39yrs old on round 2 IVF/ICSI- 10 cell embryo on day 3

[ChirpyPanda]

Hi to everyone,

I’m currently going though my 2nd round of IVF/ICSI. I have low AMH 3.7 at my age 39 and my husband has low motility and low morphology. We had a failed 3day transfer in May but we’re now at 3 days post egg collection again. Today we got the standard call from the embryologist who says that out of our 5 embryos only one has 10-12 cells but has fragments so not the best quality. The others are 5 or less cells with significant fragmentation so unlikely to make it do day 5.

Like last time we were given the choice to transfer the best looking one on day 3 and hope for the best, or wait till day 5 to rule out all the bad ones and potentially have none left to transfer. This time we decided to wait as the 2 week wait only to see the inevitable was too much last time, so at least this way we save ourselves time and heartache down the line.

What I’m struggling with is the balance between staying hopeful and realistic, find it difficult to do either. I’m stuck between this world of constant fear and anxiety but at same time wanting to believe that miracles can happen. Then sometimes I think am I “wishing” too hard? Will that upset the universe for being so selfish in my wants and wishes? And in thinking so I don’t allow myself to feel too hopeful or wishful.

Has anyone else had bad cell embryo updates on day 3 but ended up with a rainbow baby anyway? Could really do with some success stories right now.

thanks guys x

I suspect you can find success stories if you hunt for them, but you might be better served by thinking about what can make this work for you - and a good conversation with the ivf team. Fwiw we struggled on with lots of failure, for years, trying to be optimistic, and only after a really frank conversation with the drs did we payse - and we are so in love with our six month old donor egg son now
best of luck, i know how dreadful it feels

Thank you for your reply! I agree, I'm obsessing over every detail I can find on Google but it feels like no matter what I find, be it good or bad it rarely makes me feel any better about my situation. We did decide to wait till day 5 to see what happens and the one embryo we did have actually did make blast so we had our transfer yesterday. The two week wait officially starts now and already I can't stop myself obsessing over all the what if's and maybe's.

This is only my second attempt and I know people have had to go on this journey multiple times and its not always a happy ending. Thank you for your success story and Donor eggs is definitely something we discussed too. I don't know much about the process though, do you pick the donor or randomly assigned by the clinic?🙂

It's not a quick decision to make to use a donor. There are various different routes. We chose to just ask for the next available donor as we didn't want to feel like we were 'engineering' a child. Plus we thought all the donors would be kind people and that's what we'd want for any child.