I've just sent myself into a spiral about the odds of me and my partner having children together. We've been trying for 4 years and have Male factor infertility. We egg collection two years ago got 22 eggs, 19 fertilised and made it to day three but we lost 13 of them between days 3 and 6. Of the 6 we ended up with we have transferred 4 so far with two not implanting and two implanting and resulting in a twin miscarriage. As I got into my head that none of them from that batch might be normal we opted to egg collect again and test all that we end up with.
My partner had a varicocele operation in this time and did a few semen analysis tests but I never really knew the results of them other than that not a lot had changed. Anyway, this week we did our egg collection and collected 17 eggs, it's understandable that we'd see this decline but I was hoping that maybe my partners sperm had improved. Today we learned that 14 have fertilised so are still in the running BUT my partner just dug out his latest semen analysis results and they are basically the same as they were pre-op and literally every parameter aside from volume is far below where it needs to be to be the low end of normal. Given that we lost 13 eggs last time and I am now older and have 14 to play with I'm feeling like I'm going to end up with very few and maybe even zero blastocysts from this cycle. Of those that make it about 50% will not be euploid due to my age. I just feel like everything is suddenly stacked against us and this is the first time I've felt like this for this whole process. The consultant said that if this didn't produce euploids we could try again or look to sperm donor. My partner doesn't want to use a sperm donor and I don't want to adopt so if we can't pull this off we're going to be childless. I feel so irrational and bereft right now and am just sat here weeping and thinking the worst.
Any words of wisdom?
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hi hun. Oh what a horrible situation. I’m sorry. I know what’s it like to be spiralling. You never know this cycle may be different. And statistics are just that - you may have all euploids this time. But it doesn’t have to be end of road. Are you using anything like PICSI/Zymot etc. who has your DH been seeing for his issues? Why is he not sharing results as he goes? Sounds like maybe some counselling needed for him? I’m not saying he has to be forced to use sperm donor but my DH shares all his results at the time without me asking so it seems really odd to me that your DH is behaving like this. I might not be that coherent at 5am but you never know there may be things that can still be tried to optimise with own sperm. Sending hugs xx
Hi, we knew his initial results and then the second time he took a phone call and didn’t remember the numbers but said it was a very slight improvement but still not great. Then the last set we didn’t get the result sent because we moved and it was sent by post. So yesterday he reached for all his results, we knew it was still bad but I was thinking maybe the most recent might show an improvement. We haven’t done any of the above as we are on the nhs but we did a private consultation a while ago and they suggested a few things beyond normal ICSI so I think that I would be our next step if this doesn’t pan out.
I’m sorry you’re feeling this way - I’ve definitely been there myself. We had therapy as a couple and what I found useful was the therapist saying to take it one step at a time, rather than trying to plan too far ahead (I was looking into surrogacy at the time as I felt like it was never going to happen for us).
My husband had a v low sperm count and his DNA fragmentation result showed he had 1% healthy sperm. Our clinic offered us a number of interventions which we took - PIMSI, calcium ionophore - and from 9 eggs, 7 fertilised and 6 made it to blastocyst. 5 came back normal after PGTA testing. My eggs were on the younger side (I was 32 at the time of collection) but I’m glad we took extra steps to try and get the best sperm possible from what we had, particularly as I’d had 2 miscarriages and 2 failures from our first cycle.
Wishing you the best, take care of yourself and each other.
Thank you. I think we might go down the PIMSI route if we don’t get lucky any time soon. We haven’t done the sperm defragmentation testing but when I initially had a private consultation this was what was suggested and either PIMSI or PICSI. I’m doing that thing your therapist said not to do for sure. I am always several steps ahead of the current one and even looked at adoption yesterday despite that not in reality appealing ! I was googling the easiest countries to adopt from!!
