IVF/ICSI Support Group

Hi ladies, I have not login to this account for quite some time. I was successfully conceived via IVF by Dr Tan HH from KKH, he was also my gynae and helped me to give birth to my baby girl.

1 year+ back I was pregnant but was having very heavy spotting. I tot I couldn’t make it but I keep telling my B.B. to be strong.

It was rather emotional for me as I did not tell my family or friends (only close Friend know about it) that I went thru IVF.
I was bedrest for almost 3 weeks till it get better and I hear my baby’s first heartbeat.
Afterwhich, I experienced very bad morning sickness all the way till 2nd trimester.

It was really tough at first, but my determination keeps me going on. And I have successfully gave birth to a beautiful baby girl
months ago.

My labour was a smooth one with no contraction pain at all and I requested for epidural even without any pain.

I was upset previously as I only had 2 blasts after extracting so much eggs.

But I guess the quality is more important than the quantity.

Jia you mummy, don’t give up! You know u can do it!!!
 


Yup will be closed in end December, from what I understand I think 30 November is the last day that your period can come where you can be slotted in so maybe the doctor estimates that period will come before then? But I think better check with them to be sure!

Oh KKHIVF is closed end December not for the whole month, hope i am in time to be slot in as most of my bosses are on vacation in December, just did my SIS, small polys detected but doctor say is very small in size so no need to remove, have water cysts around my ovaries due to PCOS, she gave me 2 cycle of hormone pills to induce my menses to flush it out for October and November to reduce my thick lining. Now waiting for my last blood test result to be out within 2 weeks, Doc say if all in order KKHIVF centre will call me for counseling. Jia you everyone, took me a lot of courage to take this step, hope it will turn out well!
 
Oh KKHIVF is closed end December not for the whole month, hope i am in time to be slot in as most of my bosses are on vacation in December, just did my SIS, small polys detected but doctor say is very small in size so no need to remove, have water cysts around my ovaries due to PCOS, she gave me 2 cycle of hormone pills to induce my menses to flush it out for October and November to reduce my thick lining. Now waiting for my last blood test result to be out within 2 weeks, Doc say if all in order KKHIVF centre will call me for counseling. Jia you everyone, took me a lot of courage to take this step, hope it will turn out well!
you don't need to wait to be in the queue to do the counselling.
 
Hi dear, when is your appt with Dr Tan? So fast can go for Nov slot already?

Hi, i met dr around 3rd week of sept. Actually i can go in oct queue, but due to last min, i cant take leave from work and i am travelling end october which is about day 20 of my cycle. Afraid that i may have ET that period so schedule in nov.

Cause it seems like i cannot really predict when is ER and ET, better to be in nov where i will be in singapore.

Just that have to wait one more month.

So we cannot do ivf in december? Even if menses is during first week of dec?
 
Hello..

anyone tried Blackmores Conceive Well Gold? Will the supplement help?

Currently waiting for gynae appointment for further advice to proceed with 1st IVF.
 
I have also seen Dr Tan yesterday. He is nice and patient. He is assuring too. He said will change my injections and have to come back for injection after ET
 
Hihi!

I am starting my IVF/ICSI journey next week when my menses come. Can I check if any of your Doctor proposed an additional test to test the quality of your embryos? Is this common? Cos I miscarry last year. So my doc propose this. But it’s quite expensive about SGD6k. We can’t use Medisave for this. Doc told me this will increase my chances for pregnancy. Cost is a concern for me. Not sure if I should go with this. Grateful for advises. Thanks!!
 
me back in the cycle again. Failed my 1st fresh IVF in Mar with no frozen with Jessie. Currently in my tww with THH. Have read that blastocyst is nt recommended for older woman like me. so this time, me n hb decided we will request doc not to go for blast. But when come D2 for ET, thh brought us to a consultation rm and told us that we have 7 embryos and he recommend that we go for blast. We told him that we prefer not to go for blast but he said cos of my age, he dun wan us to waste time if the embryo is no gd. He said that the best will survived. So we accepted his explanation n go for blast. On Day 5, we went bk for ET n was told all survived and they took the 2 best 1 for me.

Embryologist say will review the rest of the embryos for another day or 2 before they freeze. Any idea will they call to inform how many survived and get frozen? Cos till today, there's no sound from them.
 
