How many of your tested embryos were normal/euploid?

[Sofie19]

Hi

I am going to do an egg collection and test the embryos after having 5(!) failed transfers since my son was conceived via IVF. I am curious as to what to expect. Please could you share the number of eggs collected/blastocysts/euploid numbers and age? I do appreciate there will be a lot of variation but I am interested to hear experiences from others.

I last had EC a year ago I had 9 eggs and 3 blastocysts but they were untested. I'm not sure if I will get anything to transfer as they might all be abnormal. I am 36 now.

The stats are 1 in 4. I tested 4 and only 1 normal, so the stats are pretty accurate, although I am in the older range (42 this year).

The euploid didn't implant so I've decided not to test going forward and give all suitable embryos a chance.

You are still relatively young, so maybe consider embryo banking if you do want to test. I also did my last (duostim) cycle abroad and currently have 4 untested embryos with them, and 2 in the UK from a previous cycle.

I'm quite interested in this thread if you don't mind me joining. We have 7 blastocysts and 1 day 3 frozen but decided against testing, as yet to know if any work as I'm pending FET. I'm 38.

@blahblahetc have you had any other tests or would anything be done differently as the euploid did not implant?

@Sunflower360 I am waiting to do a hysteroscopy and 'implantation window' test before my planned FET in April. I've also been advised to take probiotics daily, both orally and vaginally.

Not sure what the hysteroscopy will check for specifically, except that it does the same as an endometrium scratch to aid implantation; and the findings from the 'implantation window' test is good for 6 months.

@blahblahetc I had a Hysteroscopy in January as I had polyp following the egg collections. So that got removed and adhesions too to smooth it all over, hence ending up needing a FET instead of fresh. How mucu is the implantation wondow test and what does that involve?

It's an uterine lining examination to determine when the lining is most receptive to welcome embryo. I was told it's similar to a smear test, the cost is 520 eur.

Hi @Sofie19, I had 3 good quality untested embryos fail, and 2 poor quality untested fail, before moving to a third collection cycle and PGT-A. We got 5 embryos this time, transferred one untested fresh (so we weren't left with nothing to transfer), froze a poor quality 5CC one untested, and tested the remaining 3 out of 5. 1 out of that 3 was euploid, and I'm now 25 weeks. We did do lots of other tests/tweaks along the way, but I was 39 at the time of EC and 40 now, so I do wonder if creating normal embryos was an issue for us and am glad we tried PGT-A.

In our first cycle, we had 3 blasts and none of them were normal. Second cycle, we had 9 blasts and 4 came back as euploid.

Oh and I was 41 in the first cycle and 42 in the second.

I just came across this thread out of curiosity as I've never tested my embryos, but I recognised you from older threads @thislittlebird and I just wanted to say I'm so pleased to hear that you're 25w now! Amazing news, congratulations 😊

@thislittlebird wow, what lovely news! Congratulations. Is your pregnancy the result of the tested or untested? What other tests and tweaks did you do? It does give me some home that someone can have 5 failed transfers and then be 25 weeks along. How do you feel?? I remember being in shock for the whole 9 months of pregnancy and perhaps the first 6-9 months of my son's life and he was "only" the second transfer.

@Always28 wow!! How different the two rounds were! What did you do differently for the second?

@blahblahetc thank you for sharing. I have 1 embryo left over and just going to go straight to a freeze all before using up the one left.

@beachbum85 yeah I’m on a lot of old threads 🙃. Thank you, it’s still pretty strange really, I think we’d mentally concluded this wouldn’t work for us, and then it did on attempt number 7. If we did it again we’d do PGT-A again, but we’re more than fine with one and hopefully getting to move on after nearly 5 years at this.

@Sofie19 pregnancy is a result of our one and only tested embryo that came back euploid. Sorry if I didn’t word it well, we had a lot of attempts! We tried six embryos before this one, including one double transfer, and then this was embryo number 7. So for us, I do think pgt-a was a good move. You’re a bit younger and you could probably embryo bank, as someone else suggested. We got very lucky that the one euploid we had worked. Shocked is definitely a good description, I think we’ve only recently started to accept this is real and happening. I don’t think I’ll properly accept it until a baby is here. It’s all very strange after such a long time.

I made a list earlier on another thread if most of the things we tried, I’ll copy and paste that here or dm you if that’s easier.

@Sofie19 hope the testing of your embryos goes ok

@thislittlebird that's good news that your 7th go has been a good one. If it was possible for you to share in the thread what you tried that would be really appreciated! Bit nervous could be repeating the FET process

@thislittlebird it's wonderful. I hope you're enjoying pregnancy as much as is realistically possible. I bet at 25 weeks there's a bump now...like a proper baby shaped one, not the kind where people are wondering if you've put on weight! . Awww when your baby gets here you still might find it hard to believe! I felt shocked and sort of dazed! Ahh I hope the next 15 weeks whizz by for you! You could say you were lucky with the euploid. But equally you had a lot of transfers beforehand so it was your turn! But yes I have read that it's around 60% success of a euploid so it sort of makes me think why does it still not work 40% of the time. So yes, please message me the list of things you tried.

I did 3 rounds when I was 33 and 34 and got a 50% euploidy rate each time:

2/4
1/2
3/6

Sorry to hear about your failed transfers, it’s so tough. I’ve done 5 myself. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Thank you @giraffesauce very helpful stats. May I ask where you are with things now? Did any result in a live birth? Also...what did you do for round 3? 6/3 is great especially after the previous one!!

