Year five of trying to conceive, and my uterine lining had been stuck around 5mm for as long as I could remember. After two failed transfers, I honestly believed the problem was my embryos. It took me way too long to learn the truth: the embryos were fine — the soil wasn’t. In this post, I’ll walk through exactly what happened during my IVF cycles in Shanghai, what lining-thinning treatments I actually tried, and why I ended up seriously researching surrogacy in Kyrgyzstan. Nothing held back.
Only after three failed embryo transfers did I finally understand that 5.2 on my lining report
When my first transfer failed, the doctor just said something like “let nature take its course.” I didn’t push back. After the second failure, I went in with my reports and asked much more specific questions: on transfer day, my lining measured 5.2mm with a Type C pattern. One doctor was blunt with me — below 7mm, implantation rates drop significantly, and among patients with repeated failures, a thin lining is one of the most common causes, yet it’s constantly treated as a “let’s wait and see” issue. Honestly, in my first two cycles, endometrial preparation was basically a box-ticking exercise.
Something you can use right away: before your next cycle, ask exactly how many steps in your protocol are dedicated to lining thickness, pattern, and receptivity testing. If the answer is basically “take some meds and let’s see,” stay alert.
My year of IVF in Shanghai: what it really cost in money and time
I did all my testing and two stimulation cycles in Shanghai. On paper, one stimulation cycle plus transfer runs about 50,000–60,000 RMB. In reality, I spent over 70,000 RMB per cycle — the extra went to hysteroscopy, immune testing, repeated blood draws, and medications. Time-wise, from file registration to a failed transfer, one cycle spans roughly two months. Add lining conditioning and recovery, and a full year disappeared just like that.
To be fair, Shanghai’s actual medical quality was never the problem. Lab standards and physician experience are solid. The issue is that for someone in my situation, the public hospital system offers very limited room for individualized protocol adjustments.
Takeaway: bring a written list of questions to your next visit, including “how does my lining protocol differ from your standard protocol.” Don’t just accept conclusions — ask for the reasoning.
I spent 8 months on lining treatments, got from 5.2 to 6.8 — then I stopped
I tried everything: aspirin, growth hormone, intrauterine infusions, plus traditional Chinese medicine. Eight months of it. My best result was 6.8mm. The doctor told me that even this improvement didn’t statistically clear the bar. I was 38 that year, and my ovarian reserve was sliding too — AMH dropped from 1.5 to 1.1. If I kept grinding away at my lining, by the time it improved, my eggs might not keep up.
I’ve watched so many people spin in circles at exactly this crossroads. The best advice I can give: set a stop-loss point and write it down. Something like “two more cycles — if my lining doesn’t hit 7mm, I switch routes.” People without a stop-loss point get dragged along by “just one more try” forever.
After researching Kyrgyzstan surrogacy seriously, I picked apart these 3 contract clauses word by word
Once my stop-loss point arrived, I started looking at going abroad. My standard for evaluating options was simple: not who runs the most ads, but the legal structure and how transparent the process is. Surrogacy in Kyrgyzstan is legal for married couples, with total costs around 350,000–500,000 RMB — less than half of what the US costs, and with more policy certainty than Georgia offers right now.
Three clauses in the surrogacy contract that I read over and over: first, which party bears responsibility for the surrogate’s prenatal health management; second, the processing timeline for establishing legal parentage after birth (locally it actually takes about 4–6 weeks); third, the clauses on embryo disposition rights. I personally eliminated one agency that quoted 60,000 RMB below everyone else — because it refused to share the surrogate’s medical records with me.
Practical tip: ask any agency for sample prenatal check records from their surrogates and real timelines from past deliveries. If they can’t provide them, walk away for now.
Looking back, my biggest mistake was letting the thin lining issue drag on for years. If you’re also facing repeated transfer failures with a lining repeatedly under 6mm, get your uterine condition thoroughly investigated first, and set a time-based stop-loss point for yourself. Shanghai IVF is absolutely worth it as the main route for your first two or three cycles — the labs are excellent and the process is close to home. But if the lining just won’t cooperate and your ovarian reserve is ticking down, don’t let “one more cycle” eat another year. Whether your answer is donor eggs, surrogacy in Kyrgyzstan, or something else entirely, make the decision with a checklist in hand, not with pure hope. That’s the difference between five more years of waiting and actually holding your baby.