0% Morphology - PGA

[Kit12345]

hi

Having gone through IVF for the second time recently, I was shocked after the retrieval to hear my husbands sperm was poor quality with not even 1 normal looking sperm!! After 3 years TTC and about 7 semen analysis, Morphology was always on the low side of 4% but never 0%! So I couldn’t believe it, although he had been drinking alcohol and his diet has never been the best - despite all my pleas with him to make some healthy choices during IVF prep, they sadly went unheard & i really feel I resent him for it

out of 18 eggs, 16 mature, we’ve ended up with 3x day 5 blasto of grade 5AB, 2x 5BB.

Our last round of IVF was much more successful. This time my doc wanted me to do PGT testing of the embryos to avoid future miscarriage, due to the abnormal sperm, she said there’s a higher chance of abnormal embryos.

Im really worried they will all come back abnormal & we’ll be left with nothing! Anyone else tested their embryos and if so how many were abnormal?

thanks for your help xx

[Blueberry211]

I am so sorry to hear.First round - 5 blastocysts and 2 euploids. Second round - 5 blastocysts and 3 euploids

[Kit12345 in reply to Blueberry211]

thanks, I’m expected to lose 1-2 which my doc is saying is common stats but as they couldn’t find even 1 normal sperm, I have doubts we’ll come away with anything.

I am really feeling depressed over it 😔

[Rain415]

I'm sorry to hear this, my husband had about 2% morphology and I remember me hate to say nagging him about diet and quitting smoking. I got mad that I seemed to care more than him. But if it helps we have our son from a 5BB, I have no experience in testing but I hope this works for you! X

[Kit12345 in reply to Rain415]

thanks 🙏🏼 Appreciate the message

[Habibi87]

Hi Kit12345, I know how stressful the wait is and it doesn’t help that you feel your husband isn’t pulling his weight. My husband also had really poor parameters and we did two back to back collection cycles. We got 10 blastocysts and of these 6 were normal and one was low mosaic. Keeping the fingers crossed for you x

[Kit12345 in reply to Habibi87]

thanks for your message. Not only was he not pulling his weight, but he’s been drinking excessively, more than he’s ever done, which at the time I found upsetting & even more now! I am thinking of doing IVF again in 2 months, meanwhile he’s going to sort his diet and get lose fitting underwear. He also has varicose veins in his testies, so I’ve said he has to get the removed ASAP. Beforehand he was refusing but after this, he really has no choice. I feel really sad about all this. All my effort of eating well / not drinking / supplements for 3 months could be totally wasted!

You’re right it’s extremely stressful 😔

[Habibi87 in reply to Kit12345]

You are are really not out of the game yet with this round, but if it doesn’t work, I think it’s worth making sure your husband also takes good quality supplements like proxeed plus. Sending you love ❤️

[greenfernleaf]

My husband has no bad habits (he doesn’t smoke anything/doesn’t drink alcohol, has healthy BMI), but still when he was tested, he had around 2% and 0% morphology (did the tests twice).

Everyone keeps telling me that it’s not a big deal and the doctors try to test me and find a problem in my health (we’ve been trying for a baby more than 2 years).

I’m so sorry that you have this sad experience in your life☹️ But, unfortunately, it takes to to tango. Don’t blame yourself for anything!

[Gemcow]

Hi Kit. I understand the fear and worry and we can’t help but think the worst in these situations. I’ve got everything crossed that at least one of your blastocysts come back normal! I’ve never done testing so I can’t comment on that but I just wanted to add that my husband always had poor morphology (1% or less on every test), we had 4 failed transfers with these results including a miscarriage. He had varicose veins too and he got them treated in July, at his retest three months later his count had gone from 5million to 22million and his morphology was now 4%. We just had the best results on our 4th egg retrieval and had much better quality blasts- official test day was today and it was positive 😊

I have every hope there the blasts you have are going to be better than you think but just wanted to give you info in case you needed it for the future! Good luck!

[Kit12345 in reply to Gemcow]

wow this is really great to hear!! Massive congrats ❤️❤️❤️❤️ It’s really given me hope that all will be ok in the future after his veins are treated 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

[ChloeDE]

Hi, just to give you some reassurance, my partner had 0.5% morphology. We had 3x blastocysts and have twins from the first double transfer. Sperm issues are much easier to overcome than egg problems, using IVF. We didn't do DNA fragmentation testing but we used MACS in case it was a problem for us. MACS helps to select the best sperm.

Good luck. X

[Kit12345 in reply to ChloeDE]

thank you Chloe, appreciate your message it’s really reassuring!! Xxx

[Luka_Ru]

Hi Kit, my partner had severely low count, less than 1% normal morphology and zero progressive motility. Even with ICSI we struggled with low fertilisation rates. Thankfully I churn out a lot of eggs due to PCO, so from two rounds we got a total of 9 blasts - 5 euploid, 1 LLM, 1HLM, 1 abnormal and 1 no result. I think this is good for my age (35), however embryo quality has never been great, all BB/BC. We lost one poor quality euploid to the thaw and 1 BFN, but are now pregnant with euploid number 3.

[Kit12345 in reply to Luka_Ru]

wow congrats, sounds similar to me - I also have PCO & feeling lucky for this. Currently 33 but almost 34. Yours sounds like a great result & congrats on the pregnancy. Did you do medicated cycle or natural?

[Luka_Ru in reply to Kit12345]

Thanks!

We did medicated both times, mainly just for convenience and my clinic’s preference, I do ovulate naturally so would have considered a natural cycle if it hadn’t worked the second time. LLM is low level mosaic, HLM is high level mosaic. We will use the LLM if we need to, but we have two euploid left first.

Good luck - looks like you’ve got some good embryos!

[Kit12345 in reply to Luka_Ru]

also what is HLM / LLM? I’ve googled but can’t really understand it - can you transfer these or do they discard them?

[AcuFertilityDoc]

veriocele (varicose veins in the scrotum) can seriously affect sperm parameters. I believe this is because the additional blood flow heats things up to adversely affect sperm? Definitely convince your husband to get the surgery.

As I understand it, zero percent normal morphology just means zero percent in the small sample they looked at. It doesn’t mean there are no normal sperm.

Improving lifestyle (smoking, drinking etc)can improve sperm quality, but through the long history of humankind, humans were able to make babies regardless of their bad habits.