Hi everyone, unfortunately our first IVF cycle failed. I had a difficult week but I know I am not alone and many couples are going through the same thing. I'm already thinking of second cycle however I know its too soon.
I have an appointment on Tuesday to review the first cycle and I wanted to know in your experience is there any important questions that I should ask?
We have no frozen embryos unfortunately. so we have to start a fresh cycle. Basically we have 8 matured eggs and 6 got fertilised and they were all doing good at day three, but on the day of transfer the embryologist told us only one has become Blastocyst and to be honest since then I know we will not going to get pregnant.
I am 35 years old, and till now I never thought the quality of egg could be our problem but as our IVF failed I am thinking what else could have gone wrong...
I appreciate any advise or suggestions ❤️
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Mara84
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I am so sorry to hear that! Try to relax a bit and heal. Maybe it is good to find out why the embryo didn't implant and whether it was something to do with your progesterone level. Sending you lots of good vibes! Stay positive!
Hi, thank you so much for writing to me. regarding the progesterone level, I've done a blood test on the day of transfer and it was in the ideal level.
I'm very concerned about the quality of my eggs... I guess this is something that I have to improve...
It could be many things; Blood clotting issue (I have pai-1 mutation blood clotting issue that was only picked up after I demanded more thorough testing than the normal recurrent miscarriage panel), it could be the timing of transfer and you need an ERA, it could be that you have some scar tissue and need it removed or you have a problematic shaped uterus and need a Hysteroscopy camera to see what's going on...progesterone or other hormones may need testing, immunological issues, nk cells may be too high...lots of tests can be done for both you and husband to see if this is something that can be sorted before your next FET.
Once again I'm so sorry it's failed. But you're still relatively young in the infertility world so hang in there and get straight into it, no time to waste as they say because some results take time to come back etc xx
Sounds like you've done a lot so far which is great. Did you have your blastocyst pgs tested?
Also a hycosy and 3D scan are good but the Hysteroscopy is more thorough as the Dr literally takes a camera inside and looks for everything and can remove things then and there if you're sedated. I did my ERA at the same time as my Hysteroscopy insert sedation. The timings of the two should be done different times of the cycle but my Dr said it was fine to do them together...the main thing is to ensure that however you do the ERA you must replicate it for your next FET for it to be accurate. For example, if you do a natural ERA you can't do a medicated fet. I.also did.the.Alice & Emma tests along with the ERA biopsy to cheek for good and bad bacteria...still controversial because some Dr days womb is sterile but worth getting it checked and if you need vaginal probiotics or antibiotics you can do all of this before your FET.
I also did a controversial dq alpha test with my husband to see if perhaps this gene is too "matching"'and it did come back with a high match do this might be we're destined for surrogacy but I'm not ready for that just yet.
Hi mara, my first cycle didn't work either with 15 eggs retrieved only 5 fertilised none saved, no transfer. This was in Feb, Cell division and fragmentation were reasons explained to both of us. Were both taking micro nutrients coq10 200mg and impryl which we didn't take on our first round. our second round is in Feb hopefully we will be successful 2nd time round. Hope you mend well from first cycle keep going ❤️
My first IVF also failed. I had 4 blastocyst embryos. With the last FET, I got pregnant but unfortunately ended up with miscarriage.
With my 2nd cycle we had 10 blastocyst and 8 came as chromosomly normal embryos after PGS. This time my clinic used long protocol for the stimulation where they give lupron injection for few days. Along with that I drank lots of water, fruits and protein in my diet. Not sure if that made the difference.
However I had gone through the 2nd miscarriage a few weeks back with my PGS normal embryos. Cause is still unknown. I am waiting for my HCG to become negative and have follow up appointments. We have 7 more normal embryos. Hopefully we will have some luck with the next FET.
I am sure you can produce more healthy eggs with the next cycle. All I want to say is stay strong and try to eat healthy. All the best!!!
Hi, we had a long road with IVF but I had a daughter own egg own sperm aged 42, and my husband was 55.
Everybody is different so my advice is to ignore stats to some extent and look as much into your individual cases (for each of you and together), as possible.
I would fix things that are easy and cheap to fix first before you do anything major in terms of invasive treatments ie any free tests that you can get on the NHS, plus diet and lifestyle - which can be different for fertility than what is often generally considered a ‘healthy lifestyle’.
In your consultation ask them what they think of your egg quality as they can see from shape and look of them etc what they think. Also take what they say with a pinch of salt though as there is a tendency to blame women over 35 for any fertility issues whilst the man in our experience often gets almost totally ignored. Ask what they think went wrong and how they would approach your case differently next time.
You might also want to find out from other sources how good your clinic’s lab is - we did an NHS cycle at first at a clinic which has now improved but we did not know was not up to scratch at the time (we heard privately from advice from the insider knowledge of a very reputable consultant at a fertility show later). None of my many eggs made it to blastocyst that first time and we were told my eggs were too old, and to look at egg donors. We went through great worry over this but at our clinic abroad we had many blasts every time - we didn’t know that the quality of care in the lab makes such a difference.
Also don’t forget the man is my advice. You can do quite a lot to improve sperm quality so look at the count, motility and morphology and look to improve those figures. Even a 5% change in those numbers can have a big bearing on whether you will get pregnant and stay pregnant. Your partners’ sperm can obviously fertilize your eggs but I think most men’s sperm could do with some help these days due to environmental issues.
Has your partner had a sperm dna fragmentation text? It is very expensive in this country but in Greece, where we went when we couldn’t use the NHS, it was just over 100 euros I think. It is not totally necessary as can equate fairly well with motility and morphology but we found it useful.
A big tip for sperm quality is, to put it delicately, to not use the first sample. Your partner can produce a sample, and the produce again after a short break then the second sample will be better quality than the first. We checked this by doing 2 dna frags on both samples when we were told to do this after failures and a miscarriage and feeling really fed up. I think they need to tell everyone who is doing IVF this fact as it is free and simple effective advice that we were told very late in the day.
This is a bit long but I hope at least some of it is helpful.
Don’t jump straight into another cycle I would say - it is quite a lot to put your body through. The highest pregnancy rates are in the spring, so take 3 or 4 months for both of you to rest, get healthy for pregnancy and consider your options before going again.
There doesn’t seem to be anything massively wrong with either of you right now so far from what you have said so sometimes it just takes a few more goes as we get older.
Best of luck. Not sure if you can dm me on this but if you can you are welcome to.
after reading your message, I checked my husband report and all its normal but morphology is %6 and then I read about it and it can effect fertility. We both are trying to eat the right thing to improve our chances.
At the moment we are with NHS to be specific UCLH and CRGH and they have been very helpful, I suppose to see the specialist to review the cycle today but my appointment has been rescheduled for next week.
thanks again for writing to me, I'll message you in future for advise. xx
No worries. Try CoQ10 and maca as supplements. Sending you lots of good vibes!!!
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