Hello everyone
I just wanted to know when some of the embryos don’t make it to day 5/6/7 blastocyst after day 3 what could potentially be the underlying cause?
Semen analysis and sperm fragmentation were all normal, does this mean it’s to do with egg quality? Doing this at age 35 I thought was lucky and egg quality wouldn’t be an issue!
Would love you hear your thoughts or experience thank you 🙏
Hi. When I started out, only Day 3 transfers were available, as we didn’t have the expertise to grow embryos on to blastocyst. We still has lots of successes. I feel sometimes they can do better when put back where they belong. I wish you every success. Diane
Hi, the best result I got was a 3AB. The rest were early blastocysts.
My frozen day 3 transfer was successful after 4 failed fresh transfers. I had 3 embryos frozen at pronuclei stage because I was at risk of ohss. My clinic policy is if less than 3 embryos fertilised then they are frozen at pronuclei stage immediately after fertilisation. 3 survived the thaw, and 2 survived at day 3. Both transferred, one stuck.
If you are not getting your embryos to day 5, I would strongly suggest a day 3 transfer. So many factors in this, you also need a good diet, supplements and exercise.
Best wishes x
Hi thank you for sharing
I was told in my first ever cycle that some of the embryos did make it to blastocyst stage but just not developed enough to be frozen or biopsied!
Not sure if anyone had a similar experience and what could cause that!
Probably a BC/CB or CC grade. Some clinics freeze BCs.
Or could be an early blastocyst which they cannot freeze due to lack of cells.
I wish you all the best x
Yes early blastocyst but could they be transferred?
Yes if fresh but cannot be frozen.
Hey, I’m curious to know how come they can’t freeze an early blast but some clinics do freeze day 3 or 4 embryos and have success afterward with Frozen transfer of those 3 or 4 day embryos.
Our clinic never did freeze less than full 5 day blasts so we ended up having only 2 blasts frozen despite 5 out of 7 embryos did actually grown to day 5., but they said not good enough to be frozen.
Hi, I think it's all down survival rate. Less cells and very low quality may not survive the thaw unfortunately. Would you mind sharing the grades of those 5 embryos?
Mine were frozen at pronuclei stage (2pn) and all 3 embryos survived the thaw. Below is a research paper on freezing 2pn stage having a higher survival rate:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/201...
Thanks for the link. The clinic only graded the two frozen one and discarded the rest but I know they were are normally fertilized ( I guess 2 pn means normal if I remember it right after 8 yrs. That was our first ivf cycle I had 9 mature eggs retreived, 7 fertilized normally. 2 frozen 3AB and 3CB. We transferred the 3AB , bfn in 2018. We still have the other one in freezer with another 3 from two mini ivf cycles in 2020. Since then I was dealing with several surgeries due to Endo and Adeno and we couldn’t transfer them anymore. Even the first ine wasn’t exactly a right call bcuz they discovered my Adeno in 2019. Right now our best option is the surrogacy. I don’t have much hope with this few embryos but we will try if we can find a surrogate.
We were so pissed of by clinics discarding the embryos lesser than a perfect 5 day. Overall in 4 ivf cycles, 2 being mini, I had 20 mature eggs retreived and in the last two 100% fertilized but only 4 frozen ones. I didn’t have option to do a fresh transfer, even if I had both clinic were in the favor of freeze all protocols, but only blastocysts and not the early ones.
It's a shame u don't the grades of your embryos, they should have given you grades before discarding your embryos... I'm sorry. Surrogacy sounds like a good option especially if there are issues.
Thanks yes surrogacy is the only option but not easy to find and takes months even years here in CA and bcuz we were still hopeful with being able to transfer to myself until last year we didn’t start the process here .
But we went overseas as of last year tried two times transfer with donor eggs and surrogacy with two different surrogates, first one bfn, second one miscarriage at 7 weeks.
At this point we really don’t know if it’s worth to try with our own embryos from 2017 and 2020, bcuz like I said it’s not cheap and takes lots of time and bcuz it didn’t work with young donors how come it may work with my own eggs from my 40s.
It’s so tough and so far so money and time went to it. Honestly at this point I am very frustrated.
I can imagine how frustrated you are. But if you can't carry a baby to term, surrogacy is an expensive option.
You can try using your earlier embryos first x
Thank you yes it’s not an easy decision we have few embryos left still from egg donors overseas and few here from our own. Dr recommended PGT and we already paid for that bcuz dr ordered the lab to biopsy they did it without our consent but charged us for we don’t want to do the testing with this few embryos bcuz dr said if they come back not normal or high mosaic they will b discarded. We didn’t want to loose our chances even it’s low.
But now that I see even donor eggs with surrogacy didn’t work I don’t have much hope,
Yes best not to lose your chances even lower grades and mosaic embryos which can correct themselves once in the uterus.
btw your 3AB one, it’s interesting they graded in that stage. What does 3AB mean in that stage?
