No fertilisation- what should I be asking in tomorrows Follow Up meeting?

[Char1t]

Hi

It’s been just over a month since our first cycle of IVF failed after egg retrieval as none of my 10 eggs fertilised. We have undiagnosed infertility and on the day of egg retrieval were told both egg and sperm looked in good condition (no previous issues with Sperm on tests). I finally have my follow up appointment tomorrow and we want to find out what we can - has anyone been through similar and can recommend/advise types of questions we should ask so that we get the full picture and know our options? Thanks

[Hightail]

I would be asking them to check the sperm for antibodies.

We had this issue and requested that they retest, test came back positive for antibodies. (Apparently not all dr test for this in a sperm analysis)

So we did icsi, and got a better fertilisation result.

One made it to a 5aa hatching blast (fresh transfer) and the other has been frozen.

We have been on this journey for a long time. This was our tenth cycle.

Hopefully we don’t have much longer to go!

Good luck at your appointment!

[Char1t in reply to Hightail]

Thanks - this is helpful. Hope everything goes well for you xx

[Kyell2]

This is similar to us, we had 10 collected, 9 mature enough to fertilise and only 2 fertilised. We luckily got 1 to day 5 blast and freeze.

We used donor sperm so thoroughly tested and no issues with eggs.

They are saying there are no obvious reasons for low fertilisation but that if the one we use doesn’t work then we definitely need to use ICSI.

I hope you get some answers.

Like hightail has said above have they done any more checks on sperm to see if there are issues.

Hope it goes well tomorrow 🤞 x

[Char1t in reply to Kyell2]

Thanks - good luck to you xx

[Stephybivf]

Hey, the same happened to us in feb. We had 7 eggs and zero fertilisation even with ICSI. Half of my my eggs where immature last time and they couldn’t give me an answer as to why the others hadn’t fertilised. This second cycle has been so much better, I was put in a higher dose of stimms and left longer on them with a dual trigger and all my eggs matured this time, 6 fertilised with 4 making it to blasto stage. I would be certainly asking about ICSI and if the protocol needs changing and how many of your eggs where mature. Good luck xxx

[Char1t in reply to Stephybivf]

Thanks - that’s interesting about the dual trigger and I will definitely ask about a change in protocol if we can try ICSI. Hope it all works out for you xx

[Char1t]

Thanks for the advice everyone. We had our appointment yesterday and the consultant has said it remains unexplained as to why none fertilised but given the quality of egg and sperm they are optimistic about ICSI giving us a good chance. Although it would be good to have a reason we are very relieved that they didn’t find any other issues and that we can go ahead with ICSI. They are going to make a change from the Gonal F to Menopur next round to see if that has any slight improvement in responses.