Doctors say you can’t change your euploidy rate. In my personal case study, I feel able to respectfully disagree. With 5 cycles and $100k spent on IVF, I shifted my euploidy rate from 0–20% to 66% (and 83% transferrable when including low level mosaics). That is the equivalent of going from an average 43 year old to an average 25–30 year old. My one hope is that other women can learn from what my citizen science experiment taught me, and apply what they can to their own cycles.

My final IVF cycle was in September 2024, when I was 40 years and 6 months old. My AMH estimated at 1.9–2ng/ml, antral follicle count 5–7, FSH between 8 and 11. I have an unknown cause of infertility, likely tubal. I lost my right tube to an ectopic pregnancy back in 2021 which occured immediately after an investigative laparoscopy and tubal flush. I have had minor endometriosis, fibroids and a previous diagnosis with high natural killer cells.

I was successful with my first round of IVF at 37 (third transfer, untested embryos on an immune protocol) which gave me my son. These five later cycles came after deciding we wanted to try for a second and final child.

I kept the same base protocol every cycle. I tested moving clinics. Different countries, different labs, different doctors, same result. It wasn’t until I started researching, speaking with embryologists, reading studies, trawling forums, and building hypotheses that things began to change. I didn’t just try everything. I focused on things with enough evidence to suggest they could work without high risk of harm. Each cycle I added something new and when it worked, I stacked the next thing on top. And slowly, I saw my embryos change.

There were of course moments where I wondered whether everything I was doing was an exercise in futility. But I kept analysing my own data. I looked at every embryo by stage, day, hours cultured, morphology. Patterns emerged that no study had ever told me. For me, expansion stage 4 embryos never once gave me a euploid or mosaic. By stage 5, suddenly there was a 50/50 chance. By cycle five, five of six embryos reached stage 5 by day 5, something I had never seen before.

I am not a doctor or a health professional. I am a long term IVF patient and citizen researcher. I have completed advanced university level training in biology, microbiology, pregnancy, embryology and research methods. But what I have learned comes mostly from living this for the past half decade. IVF has been a marathon of limbos. A test of patience (both my own and my dear husband’s). A constant lesson in self-advocacy.

My story is about knowing when enough is enough, how to push when the odds are against you, and how to walk away knowing you gave it everything you could.

I am currently pregnant with a 5AA euploid from cycle 5. My new little miracle is due February 3rd, 2026.