What Are the Odds? April 5, 2005
I’ve been posting with a group of women on an infertility board since August. We started the group because we were all doing our first IVFs in September. Of course people have come and gone since then, but quite a few of us still post there.
There’s something weird going on with this group. It seems that if someone’s going to get lucky and actually get pregnant from this IVF crap, it’s going to happen the first time. In total, 20 people have been part of this group at one time or another. 13 of them are now pregnant, 12 as a result of their first IVF cycles and one who actually got knocked up between cycles. One person was unsuccessful at her first attempt and hasn’t cycled since. That leaves 6 of us who have had multiple failed cycles.
So, it’s like it has to happen the first time or it won’t ever happen. This is contrary to everything I’ve read that says that the odds for success stay the same for the first 3-4 IVFs. I’ve heard about many people getting lucky on the second, third, or more attempts. I know that our group is a small sample and that what’s happened is not statistically significant, blah, blah, blah. My mathematician mother would kick me if she knew I was screwing up the whole statistics thing so royally. I’m not trying to ace a stat exam, though. I understand the whole “statistics are applicable for a population not for an individual” thing. That’s not the point. I’m trying not to make my brain think too much about the technical correctness, or lack there of, concerning my query. I’m just trying to wrap my brain around why, in our group, you either get pregnant on the first IVF attempt or you don’t get pregnant at all.
I’m sure my odds aren’t the 50-60% I was quoted when I first walked in the door of my RE’s office. They’re crap now. Personally I think my odds during any given cycle are about 0.5%. How’s that for scientific?
This weird “first time or never” phenomenon kind of scares the crap out of me. I’m just superstitious enough to let it bother me. My husband thinks that’s crazy. He thinks I’m a lunatic when he hears me say stuff like, “Well last time there was a cluster of cycles in our group it went 3 positives and then 2 negatives. This time there’s already been 3 positives, and I’m up next for beta so I’m screwed.” I can’t help but think crap like that, though. We all know the real odds don’t mean anything, so I might as well make up my own fuzzy logic type odds instead.
I wonder if any of the 6 of us big time losers will ever get and stay pregnant. I wonder if any of us will ever finally beat the odds.
- Posted in : various other ramblings
- Author : amanda
Comments»
I’m another one who’s a great cycle buddy. Every last fucking one of mine got knocked up. But hey, I’m now posting with you. And I really do have a 0.5% chance of getting knocked up. Hope I bring you some luck.
That IS weird. And I don’t like the sound of it at all. It does seem to run completely counter to what we hear about statistics. Ugh.
I’m wondering if that board isn’t just making you crazy and if it isn’t time for you to move on. Aren’t there boards over at IVFC for veterans? That seems like a better place for you at the moment.
But yeah, I do the superstitious stuff all the time, too. Like oh, I’m just starting to get confident now and right when I got confident last time, the baby was already dead so therefore…
Always, always, always beware of generalizing from small data sets. (For example, among my close friends, babies always seem to come matched by gender.)
On the other hand: our doctor at Cornell came out and admitted that yes, success odds do go down some after a second failed cycle. He said that it was true that success rates were about constant for the first n cycles for some pretty big n (maybe 7-ish?), but only as long as you left in women who had gotten pregnant on earlier cycles and were now trying to have another child.
They have a huge program, and an awful lot of data. He basically said that the history of failed cycles, at my age (34), cut their estimate from about 60% to about 40%. But he thought that was high enough to be worth trying again, maybe with some extra tech (we did co-culture to try to improve embryo quality). (We’re also male factor, and working with surgically extracted and frozen immature sperm.)
These are agonizing decisions — and you can never really know whether there even is a reason why things happen, or if it’s just blind chance. I really applaud your efforts to collect as much diagnostic information as you can.
IVF number six worked for me. The first was a miscarriage and then came four flat negatives. It did feel like it works for most people in the first three, and after 5 failed, my doctor would no longer give me odds. I’m not saying you should do 6; the only thing you can do is as many as feel right.
totally agree, for whatever reason it is a trend i’m reading of more and more often, i’m only hoping i’m in the first go lucky group otherwise i’ll be blog reading for a long long time to come… love your blog btw it’s a goody :o)
Posting rather late… but had a thought that maybe the veterans don’t post as much. I hate to admit it – but I think there is a big difference between veterans and first timers. I realized that I was more comfortable at a veteran’s board because the emotions and psyche is very different. So maybe you just don’t see the veterans on the board that your posting on? Because trust me, we’re out there!