Hi all,
Has anyone been in this position? Had egg retrieval on weds and 21 eggs retrieved, 15 were mature and fertilised. They showed good response but then did nothing. They didn’t progress at all past day 1. They basically stayed as eggs and did not turn into embryos. This happened to all 15. This was our first ICSI round.
Oh Amber_ dusty you must be devastated. This is news no one wants to hear. This happen to some of my eggs but not the majority of them. I had 18 eggs retrieve and when my husband sperms was added 4 of them had no response whatsoever. When they told me i was a nervous reck worrying that the other 14 embryos wouldn't make it but all 14 made it to day 5 blastocyst. Although you never had that outcome with yours dont give up. The next round will produce embryos. Also, did you check your partner sperms to make sure they are ok Because that could be a cause to the outcome.
The embryologist said there were some good sperm as the reason we are doing ivf was due to male issues. It was and still is devastating news and waiting to see the specialist for our review. Fingers crossed something can be tweaked changed to ensure a better chance etc.
Hi lovely
I unfortunately don’t have any advice but I just wanted to send you a big hug. This is absolutely devastating and I would be beside myself.
Fingers crossed the consultant has some concrete recommendations/ changes for your next cycle to address the problem. I would also ask them about further testing for your husband (like sperm DNA fragmentation testing) before embarking on your next cycle. If it turns out that your husband has high dna fragmentation, PICSI or IMSI is preferable to standard ICSI.
Best of luck, I’ll be thinking of you xxx
I am really sorry to hear that and I perfectly understand you. I also went through this journey in Eastern Europe. When the majority of the eggs were at the optimal size. I was put under anesthesia and 17 eggs were retrieved. By the grace of the universe, all of them were fertilized by ICSI. Eight embryos made it to day 5 blastocyst stage and were biopsied then sent for preimplantation genetic screening. Two long weeks later, we found out 5 genetically normal. I underwent another surgery to prepare my uterus for transfer and waited to heal. Once I was given the all clear, I started the oral estrogen pills, followed by daily progesterone suppositories and the infamous progesterone in oil shots-22 gauge needle to my butttocks every other night for 12 weeks, if the pregnancy is viable. Two weeks of monitoring later, my uterus was considered ready and receptive for a frozen embryo transfer. On the day of transfer after months of treatment we know there was still 30-40% chances that this “perfectly thawed” and Luckily got successful. I would suggest pushing it if you have only one, give the best chance to your lovely embryo.
So sorry Amber. We had a very poor fertilisation rate (2 from 10 eggs) on our 1st cycle. Second cycle (5 from 8 eggs) and 3rd cycle (6 from 10 eggs). Our 3rd cycle we used a special medium called Calcium ionophore or AOA. They put the eggs into the solution and use icsi to fertilise them. We had our best round with AOA and our fresh transfer was successful. AOA helps fertilisation rates and encourages embryos to continue growing to blastocyst stage. Definitely might be worth a try on your next round x
Thank you all for your responses. You don’t realise how much you have helped me to get over the devastation. Please don’t get me wrong it still hurts so much but your knobs words and also advice has really helped me. Thanks again x
Sorry to hear this. The IVF experience can be so difficult.We did 2x rounds of IVF using own eggs. We got around 8x fertilised eggs each time. They did start to develop but, by day three, it was already evident nothing was going to make it to blastocyst. My clinic said it was probably due to egg quality and we moved to donor eggs. I read somewhere that male factor doesn't kick in until day three so, if they fail before then, it's probably due to eggs.
Definitely make a follow up appointment with your clinic to find out what they think went wrong and what they suggest now.
Wishing you luck.
I'm so sorry, you must be quite shocked. I think follow up with your clinic to see what they think as that's a significant number of eggs and then incredible fertilisation rate, so for them all not to progress you'd think there was something they could identify from that and then hopefully tweak. We had 9 eggs first time but only 4 fertilised and 2 made it to blast, then second round 5, all fertilized and made it to blasts. The protocol was pretty much the same so difference seemed to be sperm quality on the day and we were told it only takes something like a cold three months before to affect quality, even though we had ICSI. My husband also gave up drinking entirely for the second round - no idea if that was a factor but his sample second round was good again after having been pretty terrible first time.
late fertilisation of mature egg
Only 3 eggs fertilised 
Both eggs fertilised 🎉
Fertilised eggs
Fertilised eggs
