Has anybody had any experience with a complete failure to fertilise with ICSI?
We had IVF last cycle which produced 3 fertilised eggs. Sadly none of those made it to blastocyst, although we did have 1 transferred (BFN) as it wasn't far behind, so we opted to try with ICSI this time. After retrieving 15 eggs, 11 were injected but I have been informed that 0 have fertilised. My embryologist told me she has only seen this a handful of times in 20+ years! My instinct is telling me that something just isn't adding up 😒. I'm not the luckiest person in the world but even this is beyond my limits!
TIA
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Lenni222
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Hi..thanks for the reply 😀.We have an appointment with our consultant next Friday to discuss what we will do in future. We have also discussed the use of Donor eggs, its just such a big step isn't it?...
It really is. A few girls here have gone through the donor route and they are able to give fantastic advice. Take some time with your partner to consider next steps. Wishing you well.
Not complete failure, but I've had only 1 fertilise - has your OH had a DNA fragmentation test on his sperm? We had an extremely severe DNA fragmentation problem
Hi Lenni, yes we had none of our 7 eggs fertilise In our first round. They couldn’t really tell us why however suggested it was maybe egg quality and quite a few of my eggs where immature. On the second round they tweaked my protocol and gave me a double trigger, plus they left me on the stimms for longer and I took quite a lot of supplements.
Hope you find some answers as I know how Devastating that phone call is.
Oh Lenni22 I'm so sorry to read this. I haven't had the same experience with icsi, but I did have a cycle where only one egg fertilised out of 10 and that was using donor sperm. That was devastating enough. I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now. I hope you get the answers you are looking for. Sending lots of love xx
Hi Lenni, sorry to read your in this situation. There is apparently a 1-3% chance of total fertilisation failure with icsi. This happened to me on my first cycle with 5 eggs and icsi and was devastating. The second cycle they changed my medication and they collected 11 eggs two of which fertilised leaving one transferred. The cycle resulted in a BFN. I’ve recently gone through a 3rd cycle with further tweaks, (know I should have gone with my instinct and mirrored the second), which resulted in 4 eggs being collected and once again total fertilisation Failure. They have said the eggs were of sub-optimal quality and recommended egg donation.I will be doing one last cycle and throwing everything at it, then considering other options.
When do you have your follow up appointment with them?
If you’d like to talk at any time please message x
I have my follow up next Friday. Its scared me out of having ICSI again to be honest. My medication was extended for 3 days and had a much better result regarding egg collection, so I'm hoping we can do it again this way, but IVF again.Problem is I found this round of medication much more traumatic and painful. I just can't figure out what to do for the best. Sending love xx
An ivf /icsi split may be an option. Write down all your questions so your prepared for Friday. Your clinic will help you figure out what to do for the best.
There’s a lot for you to process at the moment so try not to put to much pressure on yourself. X
Thank you. I wondered if you were able to split IVF and ICSI during the same cycle. I will have a good think about it. Your replies are very much appreciated xx
My consultant was pushing for icsi even though we do not have any issue with sperm quality. In the end we decided to have half of my 10eggs icis and half IVF.
Well, well!! 4 fertilised with IVF and only 2 with icsi! Maybe random but my gut feeling is that IVF works better for my eggs.
With natural modified it ranged between 2 and 7 but quality was so much better - over 2 cycles I got 9 eggs 100% fertilised and 4 top quality blastocysts - I’m 28 weeks with twins from 2 of them and 2 more frozen(This is compared to 2 cycles of short protocol ivf - total 28 eggs less than 30% fertilised and 4 average quality blastocysts- PGS tested 2 and neither were “normal”)
Awh congratulations😀. That’s an amazing result from previous rounds and shows how the change in protocol / methods can make a real difference, thank you so much for sharing x
Can you share what a natural modified protocol is? I recently went through my first round of IVF/ICSI using a short protocol as well and it was unsuccessful.
Hi there it’s basically tamoxifen tablets (similar effect to clomid) daily from cycle day 3 and then low dose stims (150ml Bemfola) every OTHER day. Idea being not to force your body to produce follicles - it just gently works with the ones you already had that month and what your body has already pre selected as the best.
Very few clinics offer it though....there is one major clinic which if you google natural modified IVF will come up and that’s the one I used....beginning with “C”!
have you considered taking something like DHEA to improve your egg quality before egg collection? also, depending on your age, early egg collection may improve the egg quality, and also human growth hormone has been shown to improve egg quality.
Hello, I’ve seen you mention this a few times in posts. Would you mind if I messaged you privately and to find out where you went for treatment and your story please? Thanks
Sorry to hear about your recent cycle. I have seen some people have to use oocyte activation with calcium ionophore to help with fertilisation and it helped a great deal. It might be something worth discussing with your clinic.xx
Hi Lenni22,I am sorry to hear of your recent cycle. I have experienced the exact same thing 3 times!! We had 12 eggs in my first cycle and we were completely devastated when none of them fertilised at all. That was in 2011, and I was so scarred by the results that I didn't try again for 6 years. The next 2 attempts had fewer eggs (due to my age, I guess) but again none fertilised. I was told that it was due to poor egg quality and my age, we were also advised to consider using donor eggs.
None of the specialists seemed to know what else to do apart from the donor route since they already tried different protocols; one specialists actually told us that we had less than 2% chance of success(!). We decided to do some research on our own - we (my husband and I) started to eat much better and cleaner, and also added some really good supplements that I bought from the US, they are promoted to help both male and female fertility, including egg and embryo quality. Our next cycles had much better results whereby the eggs fertilised and produced 2 top quality embryo. We are now in our 2ww; this has been my first transfer ever, after 9 years of IVF/ICSI, so I'm already feeling like a winner. I was literally in tears of joy when they were doing the FET procedure recently.
All this to say that hope is not lost. I'm now over 40 and still hopeful that I'll have my little bundle(s) of joy some day soon, and I'm sure that you will too. Hope this encourages you to keep trying.
Great story, I am really happy for you. Could it be that the 3 icsi failures could have been due to the clinic lab? Was it the same clinic? Did you change clinic for your new successful treatments?
Thank you Lilly! I thought so initially, but the first 3 were all with different clinics (first was on NHS, the next 2 were private). After the 3rd one I decided to stay with that clinic because I just felt comfortable with them and it was clear that they wanted me to succeed too.
Yes, this is also true, I've noticed you commented on my other thread also....I'm really sorry the AOA didn't work for you. If you are in the UK may I ask which clinic you used? X
Hello i am soo sorry to hear this we had similar, we had 8 eggs retrieved and nothing, we thought that 2 had maybe fertilised but they had a better look and it was a no. its devastating. please dont give up xxx
Hi @Lenni222, I've just had something v similar.
I had an egg collection (with ICSI) yesterday and embryologist just called to say that out of 16 mature eggs there has been 0 fertilisation, the reason is unknown. They will keep them under observation for a few days but chances are very low. My embryologist told me she has only seen this a handful of times (as if it would make me feel better?)
How is your journey with this? What stage are you at?
Hiya. So very sorry to hear that. I think that was honestly our worst blow in the 6 cycles we had . We eventually ended up using donor eggs and on our 2nd donor cycle we finally had good news. I am currently 15 weeks and taking each day as it comes. Its easy for someone to say, but try not to give up or question everything, you will only send yourself crazy. Sending you lots of love xx
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we had similar, we had 8 eggs retrieved and nothing, we thought that 2 had maybe fertilised but they had a better look and it was a no. its devastating. please dont give up xxx
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