Long story short .. Over almost 4 years my wife & I have had the following treatments with my eggs and donor sperm. 6 IUIs all negatives, first IVF one fresh embryo transferred resulting in positive but had to be ended due to a cervical ectopic pregnancy. Second IVF two fresh embryos transferred resulted negative. Third one FET resulted negative. Just had my last full IVF cycle transferring two fresh embryos this time also taking steroids/blood thinners incase of NK cells/ thick blood, resulted in a negative 😢
I have low AMH, two years ago was 2.1 so likely much less now as had dropped from 6.8 the year prior. Hence why we have kept going with my eggs as we are both so desperate for one baby with mine. Each egg collection I seem to get 4 or 5 eggs which are all mature, fertilise and at least 3 each cycle have gone on to good 5 day blastocysts. Each cycle apart from last one transferred at day 5, this time tried a day 3 transfer.
I have worked so hard on my egg quality for the past 3 years, CO-Q10, course of DHEA, food, no alcohol, reduce caffeine, reflexology, acupuncture etc etc ..
It could just be my eggs aren’t strong enough, but I do find this hard to except when our embryologist always tell me my embryos are beautiful (hardly any fragmentation, symmetrical etc). My linings always triple and thick, and they say this is just as it should be too.
My worries if it’s not my eggs or my lining .. could it be the sperm? I know little here, but can this effect the embryo further down the line .. our trust is in the donor bank here but could there be something ?
Could I be loosing the embryos on transfer? There’s a high possibility that on my first IVF with the cervical ectopic that this was caused due to a vacuum when removing the inner tube. Although this is done slowly to avoid, could the embryo be sucked into the outer tube unknowingly? I know the inner tube is checked to ensure embryos have left but the outer isn’t.
The fight gets harder, I just want to know why. We plan to have a FET next time, this time with my wife’s eggs. I feel I’ve come to the end of the road with mine, although I’m still struggling to believe it’s the quality of them. When I have fallen pregnant before, first time with IVF and at 6+4 discovered the cervical ectopic I had to be treated with 2 injections of Methotrexate (Chemo) as my HCG kept rising, this took 12 weeks to loose. I feel my body so desperately wanted to keep it. It will be a blessing to use my wife’s eggs and regardless which eggs, our babies will be ours.
Is there a test I should have done? Has someone been in a similar scenario? I feel I am missing something, I just don’t know what.
If it works next time, we pray it does and I would accept it was my eggs just not being strong enough. But if we have another negative with my wife’s, it will become more difficult to understand.
Sorry for the lengthily post and if you’ve read to here thank you. Any experiences or advice you may have to offer would be much appreciated to hear. We plan to discuss these thoughts with our clinic later in the week but I thought I’d see if anyone here may be able to shed some light.
Best of luck to you on your journey 💫
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Amelia1984
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Hi Amelia. i do have a list of questions you might like to go through before seeing your specialist again. Most won't be appropriate, but there should be a few you can use. If you want them, then email me in confidence to support@fertilitynetworkuk.org Good luck! Diane
I don’t have any AMH issues - I’m 41 yrs of age my husband is 59 yrs old.
We have done 3 complete rounds of IVF our third round was with my sisters egg as a donor.
Due to my husbands age at the time he didn’t only have his normal sperm analysis, he also had a DNA fragmentation test done, which showed his morphology was slightly low - so we needed to do ICSI on top.
Our journey started fairly well, first round started with 21 eggs, 17 mature and fertilised, over the 5 days they dropped off and we were left with 2 blasts. I couldn’t put them back as I had a polyp so had that removed, so one FET was done resulted in a BFP, where I miscarried before the 7 week scan. The second embryo failed to implant
Our second round I was 40, so we had already decided that we would PGTA test embryos (genetic testing) that made it. So had 12 collected, 10 matured and fertilised, again after 5 days we were left with 3.
One was put back, the other two were PGTA tested the one put back failed to implant and the other two were chromosomally abnormal
Our third round my sister who’s 30, no issues at all had 24 eggs collected, 19 mature and fertilised at the end of day 5 we were left with 3. First one put back implanted and I’m now 13 weeks +1.
Throughout the two rounds with my eggs, the embryologists said the 5 day blasts we had, were really good and top quality, unfortunately their grading which I’ve learnt is mere opinion, they can only tell you what they see, whether the embryo is actually good enough to have a viable pregnancy is another thing they won’t necessarily know.
Even if you have them PGTA tested and they are normal, they won’t necessarily result in a pregnancy.
I’m not sure what the screening process is for donors but I would want to know if they had been DNA fragmentation tested?!
Because our egg quality can’t be checked I would consider doing PGTA testing on your embryos. I didn’t with my donor egg as my sister had genetic testing prior to starting.
If uterine lining could be a problem there are tests you could consider ERA/Emma/Alice I haven’t had any of these put there are plenty of ladies who have.
I know some ladies on here have had immunology looked at as well, and would be better placed to talk about their experiences
Thank you for your response and congratulations on your pregnancy 💫
We are going to explore further in double checking our sperm with the bank, see if they have been DNA fragmentation tested. As far as we were aware everything is tested including our donor being genetic tested. Our concern is our last straw had low motility/concentration and the banks specify a minimum and I’m doubtful this was met this time. Again something we will check. I shall enquire about PGA testing too of our embryos.
Thank you and wishing you the very with your pregnancy 💫
Probably you have 2 options from my point of view (I am not an expert 😉😁) you can probably try PGS testing and transfer only euploid embryos or you can change your sperm donor if you haven't done this yet. Regarding your question related to sperm I can tell you that if most of your embryos are reaching blastocysts stage it means eggs and sperm are having good quality. Usually if embryos are developing until day 3 and after that they stop developing without reaching blastocyst stage then is more likely sperm is the cause. I don't know if you can check DNA fragmentation to a donor sperm but you can ask. I am really sorry for your negative results 😔 take care ♥️🤗
Thank you for your response. I shall enquire about PGS testing, I’ll be honest I don’t know anything about this (but I’m fast to learn in this fertility world)... One positive I do seem to have is despite only ever getting a few eggs, most do fertilise and reach day 5. Further investigations going into our donor just to be doubly sure, though we did put all our trust in this with the high standards the bank said they deliver. Not saying they haven’t been delivered but think we need to check further with our embryologist as they see the sperm and understand it more than us. Thanks again for your kind words 😊
Similar suggestion here, check sperm DNA fragmentation and do PGS to figure out if embryos are normal before further transfers. Also check your TSH to keep it below 2 closer to 1.
Yeah make sure because the "normal" ranges are different for general population than for women ttc or pregnant. And apparently not every general doctor picks up on it.
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