3AB is a very good quality embryo but not top quality. The number refers to the size of the embryo. 3 is a full blastocyst. 4 is a expanded blastocyst. 5 is a hatching blastocyst and a well developed embryo.
So yours is actually the same system we had our embryos graded. I just thought yours wasn’t a 5 day blastocyst, so it was?
Yes, my one and only was a 5 day embryo. I had COVID the month before so could be one of the reasons why it was unsuccessful. The rest were early blastocysts. One round I tried a day 3 transfer but was unsuccessful.
It was my first ever frozen day 3 transfer that was successful.
Is this recent and your second child you are trying for?
I am happy one worked for u. Actually some doctors are a fan of transferring day 3 and 4 specially for more mature women.
My friend had a success with a fresh double 4 day embryo transfer and delivered twins.
My first born was tragically stillborn at full-term in 2020. I went on to have my rainbow baby last year in July 2024. I carried to 36+3 weeks, baby was due a couple of days before my 44th birthday.
These embryos were created in end of October 2023 and I used the embryos e d of November 2023. So they were 42 years old.
I am so sorry for your loss but very happy it wirked out last year. Congratulations on both your healthy delivery and the patience and efforts you put in to achieve your rainbow. It’s really hard continuing on the ivf journey when there are disappointments and heartaches specially the one you went through with your still born. I can imagine how hard it should be. For me it was only 7 weeks back in late Oct 2024 and still I am grieving and frustrated. Our frozen embryos are from me at late 41 and 44.
Donor eggs are from 25 and 29 yr olds. DH defragmentation tests were all good even better after some supplements. Overseas though didnt any defrag tests and they froze the sperm and used it after for donors. So we are not sure if sperm has been affected or not. This last miscarriage which was our first ever bfp might b due to sperm imperfection they say but still no evidence.
Thanks for taking time replying to all my questions. I wish you b vry happy with your baby enjoying them as much.
Thank you so much. My first little baby boy was naturally conceived. We opted for IVF after losing him because I was afraid of my age.
I'm so sorry for your loss too. Be kind yourself and stay positive and strong. Don't forget all your supplements which you should start taking asap.
I wish you all the best, please do keep me posted. I'd love to know how you are getting on 🌹💓
Ask for a chat with your embryology team, I'd say. There's is their domain, rather than the doctors, who are more about anatomy and meds.
If your embryos were under time-lapse, they should have a bit to tell you.
It can be clinic factors, as well as gametes (eggs & sperm), so might be worth getting a second opinion.
Emma the Embryologist is worth a follow on insta and I find the lives she does with Dr Tim Child really useful -both the info and them saying which questions are doctor questions and which are embryologist questions.
There are probably other factors, like balanced translocations etc but, personally, I'd start with getting as much info from embryology and then take next steps from there.
Hi thank you for sharing
I was told in my first ever cycle that some of the embryos did make it to blastocyst stage but just not developed enough to be frozen or biopsied!
Not sure if anyone had a similar experience and what could cause that!
Hello, I would not be so quick to assume it is about egg quality. Yes we know quality declines with age but there are many reasons embryos stop developing at day 3. I heard that the egg drives the early stages of embryo development and then around day 3, the embryo itself takes over. As already mentioned, pose your questions to the embryology team.
Despite declining egg quality success is still possible. Aged 43, I did 3 rounds back to back. First round, out of 6 eggs , 2 made it to day 5 and were frozen. I had a disastrous 2nd round where we had 13 eggs collected, low fertilisation and none making it to day 5. Round 3, I had 15 eggs collected, low fertilisation again but I insisted on a day 3 transfer and got my BFP. One of the remaining embryos actually made it to day 5! Nothing changed with my protocol for all 3 rounds. IVF can be random like that sometimes.
Hope you get the answers you are looking for.
day 3 to 5 is the hardest stage for an embryo so it is very very common for some of the embryos to drop out at this stage and some to continue but if all of your embryos stop developing around day 3 I would defo have a chat with the embryology dept at your clinic to get their thoughts but can indicate a sperm issue and also in older eggs (which your aren’t really at 35) my embryologist mentioned they can get a bit ‘tired’ at that point too. A high dose of coq10 seemed to help me get a couple of stronger ones last cycle (600mg) we were using donor sperm from the same donor that we used to conceive my son so it was only the eggs we had to play with. Got 2x 4ABs from that cycle, one transferred fresh and one frozen (now pregnant from the FET) . Precious cycles I did have blasts to transfer fresh but they likely wouldn’t have been good enough for freezing or at least one of them wouldn’t have xx
There is many things that can cause that but if that is the case with you, your clinic should be using or freezing the embryos on day 3....there are plenty of suscess with those, in fact my friend, who had bad quality and had all her embryos die at day 3 but 2 had those frozen and then transfer and she has a little girl ♥️ that was her first transfer!
FET - Day 3 or Day 5 embryos
No embryos made it to blastocyst 
Two 3 day embryos transferred hope I made the right decision!
3 embryos transferred today day 5 blastocyst 
Making the transition from my eggs to donor eggs...
