IVF Round 1 low fertilisation

[Ginge12]

Hi,

I had my egg collection yesterday and we retrieved 13 eggs. I've just had a call from the clinic to say that only 2 have fertilised and they aren't sure why.

Has anyone had any experiences of this?

We are doing standard IVF - I was diagnosed with PCOS and no male factors

Ask your clinic for an explanation of the possibilities . Some might try next day ICSI ( more common if there is no fertilisation day after egg collection ) . Good luck with your two embryos x

Thank you @bengalcat fingers crossed x

I've had this on my second cycle unexpectedly. We retrieved 14 eggs but only 3 fertilised normally. We have male factor so this was with ICSI and all we've been told was that my eggs were very fragile and didn't cope with the injection process. I took the trigger on day 8 due to the number of follicles developing and for the next cycle they put on my notes not to trigger before day 10 so I've taken from that that it was an egg quality issue due to them being immature. Cycle before this I triggered on day 10 and had 9/12 fertilise. Cycle after this also had normal fertilisation so it seems for me it was an egg maturity issue. The embryologist should have an idea what the problem is based on how your eggs behaved - they probably won't admit any fault though (as mine didn't)

The really annoying secret that nobody tells you before you start IVF is that, more often than not, doctors cannot tell you why it fails. In my case, it was me but we only found out after several cycles and by elimination, first we tried with donor sperm and my eggs (crap results), then the opposite (medium success). That was after three cycles with our own eggs and sperm, so I just hope you find out sooner because it was a long an expensive, not to speak of mentally taxing, way of finding out.

At least it worked, eventually (one of the donor egg embryos is now a very happy little girl).

@ZenThoughts that makes sense actually. I had my baseline stims scan on day 7 and they told me I was measuring big so went back on day 8 and triggered day 9 with collection on day 11

And we never knew what was "wrong" with my eggs, no health or genetic reasons, they just didn't fertilise and the few that did did not develop properly. Just because.

@Ginge12 ask them about the maturity then but be prepared for them to not tell you they triggered too early. Also, what was your trigger? Due to the OHSS risk my trigger was changed from gonasi to Buserelin, also unbeknownst to me is that gonasi is the preferred due to how the eggs respond to it. I now have gonasi since that disaster round. I'm sorry this has happened to you, it's devastating to go from the elation of over 10 eggs collected to praying that you'll have one to transfer xxxx

My wife had less than 50% of her eggs fertilise and we can only assume this was due to the trigger shot being pulled early as she was a high risk of OHSS; so a lot of her eggs were still quite immature.
Your embryologist should be able to tell you though. Fingers crossed for you x

I would opt for ICSI next time as this has much higher fertilisation rates - have they indicated whether it looked like male factor issues or egg quality?

Just wanted to second a gonasi trigger. Greatly improved our fertilisation rates (this was over ovitrelle). I do suspect that they triggered you too early too. It’s a horribly stressful experience, sorry you’re going through this. Fingers crossed for your two embryos

No male factor, they said our sample was great.

The trigger was Ovitrelle, I'm thinking I've triggered too early. Feeling a bit more hopeful since my husband came home. I need to focus on the two we have and stop comparing to others.

I really hope our 2 sprout over the next few days ready for transfer on Saturday x

It could also be egg quality which is why many clinics favour ICSI - as you get older your eggs become harder and so sperm find it more difficult to penetrate it

Triggering too early tends to affect egg maturity more than anything - If all your eggs were mature then it's most likely a male factor they haven't looked into like DNA fragmentation or egg quality x