Hihi!

I am starting my IVF/ICSI journey next week when my menses come. Can I check if any of your Doctor proposed an additional test to test the quality of your embryos? Is this common? Cos I miscarry last year. So my doc propose this. But it’s quite expensive about SGD6k. We can’t use Medisave for this. Doc told me this will increase my chances for pregnancy. Cost is a concern for me. Not sure if I should go with this. Grateful for advises. Thanks!!
Hi Dear, I'm real curious so I tried to google it on the test.. Here you go..
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...normalities-in-embryos-on-hold-at-nuh-9327800
 
me back in the cycle again. Failed my 1st fresh IVF in Mar with no frozen with Jessie. Currently in my tww with THH. Have read that blastocyst is nt recommended for older woman like me. so this time, me n hb decided we will request doc not to go for blast. But when come D2 for ET, thh brought us to a consultation rm and told us that we have 7 embryos and he recommend that we go for blast. We told him that we prefer not to go for blast but he said cos of my age, he dun wan us to waste time if the embryo is no gd. He said that the best will survived. So we accepted his explanation n go for blast. On Day 5, we went bk for ET n was told all survived and they took the 2 best 1 for me.

Embryologist say will review the rest of the embryos for another day or 2 before they freeze. Any idea will they call to inform how many survived and get frozen? Cos till today, there's no sound from them.
Maybe you can go back on your BT day and then request to speak to the embryologist on the remaining embryos,
 
Hihi!

I am starting my IVF/ICSI journey next week when my menses come. Can I check if any of your Doctor proposed an additional test to test the quality of your embryos? Is this common? Cos I miscarry last year. So my doc propose this. But it’s quite expensive about SGD6k. We can’t use Medisave for this. Doc told me this will increase my chances for pregnancy. Cost is a concern for me. Not sure if I should go with this. Grateful for advises. Thanks!!

Maybe I can share a bit of my personal experience here. But this does not apply to alll women. Maybe I’m just the unlucky one.

I had a good collection of eggs and 11 have made it to 5-6 days blastocysts. Many (even myself) might have thought that I would stand a very good chance with 1 of these 11. However, things do not turn out the way it is. I had transferred my 8th&9th blasts and currently on my tww now. The first 7 blasts did not made it. It’s actually a waste of money and emotionally draining to have failed so many times. If I have gone for the PGS and select the best blastocysts I wouldn’t have to go through so many failed transfer. And because I have fully utilized the govt subsidies and max up $15k mediaave usage, my subsequent transfer or next round of ER will be 100% out of own pocket.

That said, a few factors for consideration. It’s probably more advisable for you if you have many eggs. Secondly, not all women are as sway as me la .

So it’s really up to you to decide. But if I had another choice, I would go for the PGS testing.
 
Maybe I can share a bit of my personal experience here. But this does not apply to alll women. Maybe I’m just the unlucky one.

I had a good collection of eggs and 11 have made it to 5-6 days blastocysts. Many (even myself) might have thought that I would stand a very good chance with 1 of these 11. However, things do not turn out the way it is. I had transferred my 8th&9th blasts and currently on my tww now. The first 7 blasts did not made it. It’s actually a waste of money and emotionally draining to have failed so many times. If I have gone for the PGS and select the best blastocysts I wouldn’t have to go through so many failed transfer. And because I have fully utilized the govt subsidies and max up $15k mediaave usage, my subsequent transfer or next round of ER will be 100% out of own pocket.

That said, a few factors for consideration. It’s probably more advisable for you if you have many eggs. Secondly, not all women are as sway as me la .

So it’s really up to you to decide. But if I had another choice, I would go for the PGS testing.

What is 8th and 9th blasts?
I thought there is no pgs in singapore?
 
Hello,
Gg to start the ivf soon. But still feeling a bit lost here. Just wondering what is the difference between day 3 and blastocyst transfer? Like which is better?
Is it usually just between day 3 and day 5? Or there is day 6, day 7, etc trsf?
For the ER, is it whatever eggs there are wil be retrieved?
Thank you for the attention!
 
Hi,
Sorry to hear that. Have faith, this round will succeed! What were the grade of your blasts. did any implant? Did you try endoscratch or intralipid to improve the implantation?