@Sofie19 I only did the PG testing after the third round. I did a transfer with untested embryos for each of the first two retrievals, first one had a MMC, second one TFMR for T21. First one was also later confirmed to be a chromosome issue, so had I done PG testing from the start, it likely wouldn’t have happened.

For the third round we changed clinics, did a very strict diet for 4 months, I switched from antagonist to long protocol, and we added Zymot and IMSI (we have male factor) so hard to say what exactly worked. That’s also when we decided to test all embryos from all 3 rounds.

I did 2 transfers after that with euploid embryos which both failed; further testing showed my uterine microbiome was unbalanced (likely caused by D&Cs), treated that, and the next (5th) transfer with a euploid got me pregnant. I’m almost 15 weeks now and definitely don’t feel like I’m out of the woods yet but 1000% an advocate for PG testing now.

Sorry for the very long answer but my story is quite complicated.

Hi @Sofie19 I was 37 when I had 38 eggs collected, only 8 fertilised, 6 became embryos and we did pgta on them, 2 were euploid, 1 was no result and 3 were abnormal. We transferred one of the euploid embryos and I now have a 2 month old baby boy snoring right by my ear. I don't think success is guaranteed whichever route you chose, but for me I wanted to do pgta because I'd had previous early losses (natural) and with my age, and the emotional cost of the losses I wasn't up for spending time and money on multiple transfers. I threw everything at it and I'm glad I did. But I don't think I had any other issues apart from slightly high nk cells which I had steroids/intralipids for.

Forgot to say, my euploidy stats were average/slightly low end for my age, I think at 36 you can expect about 50% to be euploid, give or take. There are reference ranges by age out there if you do a quick Google.

@giraffesauce yayyy! Massive congratulations! Lovely news. I know the not 'out of the woods' feeling. I kept mentally ticking off various different weeks. Please try to 'enjoy' it as much as you can...you've worked so hard to get here! What is the treatment for the microbiome issue? Also, did you have any problems with previous untested embryos thawing and then not making it? I have 1 embryo left which is untested so I am contemplating whether or not to test that with the new ones I test with the upcoming cycle. I'm a bit frightened all the thawing, testing and refreezing will cause a bit of damage.
@browneyedgirl626 aww how lovely your baby is snoring away...what a great success story! Thank you so much for sharing. I feel like you in that I will throw everything at it but this will be the last egg collection. It will be the 3rd in total. If I "only" have my son then that's it, I won't be able to say I didn't try.

So for context, my husband has antisperm antibodies. It took us until early 2023 to establish this, but we had known he had very poor motility and vitality (but normal count) since 2019 when we first got tested. My 2019 results had shown I had low progesterone but not much else wrong, with normal/high amh for my age. After we’d made good embryos on our first collection cycle, it then seemed I also had a repeat implantation failure issue. My first 3 transfers were with Guys, the remaining 4 were at a private clinic, Lister.

This is a brief overview of everything we tested/tried/changed that I can recall:

• Very early on I had a HSG to rule out blocked tubes, that came back clear
• I had a microbiome test with Fertilisys and then treatment (antibiotics, probiotics, I also treated myself for thrush and BV a week or two before this transfer in case there was anything going on in there causing issues)
• I suspected i had a very defensive immune system, so I self medicated with low dose prednisolone on embryo transfer 3 and achieved implantation before realising it was a chemical at about 5 weeks. I then did the NK cells test on the back of this loss but that came back within range. So I pushed to officially try low dose prednisolone (10mg) for this last attempt (embryo 7) and maybe it helped, since I achieved implantation again on it. I stayed on it until 12 weeks.
• I had to push for extra progesterone tests once with the private clinic and they increased my progesterone from just cyclogest (with Guys) to cyclogest + Lubion (I suspect cyclogest alone was never enough for me, my progesterone is naturally low and I bled before OTD on almost all attempts)
• Also tried blood thinners (Arovi) for the last two cycles, but wasn't tested for blood clotting
• DH had DNA fragmentation test which came back pretty good, but still poor motility so he had Impryl supplements to improve it, also had hidden STD tests, karyotyping to rule out certain issues
• For our final two rounds we used IMSI (with the Lister clinic) and we used ICSI from the start
• We tried PGT-A on our third and final cycle and it was our only euploid embryo, so I do suspect creating normal embryos might have been a problem for us at our age.

If I remember anything else I’ll add it, but that’s everything I can recall. Moving from nhs to private was good for us, we needed the extra help Guys weren’t willing to or couldn’t offer.

Obviously all of this is in the context of our specific issues, but as you can see, we had to try a lot of things to get where we are, it was definitely not easy. I would recommend everyone does their own research on what may or may not work for you and then push the doctors to try things if you want to.

@Sunflower360 thank you! Good luck with your impending FET!

@Sunflower360 repeating the FET process is never fun, good luck with your next one. I posted a list above copied from elsewhere but if you want to know anything in particular about anything we did do feel free to DM.

@Sofie19 yeah definitely a bump now, it really feels very alien to me, I won’t lie! Yeah we were very unlucky in lots of ways, but it is what it is, hopefully the ultimate result will be a good one.