5 failed transfers what to do next

[Kingsby]

Hi there I’ve never posted on here before. Just finished my 5th 2ww fet with pgt normal embryo and got a bfn. I’m 39 I have 14 frozen embryos left untested. Have had era test, killer cells, prp, all the tests and still no luck. So hard to know whether to keep going or just realise it’s not going to work. My doctor thinks should try another round of ivf will be my 4th to see if can get better quality embryos not sure if to try or use up what I have left has anyone else kept going and got a positive? It’s also becoming very expensive but so hard as when it’s what you really you keep trying I do have an 11 year old from previous relationship we started ivf as male fertility but I also have pcos

Hi @Kingsby I remembered your post from a while back and had meant to respond at the time. I have yet to have any transfers, but will be pgta testing. Let me know if you're reading this and I'll answer a bit more...

Did you make a decision? My wife and I are in a similar position. No easy solution, it seems. Keep going with the small odds and expense or go for the donor egg route. I don't know, that's where we're at.

It’s so hard isn’t it. I’ve just finished a round of ivf and am having a double transfer Thursday one fresh from this cycle then using one from the last cycle (2yrs) both will be untested then the remaining embryos from this cycle will be tested. Then I guess if none are normal then will go for a donor. I’m trying to stay positive but after so many fails just can’t ever see it working.

Wishing you all the best 👍🏻👍🏻

@Kingsby sorry to hear of your failed transfers . I'm sure that'd extremely tough to deal with.
I can't offer you much advice, only comfort if you need to talk.
I'm about to go through my first ivf cycle. Im about to turn 38 soon. I have pcos and we have male factor too

@Kingsby RIF is very hard. We've been at this for 4 years, ivf for 18 months, no children for either of us. We have male factor, anti-sperm antibodies which destroy motility. 3 egg retrievals, 6 x (untested) embryos transferred and 1 x PGT-A tested embryo transferred over 6 transfers. PGT-A tested 4AA is currently working but still very early. I was 40 a few months ago.

If you have pcos there's potentially an egg quality issue, but you have made normal embryos by the sounds of it. Could you test them all if this double also doesn't work? Have you had DNA fragmentation done and any other male tests? Has your clinic been trying different things each time? I did an NHS cycle and no extras were offered really. We have only made progress when I pushed to try other things, like prednisolone (despite having normal NK cells), blood thinners, more progesterone. But maybe for us PGT-A was the issue, hard to say, it's still very early days.

"Have you had DNA fragmentation done and any other male tests?" - did you go for these? If so, did you learn something from them? They look very expensive but am wondering if they are worth it? Thanks for sharing this and wishing you all the best.

@thanksinadvance thanks! yes, we’ve seen a few specialists over the years including the andrologists Jonathan Ramsay and Tet Yap, they both have private London clinics and we saw Mr Yap at Guys after our NHS consultant referred us to him, which saved some money in things like Karyotype testing. We had to pay for hidden STI and DNA fragmentation privately, but I do think it was worth it.

When we first saw Mr Ramsay (private) he explained that the content of the sperm DNA needs to be good quality too and it’s essentially pointless spending thousands on IVF before checking you’re working with quality material, which makes sense. So we ran the tests and the results were good (husband had been taking antioxidant supplements for a number of months already) for his age so we were “cleared” to start ICSI, as such. Which, in fairness, was accurate. We had an above average fertilisation rate despite the MFI, and we made good quality blasts on 2/3 retrieval cycles. The one time we failed to make good embryos was the time my husband had a recent fever and infection, it wrecked the sperm, the quality was non-existent and we failed to make a single blastocyst, only two poor quality morulas, and we kicked ourself for not running an SA ahead of that cycle. He then went back to the antioxidant supplements for three months ahead of our third cycle, we re-tested with a regular SA and they said it was back to normal (for him) again.

So yeah, I do feel like our experience bears out the benefit of testing sperm quality before starting IVF, and then also what can happen when that quality is compromised. Happy to answer any questions on any of the MFI stuff, we’ve been in this process for a while and it’s a minefield.

We’ve not had dna fragmentation I’ve not heard of that I will ask the embryologist tomorrow for more information. Thank you for letting me know about it. Im having two fresh put back tomorrow then the remaining 8 will be pgt tested. However my last tested one still failed.

im on prodisonole prontogest Vagifemme estrogen tablets estrogen patches aspirin and clexane and cyclogest.

congratulations I really hope this one sticks for you thanks so much for all the info there’s just so much it’s hard to know when to stop!

good luck xx

Thank you that’s so interesting they’ve said the sleek is good quality I need to ask if has been tested I assumed would be but I think I need to ask. The reason we started ivf was because of slow speed so we needed icsi but I’ve always managed to get quite a few embryos just none have stuck. But definitely worth asking them tomorrow thanks so much for comments all really help xx

@Kingsby The fact that you can make embryos is a good start though, you’ve got something to work with, and you are on a number of meds so obviously they’re trying some things. Definitely do some research on the various tests for men and see what you think. They likely won’t have tested for DNA fragmentation, it’s a fairly pricey test that only a few places do, but might be a box to tick off if nothing else, especially if you have male factor infertility. And unfortunately it does kind of get to box ticking after a number of fails, to narrow down what is going on.

My husband also has poor motility and it took us a very long time to work out why, it was only because of our failed round we found the cause of his poor motility was antisperm antibodies. There’s a tendency by clinics to just assume the sperm will be fine because IVF will overcome the problem and they ignore what else might be going on and why it’s happening, and it’s hard to justify doing it again when it’s so expensive, and when you haven’t manage to rule some of this stuff out.

I had a 4aa and a 4bb untested transferred so now just the dreaded wait. I’ve not had any symptoms and after so many fails trying to stay positive but it’s really hard to we can’t afford another round after this . Have had another two tested so hoping they come back ok.

when are you trying again?

@Kingsby not sure if you mean me or someone else. We had a positive test after our 7th embryo transfer and are 5w 2d so just counting the days down until our 6.5 week scan now. Some other people in here might be trying again soon.

when did you do the transfer? Good luck, fingers crossed this one works for you!

Wow that’s amazing news and gives me hope! I had mine on Thursday but not feeling anything

@Kingsby fingers crossed for you. But if it doesn’t work out I definitely recommend the PGT-A route, that does seem to have helped us. Good luck with these two and keep us posted!