Maybe I can share a bit of my personal experience here. But this does not apply to alll women. Maybe I’m just the unlucky one.

I had a good collection of eggs and 11 have made it to 5-6 days blastocysts. Many (even myself) might have thought that I would stand a very good chance with 1 of these 11. However, things do not turn out the way it is. I had transferred my 8th&9th blasts and currently on my tww now. The first 7 blasts did not made it. It’s actually a waste of money and emotionally draining to have failed so many times. If I have gone for the PGS and select the best blastocysts I wouldn’t have to go through so many failed transfer. And because I have fully utilized the govt subsidies and max up $15k mediaave usage, my subsequent transfer or next round of ER will be 100% out of own pocket.

That said, a few factors for consideration. It’s probably more advisable for you if you have many eggs. Secondly, not all women are as sway as me la .

So it’s really up to you to decide. But if I had another choice, I would go for the PGS testing.
 
Hi,
Sorry to hear that. Have faith, this round will succeed! What were the grade of your blasts. did any implant? Did you try endoscratch or intralipid to improve the implantation?
KKH doesn’t grade the blastocysts. They will tell you whether it’s good or average. I read many of cases that the grading does not matter as many have succeeded with the lower grades. The dr did mention that I do have beautiful blastocysts (not sure how they define, perhaps by the looks of the cells formation). And they will usually use up the better blasts first.

I have thin lining so I didn’t go for endoscratch although my dr did arrange a session for me. And because I was pregnant before (ended MC) so in fact the scratch weren’t necessary. I’m not sure about intralipid, probably will google it ;)
 
What is 8th and 9th blasts?
I thought there is no pgs in singapore?
There’s PGS in Singapore. Like what Funshine said, it cost about $6k.

8th and 9th blasts refer to my blastocysts the # of blastocysts that I have transferred (out of the 11 blastocyst that I have)
 
me back in the cycle again. Failed my 1st fresh IVF in Mar with no frozen with Jessie. Currently in my tww with THH. Have read that blastocyst is nt recommended for older woman like me. so this time, me n hb decided we will request doc not to go for blast. But when come D2 for ET, thh brought us to a consultation rm and told us that we have 7 embryos and he recommend that we go for blast. We told him that we prefer not to go for blast but he said cos of my age, he dun wan us to waste time if the embryo is no gd. He said that the best will survived. So we accepted his explanation n go for blast. On Day 5, we went bk for ET n was told all survived and they took the 2 best 1 for me.

Embryologist say will review the rest of the embryos for another day or 2 before they freeze. Any idea will they call to inform how many survived and get frozen? Cos till today, there's no sound from them.

Hi,
On the day of the BT, you will have to collect a report from the embryologist. They will inform you abt the number of embryos or blastocysts that have been successfully frozen and stored.
All the best for your cycle!
 
Hihi!

I am starting my IVF/ICSI journey next week when my menses come. Can I check if any of your Doctor proposed an additional test to test the quality of your embryos? Is this common? Cos I miscarry last year. So my doc propose this. But it’s quite expensive about SGD6k. We can’t use Medisave for this. Doc told me this will increase my chances for pregnancy. Cost is a concern for me. Not sure if I should go with this. Grateful for advises. Thanks!!

PGS will significantly increase the pregnancy and live birth chances. Its not 100% success, but the chances are better
http://drgeoffreysherivf.com/pros-cons-preimplantation-genetic-screening-pgs-used-selectively/

In SG, PGS used to be illegal. But now its offered at 3 gov hospitals on a trial basis since 2017. Heard that they will refuse to transfer abnormal embryos, and u cannot check the gender.
https://www.youngparents.com.sg/pre...bout-genetic-screening-ivf-embryos-singapore/
 
Hello,
Gg to start the ivf soon. But still feeling a bit lost here. Just wondering what is the difference between day 3 and blastocyst transfer? Like which is better?
Is it usually just between day 3 and day 5? Or there is day 6, day 7, etc trsf?
For the ER, is it whatever eggs there are wil be retrieved?
Thank you for the attention!

