May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

Just skip on over this post if you're not a crazy obsessed person like I am.  When I start to freak out about infertility, facts help to ground me so here's yet another installment of infertility statistics gang.

What are the odds?

Assumptions:

• Each of my FETs had a 50% chance of success
• My last PGS cycle had a 70% chance of success
• The hydrosalpinx reduced the pregnancy rate by 50% 
• All percentages were quoted by my current RE

The Math:

For each of FET #s 1 through 4:
True chance of success was really only 25% (50% x 50%) and failure 75%

Cumulative chance of success with FETs #s 1-4:
1 - (.75 x .75 x .75 x .75) = 68% chance that at least one of those should have worked. Still that's decent odds over time.  

Now the PGS cycle true odds reduced by hydro = 70% x 50% = 35% chance of success and 65% failure

Over the course of the 5 transfers, the odds that at least one of those would be successful =
1 - (.75 x .75 x .75 x .75 x .65) = 80% chance that at least one of those transfers should have worked. Even with the hydrosalpinx! Yikes, those are even more depressing odds that things haven't worked out.

As I feel the hope starting to rumble down in my heart for our next transfer, I'm brought back to the facts. With all these transfers, we still had a really decent shot at success and yet we still failed. The next transfer could definitely epically fail despite finding what I have hoped is the smoking gun to our compounding fertility issues.  So that brings me back to more math.

A new PGS cycle with pregnancy rates restored due to removed tubes should bring our chances for this cycle back to 70%.  And the cumulative rate of success over 6 cycles you ask? Well it's 94% chance that at least one of those transfers should work.  And if we get to transfer the last embryo...it's 98% chance.  If we get that far folks, I think we might have to wake up and listen to the math, just not meant to beat the odds.