos and choosing which are the best embryos to transfer. Also, you do a 5 day transfer with the embryos because it takes time to test. I think this is better for 2 reasons. Firstly, the embryo is "stronger" if it can live outside your body for longer (IMO). Also, your body is more "prepared" to accept a fertilized embryo 5DPO rather than 3DPO. In a "normal" cycle, at 3DPO the embie is still traveling down your fallopian tube. It reaches your uterus by 5DPO. That's when your uterus and lining are really "ready" to accept an embryo. In my opinion, looking at different studies and reading different things, I felt that 5DPO would be a better idea, if I could do it.

If you have any other questions, feel free to FM. I'm obviously no expert or a doctor, but can give you some real life experience

What is a balanced translocation? Is this why they found so many of the embryos unviable? It seems like a lot for only one of twelve to be considered good, no?

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

My friend did this and 7 out of her 10 eggs that fertilized came back with Down Syndrome....she had to pay $5000...in which I personally thingk if you have the $$$ well worth it.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by melijane

Posted by JsWife

Posted by LaurenExp

I've had PGD twice. The cons are the cost...its outrageous. I have a balanced translocation. They had to create probes for my issue. They charge you for drawing blood to create the probes, the actual removal of the cells from the embies and then obviously for the testing.

The first time I did PGD, I was having them only test for my balanced translocation. I was considering doing the aneuploidy panel (they test 5 other chromosomes for other common birth defects such as Trisomy 18, Down's and some others). I didn't opt to do that test, but they ended up doing it anyway. I'm very glad they did. One of the embryos that they would have put back because it looked the best was a Down Syndrome embie. I had 12 eggs, 7 fertilized and of the 7 one was "good." They transferred that 1 and I had a chemical. Since they don't look at every single chromosome, there could have been something besides the common aneuploidy or my translocation that could have been wrong with the embie.

The second time I did PGD, I had 14 eggs, 6 embryos and all were bad (unbalanced).

I stopped doing IVF for now and decided to go back to IUI. Because of my particular problem, it seems I'm having the same results with IVF that I had with IUI. I had no pregnancy and a chemical with IVF, and I've had 6 IUIs, 2 chemicals, a miscarriages and 3 failures.

The positive of PGD, of course, is knowing if your genetic issue is present in the embyos and choosing which are the best embryos to transfer. Also, you do a 5 day transfer with the embryos because it takes time to test. I think this is better for 2 reasons. Firstly, the embryo is "stronger" if it can live outside your body for longer (IMO). Also, your body is more "prepared" to accept a fertilized embryo 5DPO rather than 3DPO. In a "normal" cycle, at 3DPO the embie is still traveling down your fallopian tube. It reaches your uterus by 5DPO. That's when your uterus and lining are really "ready" to accept an embryo. In my opinion, looking at different studies and reading different things, I felt that 5DPO would be a better idea, if I could do it.

If you have any other questions, feel free to FM. I'm obviously no expert or a doctor, but can give you some real life experience

What is a balanced translocation? Is this why they found so many of the embryos unviable? It seems like a lot for only one of twelve to be considered good, no?

A transloaction is when one of your sets of genes is turned around. (right Lauren?) This can be passed on or not to your children, sometimes they are fine, sometimes not

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Posted by LaurenExp

Posted by melijane

Posted by JsWife

Posted by LaurenExp

I've had PGD twice. The cons are the cost...its outrageous. I have a balanced translocation. They had to create probes for my issue. They charge you for drawing blood to create the probes, the actual removal of the cells from the embies and then obviously for the testing.

The first time I did PGD, I was having them only test for my balanced translocation. I was considering doing the aneuploidy panel (they test 5 other chromosomes for other common birth defects such as Trisomy 18, Down's and some others). I didn't opt to do that test, but they ended up doing it anyway. I'm very glad they did. One of the embryos that they would have put back because it looked the best was a Down Syndrome embie. I had 12 eggs, 7 fertilized and of the 7 one was "good." They transferred that 1 and I had a chemical. Since they don't look at every single chromosome, there could have been something besides the common aneuploidy or my translocation that could have been wrong with the embie.

The second time I did PGD, I had 14 eggs, 6 embryos and all were bad (unbalanced).

I stopped doing IVF for now and decided to go back to IUI. Because of my particular problem, it seems I'm having the same results with IVF that I had with IUI. I had no pregnancy and a chemical with IVF, and I've had 6 IUIs, 2 chemicals, a miscarriages and 3 failures.

The positive of PGD, of course, is knowing if your genetic issue is present in the embyos and choosing which are the best embryos to transfer. Also, you do a 5 day transfer with the embryos because it takes time to test. I think this is better for 2 reasons. Firstly, the embryo is "stronger" if it can live outside your body for longer (IMO). Also, your body is more "prepared" to accept a fertilized embryo 5DPO rather than 3DPO. In a "normal" cycle, at 3DPO the embie is still traveling down your fallopian tube. It reaches your uterus by 5DPO. That's when your uterus and lining are really "ready" to accept an embryo. In my opinion, looking at different studies and reading different things, I felt that 5DPO would be a better idea, if I could do it.

If you have any other questions, feel free to FM. I'm obviously no expert or a doctor, but can give you some real life experience

What is a balanced translocation? Is this why they found so many of the embryos unviable? It seems like a lot for only one of twelve to be considered good, no?

A transloaction is when one of your sets of genes is turned around. (right Lauren?) This can be passed on or not to your children, sometimes they are fine, sometimes not

You're right, Mel, but there's a little more to it. Statistically, out of 18 eggs I produce, 16 of them will have unbalanced translocations, which will cause me to either miscarry immediately or have a child with mild to serious birth defects.

The odds are different if you're actually pregnant. You can either have a child with a balanced translocation (which I have), no translocation at all, an unbalanced translocation which will cause birth defects, or an unbalanced which will cause miscarriage.

I think that PGD is certainly, in fact, definitely a valuable thing if doing IVF and you have some sort of genetic disorder possible in offspring. In other words, I wouldn't do IVF without PGD.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Thank you so much everyone for your input. We are leaning towards doing it. The only real issue we are dealing with is "avanced maternal age." (it sounds a lot worse than just turning 38!). Anyway, we are lucky enough to be able to afford this - just wanted to hear about the down sides to it....

I wasn't sure if extracting the cells themselves damaged the embryos.

Please keep the thoughts coming!

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

We opted against it.
I went to three different Drs. and the general consensus was that there is no guarantee of better results with PGD re: age.
I started IVF when I was 40 and after several failed transfers my RE suggested it.
But, since we have no genetic issues and it was just age/PCOS, we opted to transfer all the embies until we got a good one.

I think if the $$$ issue wasn't there (it was for us), I might have done it just to save on the number of transfers I did.

Message edited 2/11/2008 10:17:35 PM.

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Well, I've told my RE that we are going to do it. Thanks for all the posts!

Re: PGD - pros & cons?

Good luck to you!

Message edited 2/12/2008 8:17:09 PM.