High number of immature eggs - any hope?

[Vparisi]

Hi all,

Was just wondering if anyone has experience with successful IVF following a large number of immature eggs?

I am going through (or have gone through) my first IVF cycle at the moment. I am 29 and very fit and healthy, but have a history of 6 laparotomies and laparoscopies for cysts, bowel issues, burst appendix, ectopic etc which has left me with a frozen pelvis and extreme adhesions. Everything in my cycle was going really well - Tuesday at my scan I had 31 follicles looking good and all the nurse kept telling me was what a great response I was having. I had my trigger Wednesday night and was in absolute agony Friday but had my EC at 9:30am yesterday and everything supposedly went really well. I got 17 eggs which was not as many as expected, but the embryologist came and said that if less than 6 fertilised they would freeze today but he would consider that extremely unlikely.

They called this morning and said only 6 were mature of the 17 and 3 fertilised, so they freezed today but there is a 35% chance of success with those ones so realistically if I got 1 to transfer that would be a good outcome. We are totally devastated and in absolute shock. The embryologist said I should make an appointment with the doctor to see what went wrong as it was a very poor and unexpected outcome and she doesn't have an explanation.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with this and if is worth trying again? Has anyone tried again after this and had a better outcome? Feeling like there is no hope.

Hi @Vparisi sorry to hear this but good luck for the 3 you have hopefully at least one of those makes a good embryo and you don't have to worry about a second cycle! I haven't had this happen personally but from my reading and reading about others experience this is can be due to either an issue with the protocol (sometimes over stimulation can give high number of poor quality eggs) or sometimes an issue with egg quality. Was it long or short protocol you had?
Often the first cycle it's difficult to predict how your body responds to the medication and often one than 1 round is needed for success. If you don't get the outcome you want this time and you are mentally/physically/financially able to consider another round then I would say it's worth it and a poor outcome this time round doesn't necessarily mean you're out xx

Thank you @roo45 I really appreciate the support. I had short. So as you say maybe just a case of switching protocol ❤

Hi @Vparisi sorry you are feeling so upset. I just wanted to share that my wife had 29 eggs retrieved, and only 6 fertilised. We were initially devastated, lots of immature ones. Anyway, 5 made it to day 5/6. All were frozen as she had OHSS, but one was transferred the following month and our 8 week old is sleeping next to us right now. Good luck. Fingers crossed for you.

Hi @Vparisi
Just wanted to jump on... My second fresh cycle, 10 eggs were retrieved but only 3 were mature... All 3 fertilised, 1 is now my 22 month old beautiful daughter and the other 2 were frozen on day 6.
I thought the cycle was doomed... It certainly wasn't! Stay positive x

Oh and just to add... I was 38 almost 39... So had a much higher chance of abnormalities x

Thanks @Shamoo and @firefly37 those stories both definitely give me some hope. Congratulations on your lovely children!!

I think the thing that confused me was them freezing the fertilised eggs straight away (I had to do freeze all because of OHSS risk) instead of letting them grow to day 5 or 6. I would have been interested to see if the 3 made it to that stage like both of yours did but she said it is standard procedure for less than 6 fertilised. I'll have lots of questions for the dr last week on the rationale.

Anyway thank you both for sharing. Really helps to see some success stories! I think I just had this massive build up by the dr telling me how great everything looked so am a bit in shock, but glad I have these forums.