Bad batches of eggs?

[Dylan88]

I read somewhere that there is a lot of difference in quality between "batches" of eggs, i.e a woman can produce a duff bunch one month, and a bunch of winners the next month? Anyone else heard this or know if there's any truth to it? I'm asking because I have a few frosties from my first ICSI round, and wondering if it's likely they are all duds. I know we are super lucky to have frosties at all, but transfers are £2k a pop so I'm out of NHS territory now and now I guess we nervously start throwing our life savings at this. I hope theyre not all duds ! Any frozen embryo success stories from your 4th or 5th from a batch?

[Ivfgotadream]

Yes I experienced this and actually my private clinic cancelled a couple of times when e2 levels were lower than they should have been compared to what they could see on the ultrasound scans and said it was a sign eggs weren’t great quality that month

I did back to back cycles January and February with no break in between (natural modified IVF so it’s possible to do that with that protocol) - both months got top quality blastocysts frozen (4 in total) but March was cancelled as they said they didn’t look good quality. Fast forward to June - did everything right during lockdown eating healthy plenty of supplements lost weight healthy lifestyle and egg quality was also rubbish

The only thing which has made a difference to my egg quality is

1 - stripping back drugs to the minimum protocol or natural modified IVF

2 - specifically tweaking and individualising drug levels to what my specific level/mix of hormones is saying each month

The minute I went back to a one size fits all approach (ie June egg collection) my egg quality went back to rubbish

[Ivfgotadream in reply to Ivfgotadream]

I forgot to say I’m currently 5 weeks pregnant on my 4th transfer (5 egg collections) from a double transfer of 2 blastocysts from the January cycle

Doing several egg collections over several months meant the embryologists had more data to be able to pick the best ones to transfer as we also did time lapse monitoring

[Dylan88 in reply to Ivfgotadream]

Thanks for this reply lots of helpful info here. Congrats on your long awaited pregnancy! It sounds like you are way more well informed than me - I haven't been given any information on my hormone levels and tweaking drugs accordingly. They just gave me drugs according to my follicle count but all other tests were done many months previously. So I think it would be worth me discussing this with my clinic as they tend to give info very much on a "need to know " basis- I think the aim is not to overwhelm patients but I feel much calmer when well informed! We got really good quality blastocysts for the freezer - does this mean the eggs were okay do you think ? I don't want to do chromosome testing as I've read on HFEA it's inaccurate and can damage healthy embryos. But the prospect of going through 6 more potential losses is horrific to think about.

[Ivfgotadream in reply to Dylan88]

I’ve had 5 miscarriages and 2 ruptured ectopics - I did PGS two blastocysts from a cycle last year - one came back complex abnormal and the other high level mosaic. In the U.K. you aren’t allowed to transfer the abnormals but we were allowed to transfer the mosaic but it was a BFN

We made the decision not to test again as honestly what was the point when we would transfer a mosaic anyway? We didn’t want to run the risk of doing more tests only to get all abnormal and end up with nothing to transfer and having spent all that money? Also I’m a member of a few Facebook groups for abnormal blastocysts and in the USA where it is much more common to transfer them loads of women had healthy babies.

Good quality blastocysts In the freezer is a good sign that Both your eggs and sperm are good so I’d take that as a positive but obviously no one can know what’s actually going on inside of them x

[Dylan88 in reply to Ivfgotadream]

It sounds like you've had a really tough and traumatising journey - I'm so sorry you've had to go through all of that, it is so unfair. I think you've made me come to a realisation and actually answered a big question for me. I guess if I didn't transfer all of them, I would always wonder if one of them could have been the one that worked. This is a healthier way of thinking about it I think - better to try them and see, even if they are all doomed to fail, I'll at least know- and I need to think that instead of worrying about the £££, which was starting to really frighten me but I guess what are life savings for if not this ? Thank you so much! I think you've just helped me turn a corner in my thinking xxxxxxxxxx

[Solly-44]

Hi,

I had this exact same concern. We transferred a total of 4 embryos from the same batch though and I am currently 38 weeks. Wishing you lots of luck xx

[Dylan88 in reply to Solly-44]

This is really encouraging thank you ! I will not lose hope then if the first few don't work ! Also congratulations!