I can understand that you are feeling this way, these days after collection are very stressful BUT you have 14 beautiful chances of one embryo being your baby (plus a couple already in the freezer!) and that is an AMAZING place to be in 💜 you only need the one embryo and if it’s not one of the ones you already have on ice the ones you have cultivating just now could be it. There is absolutely no reason why it can’t be! And if not there is always the next egg collection once you’ve transferred back the 2 you have and any from this round. Lots and lots and lots of reasons to be hopeful for the future 🤗✨ xx
Ps my last round age 42 (that I am pregnant from) I had 6 eggs 4 fertilised and 2 made it to blast and one worked! So you really don’t need massive numbers to find a good one.
For my son in 2021 (age 39) I had 7 fertilise make 6 blasts and 3 of these were BFNs a double transfer was a miscarriage and one was my son so there is absolutely no reason why the ones you have in the freezer will be abnormal just because of the previous transfer results! So you almost have a safety net there too no matter what happens with your recent collection.
It's so hard when you feel like this - I know it well!
BUT - you have a great number of eggs - I wouldn't say that 22 to 17 is a decline at all! I had cycles where I had 18, then 12, then 6, then 14 so it's not linear at all - it very much depends on the month.
Also, losing 13 eggs between day 3 and 6 is completely normal. From 18 eggs I got 4 blasts so definitely don't count yourself out.
I would also say try to take it one step at a time. See what this cycle holds before planning next steps. Its natural to want a plan in place but with IVF it's such a rollercoaster you can never tell whats going to happen.
hi, I can 100% relate to your feelings, I felt the same and felt terrified a lot of the time. But I hope it reassures you that your numbers are much much better than mine ever were and I still had success. There are still options, even though it feels insurmountable at the moment, I promise you it isn’t.
I can remember the consultant saying to me just before egg collection each time, ‘you may get no eggs’ and this angered me a little because it’s the last thing I needed to hear just before the procedure, but I remember thinking, as long as I have a uterus, then I have a chance to have a baby, whatever it takes.
I had 3 eggs collected and gave up all hope, but from the 1 egg which fertilised normally, it brought my son. I had given up hope on my OE and booked a consultation for donor eggs. I felt so hopeless and I think it’s very natural to feel the pressure when it’s such an important outcome. I do think I tended to catastrophise but it helped me prepare for disappointment, however, you really do have much better chances that I had. Wishing you the best of luck, it’s a tough time to navigate but hang in there, good luck xx 🍀
Thank you. I know we aren’t in all that bad of a situation compared to many people but I guess my brain just went into this zone of thinking worst case scenario outcomes. Congratulations on having your little boy, I keep having to remind myself that we can try again and that it only takes one.
I can totally relate, I felt like the world was against me and every decision I’d ever made was the wrong one and it was all mounting up and stacking the odds against me.
It’s hard to have faith in the process but you really do have every chance of success. Good luck, I remember how tough it was, like it was yesterday, keep going, you are doing brilliantly xx
I just heard from the Embryology team. 12 are developing good-excellent. 1 stopped and another one is clearly abnormal. The main positive I’m taking from this is that my eggs are not atrocious. Now I just have to get to Monday and hope some make blastocyst by then 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
Thought I'd put my update here rather than making a new post. I learned earlier today that 4 of the embryos have made blastocyst today (day 5) with 4 of them still developing to be reviewed tomorrow. I'm so relieved to know we have 4. Of the four one of them is excellent quality and the others are increasingly worse (in varying degrees). I'm just so happy because I really was thinking zero was a very possible outcome because of the attrition rate two years ago and me being older now. Now we just need to find out if we get more tomorrow and then we'll move to testing them.
Updating again (in case anyone is interested!). We have one more day 6 blastocyst which is excellent quality. I'm so immensely relieved that we have almost the same result when I'm two years older. I feel so grateful. x
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Quick update about our precious eggs 🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚
Newbie-what’s left before IVF? And has anyone used sperm donor?
DE update
DNA Fragmentation test? 
frozen vs fresh eggs someone please advice 
