‘Egg quality is bad’

[HPLondon]

Hi, am currently in a complete doom spiral.

Husband and I have had 2 failed FET’s (as a result of ICSI) - due to male factor. Plus 3 x IUI’s before that.

NHS clinic really hasn’t been good so we’ve requested all our medical details so we can go private.

Just got them and it says on two separate documents ‘egg quality is bad’. That’s it, just ‘is bad’.

They have NEVER said to us that this is an issue.

I have PSO so had a lot of eggs at collection. 16 mature, 11 fertilised but only 3 got to 5 day blasts. They told us they were top quality...but none implanted. I was 30 at the time, just turned 31.

When I asked why we only had three they said nothing to us about egg quality!! Said fertilisation rate was below average but nothing to worry about.

I just feel like we’re totally screwed now, if both sperm and eggs are ‘bad’.

I’m trying to get an appointment to talk about this and we’ll take the private clinic...but wondered if anyone had a view or at least some positive words?

It’s been four years now, I’m so tired.

Thanks for reading x

[waitingg]

Hi HP, sorry to hear you are going through this. Your story sounds very similar to ours. I don’t think 3 reaching blasto stage is that bad (we had 19 fertilise, 4 blastos....next round 14 fertilise 2 blastos....next round 17 fertilise 3 blastos). We had male factor and also Pco. We moved to a private client and the monitoring was much better suited to us. We did IMSI too so that better sperm was picked out as further tests showed that husbands DNA frag was high as well as low count. It could be that your quality isn’t bad but it’s a case of lots of eggs so possibly it’s quantity over quality (was for me). They noted that many of my eggs were too soft. The private clinic they tested for immunes and I had high nk cells which could have been the reason that so many ‘good quality’ embryos weren’t implanting.

We have had financial help from our families so are extremely lucky as the testing is expensive, but I have found that moving clinics was our best move (our original clinic had really good results but it just wasn’t working for our issues). You can take supplements to help both sperm and egg quality whilst you wait- we went to see a nutritionist who helped us with this. Wishing you all the best, it’s such a tough process xxx

[Crista240411]

Hi

Quoting that egg quality is bad so early, sounds very strange to be honest...

We have always done things privately due to my age and we know we have sperm issues and we have always done ICSI. After 4 failed attempts, only the 4th had a BFP but turned to a miscarriage at 11 wks

Each time we only had 1 blastocyst at best and some others only 1 early blastosyst, so after all these attempts the clinic things that possibly due to my age (I am 42) it could be due to quality of eggs.

The private clinic insists that there are no tests available to check the quality of eggs

I really think with what you have said that if you go privately they wont give you the same feedback

[HPLondon]

Thank you both, this really helps x

[Cinderella5]

I wouldnt have thought you had that bad egg quality if you got 3 blastocysts from one cycle, reckon that is quite harsh although I think the average is around 45-55% of fertilised eggs get to blastocyst stage so a little on the low side but only slightly (quoting my clinic here). If you are planning another cycle you could try taking some supplements for a few months beforehand to try to improve your egg quality - DHEA and ubiquinol (Coq10) are the most common ones. Worth having a chat to the clinic though to get their thoughts in person.xx

[HPLondon in reply to Cinderella5]

Interesting, thank you - this helps x

[Hopefulholly]

Hi

My clinic my consultant decided she wanted to do everything to improve quality so I took dhea, co-q10 and used testogel just before treatment, also if semen quality isn’t great imsi is a great way to improve results we used that this time and all 5 of our eggs fertilised we had a 5 day transfer and I’m currently 7 weeks pregnant so it is definitely possible please don’t give up with a private clinic they will be able to give you more advice xXx

[HPLondon in reply to Hopefulholly]

Thank you, sounds like I need to think about supplements!

[Hidden]

Hi.

I think they mean when they have gone to inject the sperm in to the egg they have found the eggs are too soft or fragile which indicates poor egg quality.

Supplementation may help but would advice seeing a health professional as you can somethings make things worse.

Good luck.

[HPLondon in reply to Hidden]

Interesting, thank you!