12 Donor eggs and only one to blastocyst

[Anisha29]

Hi fellow ivf warriors,I just need to rant. We ordered 12 DE. The donor was 26 years old. All 12 thawed and fertilised correctly using ICSI but by day 3....

2 had zero pronuclei

3 only grew one pronuclei

2 grew 5 cells only

5 had cells between 7 and 9

By day 5...

1 reached blastocyst and is now in PGT-A testing

2 were slow and left to develop more

2 had arrested

Day 6...

2 left to develop. Still not at a stage to biopsy

Day 7...

1 degenerated

1 did not grow anymore.

Out of 12, only one reached blastocyst at a grade of 5BB. I'm just disappointed given the money and time spent. I was hoping on at least 3.

My understanding is day 1 to day 3 is dependent on the egg and its quality and day 3 to 5 is down to sperm.

Given my losses were a mixture, I'm thinking of picking another donor and getting my husband's sperm checked again (his dna fragmentation was 28% about 9 months ago). He has been on impryl for ages.

Any thoughts?

[CyclingAddict]

Gosh, sounds like you've been through it. We did IVF-ICSI due to male factor infertility. I have no fertility issues. I was 32 at my last collection and had 19 mature eggs collected. My husband's sperm count was only 10 million but we managed to get 7 chromosomally 'normal' day 5 embryos (we did PGT-A testing). One is now my 4 month old son and we have 6 more in the freezer.

Given my experience, I'm not sure the age of the egg donor is the most important factor. Of course it helps if they are younger than 35, but I know many women in their twenties who have struggled. So it could still be that the egg quality wasn't there. It could also be that the sperm quality also wasn't great. Or a combo of both.

My husband was also taking impryl. He works in science so did as much research as he could to optimise our chances. He took up running (there's some research that running increases sperm count). On an evening, he would wear underwear called 'snowballs' (lol) which you can buy on amazon which literally have a cool pack in the front. He was also taken a cocktail of supplements everyday. He's very into healthy eating anyway (and he doesn't drink or smoke). But he managed to increase his count from 1 million when he was first tested in 2020 to 10 million at the beginning of 2024.

Hope this helps! X

[Anisha29 in reply to CyclingAddict]

Thank you. I'll defo look into 'snowballs'. I agree it might be a combo of sperm and egg issues.

[Doodlebug23]

No advice but my 6 day BB embryo was the one that stuck and is now my 4 month old so maybe your little BB is the one 💖

[Anisha29 in reply to Doodlebug23]

Thank you Doodlebug23. That gives me some hope. grade BB isn't too bad in terms of quality 🤞

[Doodlebug23 in reply to Anisha29]

All my others were AA and AB and all 5 day, and all failed. Sending you masses of lucky and sticky vibes!