After Egg Retrieval. Some eggs will be mature, some eggs will be immature. The embryologist will attempt to fertilise the mature eggs to create embryos. Out of these, some may fail to fertilise. Out of the embryos, some will "arrest" (stop growing) as the days go past. The attrition rate can be quite high, it is not unusual to get 30% to 50% Day 5 embryos out of the original number of eggs harvested. i.e. harvest 9 eggs and get 3x Day 5 embryos. Or harvest 15 eggs and get 7x Day 5 embryos.

Some clinics insist on transferring Day 5 or 6 embryos as they believe these have a better chance of propagating a pregnancy.
However, other clinics are ok to transfer day 2 or 3 embryos.

Most top clinics internationally prefer to transfer Day 5 embryos. The logic is that if the embryo made it to Day 5, it is more likely to be chromosome-normal. Whereas if day2 or 3 embryos are transfered, some of these might never even make it to Day 5 in the first place and therefore never be able to propagate a pregnancy
 
There’s PGS in Singapore. Like what Funshine said, it cost about $6k.

8th and 9th blasts refer to my blastocysts the # of blastocysts that I have transferred (out of the 11 blastocyst that I have)

Doed kkh offer pgs? Caude that time i asked and dr tan said that it is still in trial and not allowed.

Anyone actually did it during ivf with no history of miscarriage and chromosome abnormaliry in famuly.
 
For ladies that bfp, what vitamins do you all continue to take during TWW?

I am currently on multi-vit, Vit D, Vit E, Folic, Probiotic, revosit and aspirin.
 
After Egg Retrieval. Some eggs will be mature, some eggs will be immature. The embryologist will attempt to fertilise the mature eggs to create embryos. Out of these, some may fail to fertilise. Out of the embryos, some will "arrest" (stop growing) as the days go past. The attrition rate can be quite high, it is not unusual to get 30% to 50% Day 5 embryos out of the original number of eggs harvested. i.e. harvest 9 eggs and get 3x Day 5 embryos. Or harvest 15 eggs and get 7x Day 5 embryos.

Some clinics insist on transferring Day 5 or 6 embryos as they believe these have a better chance of propagating a pregnancy.
However, other clinics are ok to transfer day 2 or 3 embryos.

Most top clinics internationally prefer to transfer Day 5 embryos. The logic is that if the embryo made it to Day 5, it is more likely to be chromosome-normal. Whereas if day2 or 3 embryos are transfered, some of these might never even make it to Day 5 in the first place and therefore never be able to propagate a pregnancy

Thanks for the easy to understand explanation. I tried to google. I read that day 3 is done cos low number of eggs retrieved, and from the retrived eggs, there are good quality ones and can be identified easily and hence day 3 trsf.
But day 5 when cos too many eggs retrieved...so from here, there's also higher number of good quality ones...so difficult to pick out which ones are really good...hence culture them to day 5 to better identify the really good ones.
Did i understand correctly from the internet research?
 
Hi,
On the day of the BT, you will have to collect a report from the embryologist. They will inform you abt the number of embryos or blastocysts that have been successfully frozen and stored.
All the best for your cycle!

Thanks Shinkirou. i have tested awhile ago on pregnancy test kit and it was -ve. Haiz... likely to fail again. Hope my menses dont come so fast. Previous try, my menses came a few days before BT.
 
Thanks Shinkirou. i have tested awhile ago on pregnancy test kit and it was -ve. Haiz... likely to fail again. Hope my menses dont come so fast. Previous try, my menses came a few days before BT.
Hi actuali its consider good achievement on getting blastocyst at your age. Do you already have a kid, this is trying for subsequent one?
 
Just had an appointment with HH Tan , he gave me 2 options. Keyhole surgery or straight to IVF. I decided to go with keyhole surgery but like regret leh. What are the success rate of unblocking the tube?
 
Dun give up! 7 blasts is really good. As long as blasts are avail, means hope is there. How many dp post FET are u at?

Hi Jo777, tis is my 2nd fresh. currently at 8dp5dt. I'm actually quite surprise to have all made it to blast The previous round of the 8 fertilised, only 2 made it to day 5. but their growth is only at Day 3 or 4.
 
Maybe I can share a bit of my personal experience here. But this does not apply to alll women. Maybe I’m just the unlucky one.

