PGT fail - 4 blastocysts but non viable for biopsy

[Lasagnebread]

Feeling completely drained if I'm honest.10 eggs retrieved, 8 mature and all fertilised, 4 made it to blastocyst but non were of sufficient quality to biopsy.

They will be changing my stims to try and get more eggs for next time. I'm just worried that if the issue is quality we'll be in the same place. They said there's nothing they can do to control the quality and it's just pot luck. I think that was to make me feel better but I don't.

If anyone has any tips on things I could maybe do that would be appreciated ❤️

[Lana89]

Hi lovely sorry for what your going through

COQ10 are supposed to be good for egg quality think it’s 600 mg if your not already on them it’s worth a try good luck with everything lovely

X

[CyclingAddict]

This sounds incredibly stressful and I'm sorry you're going through this. 8 mature eggs is pretty good going, though! As someone else put, COQ10 is good to take. Also eating a healthy diet (I was eating a lot of protein and veg - basically following a Mediterranean diet). I cut out alcohol and really reduced my sugar intake. If you have a male spouse and you're not using donor sperm, he can be taking Impryl (my husband was taking a cocktail of supplements). He also took up running (there's some evidence that this improves sperm count/quality) and he was wearing underwear with a cool pack inside on the evenings (they are called 'snowballs' on Amazon). For us, it really was a joint effort in terms of trying to optimise our results - and of course luck does play into it. In my first cycle I had 5 embryos (1 of which was pretty poor quality and none resulted in a successful pregnancy). In my second cycle, I had 11 blastocysts after implementing changes, depsite being 2 years older. 1 of those blastocysts is now my 4 month old son. So your experience this time does not mean you won't get better results the next time round.

Hope this helps and good luck x

[cantbearsed]

I am so sorry, it's so tough when consultants say that isn't it. But sometimes I think it is just luck (but I know so hard to hear when the luck never seems to be on our side) - one cycle really can vary so much to the next. The below supplements are all supposed to help.

COQ10

DHEA

Ovum supplements (which contain COQ10 and most of the supplements recommended in "it starts with the egg"). In the cycle I used these I got the most eggs. Can't say if it definitely made the difference or not but it was the only thing I changed.

Good luck x

[Lasagnebread]

Thank you all! I had to take COQ10 400mg per day for 3 months before starting the process and still taking that much atm. I'll ask about upping that and about DHEA as I'd not heard of this before. I've also ordered Impryl for my Husband. I don't drink but I think I've been over reliant on sweet treats as a mood booster recently so probably need to cut back on sugar.It feels so disheartening and I think knowing even if we get embryos that can be biopsied they might not be viable anyway makes going again even more daunting. I'm hoping I can just power through when we start again and push all of that to the side ❤️

[HelzBelzUK]

Hey xx our situation is similar to yours

I take ovum and an extra 400mg ubiquinol. I’ve also been taking NMN for almost 3 months as there are some studies in mice to say it improves egg quality. There is a huge Japanese study going on at the minute regarding nmn in women but the study doesn’t finish until Sept this year. So really interested to see what that shows!

The egg whisper (Dr Aimee) has some good advice on her website re: supplements for egg and sperm health

Be careful taking DHEA as you have to get your testosterone checked regularly

My husband takes impryl too and it got his DNA fragmentation down from 33% to 8%!

We’re both really good with eating clean and exercising but in the last few months we have both cut down on caffeine & increased our exercise. It may not make a difference but we feel better knowing we’ve tried our best xx Lots of luck xx

[JennyJen3 in reply to HelzBelzUK]

May you share which supplements you take for the extra ubiquinol and nmn? I too take ovum so would love top up ahead of egg retrieval x

[HelzBelzUK in reply to JennyJen3]

I take viva nmn 500mg (one tablet) in the morning.

I buy the ubiquinol from natures best but they’re only 100mg tablets so I take 4. I split them.. 2 in the morning, one at lunch and one at bed.

[JennyJen3 in reply to HelzBelzUK]

Thank you! When do you take ovum within the day? And do you take omega 3 too?

[HelzBelzUK in reply to JennyJen3]

Yeah I take the inessa omega 3 at night

I split the ovum.. breakfast, lunch and bed.

So in the morning I do one ovum, 200 mg ubiquinol, extra 400iu vitamin e, extra 500mg vitamin c, bio me femme v probiotic, NMN and symprove

Lunch one ovum and 100mg ubiquinol

Bed one ovum, omega 3, 100mg ubiquinol and 150mg magnesium citrate xx

Hope that helps xxxx

[Wuhu85]

Some women are succesful with transfered 3-4 days cleavage embryos. One thing is to have anepoidity but the other to not have embryos at all. So maybe try this approach if everything fails.

[bundles11]

This happened to us too. Did they say the blasts didn’t have enough cells? I was so crushed too.

[JennyJen3 in reply to bundles11]

Would you mind sharing what these were graded as my clinic said the same with a 3CC and discarded on day 6

[bundles11 in reply to JennyJen3]

They were “DD” which I think is my clinic’s own grading and apparently means worse than CC. Basically it means “discard”. My clinic would test a CC apparently but it would still need to have enough cells. Did they tell you anything about yours or is it their policy not to test CCS?

[JennyJen3 in reply to bundles11]

Apparently their policy which I was upset about knowing that others (that I’ve read about on forums like this) have had babies with CC’s. I’m aware clinics vary so what might be a CC in my clinic is a DD in another but obviously I’m reluctant to let them go and would have been happy to have paid for testing (as this was my initial intention) but unfortunately we only got 1 blast 3BB that resulted in a miscarriage at 10 weeks (untested due to it being the only one so we chanced it and did a fresh transfer!) In hindsight we should’ve tested it as planned as it would’ve picked up on the chromosome abnormalities and we wouldn’t have had to have gone through the trauma of a miscarriage

[bundles11 in reply to JennyJen3]

Yes it may be that your clinic has a wider definition of BB. Which at other clinics may be CC.

I also just had a miscarriage from a fresh transfer. But I’m simultaneously scared of testing due to the doubts around it. It’s an impossible decision, especially if you don’t get huge numbers.

[JennyJen3 in reply to bundles11]

100% agree. I’m petrified of going back at this again! Esp as time isn’t on my side. (40yrs old) And have no more NHS funding so a lot more pressure to choose the right clinic and get given the right protocol

[bundles11 in reply to JennyJen3]

I’m 42! The pressure is awful. I honestly hate ivf so much lol

[Biscuit-cat]

Asked your clinic about modified natural protocol. It focuses on quality using low dose stims to gently push the follicles in hope that the eggs will be better quality. I have the same issue with egg quality using mild or long protocols on high dose stims so clinic has suggested this new approach as they have seen positive results. I’ll be trying this in the coming months. Hoping for a better result but obviously anything can happen.

[Spicycurry]

It sounds like a sperm issue. From

days 1-3 it is the egg that results in fertilisation. From days 4, the sperm takes over. The fact that all 8 fertilised shows that egg quality is good. I would ask to do IMSI next time. Does your partner have a healthy diet?

[bundles11 in reply to Spicycurry]

This is a myth. Sperm quality can affect fertilisation and to a certain extent how the embryo progresses. But it doesn’t “take over” at any point.

[HelzBelzUK in reply to bundles11]

I agree xxx we had a huge drop off rate on day 4 and we were told that it was potentially because the embryo had too many chromosomal abnormalities xx

[Spicycurry in reply to bundles11]

Well when my husband’s morphology was worse we lost more blastocysts but egg quality was good. Then when morphology was higher we had 100% blastocyst rate from what was fertilised.