Devastated by 4th round results

[CDiamond]

Hi all,

Having an extremely tough day. I am not sure how to cope; sorry to vent. I have just recieved a call about my 4th IVF egg collection results - dismal; 1 fertilised egg. Attaching a picture of journey so far. I am at a complete loss. The results are getting worse with each round. Does anyone have any suggestions to what to do at this point with 4 failed rounds? Well I suppose this round is not confirmed failed yet - but highly unlikely the 1 fertilised egg is going to produce a good embryo that then implants - looking at my history. Not sure what next; I am in pieces.

PS: I am 36 with low AMH (4.1) and husband is 37 with male factor (low count and morphogology; sometimes low motility). We are on multivitamins, etc.

Thank you

If you have make Fertility issues, have you got a DNA fragmentation test? How do they select the sperm? Some clinics offer a high potency microscope to select the sperm.

Hi there, sorry to hear. I’m doing my 5th round currently and am soldiering on so hang in there.

We are on a strict, no processed food diet. Taking traditional Chinese meds (herbs) on top of the recommended vitamins:

• folic acid 800 (just me)
• vit d 5000
• coQ 10 1000
• DHEA (just my husband)

We find that our results were slightly improved with the lifestyle changes. We are also seeking treatment abroad this time as we were advised to do so by a doctor I spoke to at random.

We are both early 40s.

@Olivie12 Not done DNAfrag no. The first 3 rounds were ICSI, so sperm selection just by embryologist I guess. The 4th round this time is PICSI.

I meant to say the clinic also did MACS on top of ICSI.

My husband has a severe varicocele that couldn't be operated on so we had to go into ICSI knowing that dna fragmentation was a huge risk. I'd read so many threads on here of people seeing g their embryos slow down and stop after day 3 when the male gene carries them forward. Because we couldn't help the varicocele my husband was advised to ejaculate every other day which he did for 3 months before our cycle. He also took the usual proxeed and well man and did all the life style things im sure your hubby is already doing. We ended up with 6 day 5 blasts from 7 eggs, the 7th got to day 5 but slowed down so they didnt freeze. Can only think the advice about ejaculation worked to keep things fresh and not oxidised. I think clinics also recommend surgical removal too which was what we would have tried had we not had blasts on round 1.

Does your dp have a cause behind the low parameters? You're so brave and strong to be going through this multiple times, it's such a hard process.

I would take a break and try vitamins, NAC, Alpha lipoic acid, Ovasitol, CQ10, etc. vitamins need to be taken at least 3 months prior to start IVF. You could give that a go, I've read people having success with that, although in my case it didn't help at all.

My DH improved his sperm ejaculating every 2-3 days and taking CQ10 600 gr, zinc, NAC and lycopene.

My DH's sperm was very bad and same I had only 0 to 2 embryos every cycle. The IVF doctor back then told me that it was egg quality, even that his sperm was bad with young eggs more would fertilize, to go with donor eggs. We didn't follow his advice and changed clinics 2 more times, his sperm is now perfect and we still have the same problems, so yes likely egg quality.

Good luck

What is your stim protocol @CDiamond

We've just had a poor collection round (first of 3 cycles) but only got 1 average day 3 frozen. The other 2 didn't make it to day 5.

I've changed my supplements to impryl, I'm on NAC, 4000iu vit D, high strength omega 3, vitamin E now. My dh had a poor sperm analysis (5% motility) so he went on impryl and on the day he ended up with 90% motility of the final sample after they'd prepped it, so we did ivf and got 3 out of 4 eggs fertilised.

My clinic have also put me on estrogen priming as I have uneven follicle growth, so the aim is it evens out. I had 11 follicles but 10mm between my top 1 and the 4th one, but only 4 eggs collected (they didn't drain the smaller ones).

I hope you're OK, it's very demoralising ❤️