I had a good collection of eggs and 11 have made it to 5-6 days blastocysts. Many (even myself) might have thought that I would stand a very good chance with 1 of these 11. However, things do not turn out the way it is. I had transferred my 8th&9th blasts and currently on my tww now. The first 7 blasts did not made it. It’s actually a waste of money and emotionally draining to have failed so many times. If I have gone for the PGS and select the best blastocysts I wouldn’t have to go through so many failed transfer. And because I have fully utilized the govt subsidies and max up $15k mediaave usage, my subsequent transfer or next round of ER will be 100% out of own pocket.

That said, a few factors for consideration. It’s probably more advisable for you if you have many eggs. Secondly, not all women are as sway as me la .

So it’s really up to you to decide. But if I had another choice, I would go for the PGS testing.

Thanks for sharing your experience. So PGS is now approved in Singapore? Cos I read one of the articles in Sep18 that it’s not approved yet.

All the best to you! Wish you good luck!
 
Thanks for sharing your experience. So PGS is now approved in Singapore? Cos I read one of the articles in Sep18 that it’s not approved yet.

All the best to you! Wish you good luck!

There’s an ongoing govt subsidised clinical trial at NUH, SGH and KKH, for women that meet specific criteria: >35yo, history of lack of success with IVF and/or multiple miscarriages.

The trial is intended to demonstrate that PGS can greatly reduce miscarriages and complications during pregnancies. But we didn’t do it in the end because it’s very black and white: mosaic embryos will not be transferred although they have been proven to be able to realise healthy pregnancies.

Cost is around $6-7k after the subsidy, on top of everything else, actually depend on the number of blastocysts to screen.

They allow you to make the decision on D5 in the morning based on the labs assessment of how many blasts you have at that moment in time. We had 3 that morning, so we decided against it. By D6, we had 7 blastocysts frozen to try with.

Must be terrible going through all that stress of repeated FETs. It took us a year to get back on track after our last failed FET because it meant we had to start a brand new cycle and do the stim and retrieval again.

But I really couldn’t deal with not giving all our babies a chance.
 
Yeah. I read there’s a 20% change of damaging the embryo? My fren did mentioned they will take a bit of embryo for testing. I do not have the heart to do that too. I do want to increase my probability. But I am not sure I want to take the risk. Well the cost is a huge concern too. Furthermore this procedure is still under trial. It’s like a huge risk to take.
 
Just had an appointment with HH Tan , he gave me 2 options. Keyhole surgery or straight to IVF. I decided to go with keyhole surgery but like regret leh. What are the success rate of unblocking the tube?

Hi Rine.

I had both blocked tubes and initially KKH suggested I go for ivf straight and not waste time unblocking the tubes. Different doctors will have different views.

For my case I thought I can try to unblock the tubes first so I did (at TMC) but only one side managed to get unblocked. Tried naturally for 6 months but no news so went ahead with ivf and did another hsg test and was told the tube was blocked again.
I think I also developed some adhesions from the surgery. So now each time before ET, I do a Hysteroscopy to ensure the adhesions didn’t grow that will hinder implantation of the embryo.

Blocked tubes may or may not have impact on ivf. Some blocked tubes can have fluid in it (hydrosalpinx) which will also affect implantation.
 
Thank TowKayNeo. Then can i ask how they thaw when going for FET? Will they thaw 2 everytime?

When you are heading to FET, it depends on whether you are going for medicated or natural. Medicated FET means they will give you meds to thicken your lining. Once it hits 8mm, they can thaw and do the transfer a few days later (depending on whether you want to blast your frozen embryos).

Thawing 2 everytime is not a must. Depends on what you communicate with your doc. For example, you already have 2 kids and this kid will be your last one, the doc will suggest thawing all the embryos and see which one is the "fittest"and do the transfer.
 


Just had an appointment with HH Tan , he gave me 2 options. Keyhole surgery or straight to IVF. I decided to go with keyhole surgery but like regret leh. What are the success rate of unblocking the tube?
I was at the same crossroad as you - after failing IVF for a few times, THH realised that the main cause could be my blocked tube (I only have one remaining tube after removing the other due to ectopic) and I was given 2 options: Remove the remaining tube or unblock it. I chose to remove as it would always be a hindrance to my goal of having a kid. No point having the unhealthy tube but no kids.
 

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