another failed fertilisation - looking into AOA

[emma_g87]

I had my 5th fresh egg retrieval on Friday. 11 eggs collected, 9 mature, 0 fertilised. This the second time we’ve had a total failed fertilisation. Round 4 was 4 collected, 3 mature, 0 fertilised.

I have a follow up consultation later this week to discuss next steps but one thing the embryologist did mention on the phone today (when confirming 0 fertilised eggs) was the possibility of trying artificial oocyte activation. She was clear that the research base is quite sparse at the moment but that we’d probably meet the hfea criteria for trying it if we wanted. Wondering if anyone here has any experience with this? If we go for a 6th round this really will be our last attempt - I don’t think we can take much more, emotionally or financially. Wondering how much difference, if any, AOA could make?

EDIT: all my cycles were ICSI. Sperm parameters normal.

[chocchoc12]

Could you try ICSI? (If you haven’t already?). None of my eggs made it to blastocyst with ivf so we did ICSI and got a much better result with a decent amount of embryos.

[emma_g87 in reply to chocchoc12]

Thanks. I should have mentioned these were all ICSI cycles

[Kilk22]

hey there,

God such devastating results. I don't see any mention of the sperm in term of testing in your message ? Has it been thoroughly tested? Dna fragmentation test etc? Are you both taking supplements? Healthy lifestyle? Acupuncture? Good sleep? Less stress? Just a few things that come to mind here. What method was used? Conventional ivf or icsi / picsi / Zymot? I hope you're ok ❣️

[Endofitall]

I just wanted to say I’m so sorry. 😞

When you say all sperm parameters normal has sperm dna fragmentation been checked?

Did they comment on egg quality at all?

[Vassi]

I'm so sorry lovely, I had a similar thing happen to me.I had 16 eggs collected and 2 fertlise but none made it to blast.

So for the next cycle we added Mechanical egg activation with icsi and zymot which improved things, that cycle we had 15 eggs retrieved, 10 fertilise and 2 embryos.

But my last cycle we did calcium ionophore and icsi with zymot. 13 eggs were retrieved, 11 fertilised and 4 high quality embryos were frozen. Three more in culture waiting on a call about them tomorrow.

I think that was a game changer for me, however I did take the last 3 months off to improve egg quality as well.

I'll make a post about it now to help anyone else in this situation.

Thinking of you, I know how devastating this feels, but it can improve 🙏 xx

[Samuk14]

This happened to us the first time, they looked at the levels of my Estradiol which were low in comparison to the number of eggs received and could have contributed to zero fertilisation - but I changed medication this time round and we also used picsi - which is another step within ICSI. Could this be an option? X

[Cloud_3]

Hi emma_g87,

My last round was pretty much the same as your Round 4 and we used AOA so sadly didn’t help us. I’ve had 3 rounds (one IVF and then 2 ICSI) and only had one fertilisation on the middle round and we didn’t do AOA then.

We’re going for a 4th round but doing it with a clinic in Barcelona instead of the UK this time and they’re suggesting we do AOA again.

Sorry not much help but just giving you some context. I think we will go with AOA.

Good luck xx