Supplements to improve egg quality

[GreatEggSpectations]

I'm nearly 30 and appear to have poor egg quality. What supplements should I take?
I already take ubiquinol CoQ10, Vit D, folic acid, omega 3.

Here's how my egg collections have gone:
1st
Eggs collected : 7
Fertilised : 6
Day 5 / 6: 2
Euploid : 1

2nd
Eggs collected : 10
Fertilised : 8
Day 5 / 6 : 6
Euploid : 3

3rd
Eggs collected : 13
Fertilised : 9
... waiting to hear more on this one.

Morning, I would say those ratios aren’t too bad at all, fingers crossed for your latest round. You’re taking lots of good supplements already. Have you read It Starts With The Egg? I found it very useful as it tells you exactly what supplements to take depending on your circumstances, eg PCOS, thyroid issues etc. It’s also got some great advice re diet and lifestyle.

Hi,

I’m not sure why you think you have poor egg quality, you seem to be well within the expected stats:

• 80% of mature eggs fertilise
• 30-50% of fertilised embryos still alive on day 3 make it to blastocyst on day 5/6
• for <35 years 55% of embryos are euploid

So from your first couple of rounds you collected 17 eggs so would expect between 2.3-3.7 euploid embryos. You have 4 euploid embryos so are actually slightly beating statistics.

I guess firstly my doc said I've got poor egg quality based on numbers and secondly, appreciate this isn't reflected in my OP, but only 4 embryos (? fertilised eggs? whatever they're called at that stage) were developing "as expected" on day 3.

*on day 3 of my latest cycle

Ah ok, so on your 3rd current cycle it is:

Eggs collected : 13
Fertilised : 9
Day 3: 4 embryos still developing
day 5/6: TBC

If that’s right then this is a bit below average for this cycle, so it might be just a bit of an unlucky one. Whereas some of your earlier cycles were on the ‘luckier’ side. Overall from your 30 eggs you’d expect ~4-7 euploid embryos by the average stats.

There is a lot of variation just due to biology from cycle to cycle. I varied from 0-5 embryos (not tested) across my 5 collection cycles, some were unlucky (zero) vs my best at 5 (untested) embryos. But overall I hit the stats - 22 eggs collected overall gave me 7 embryos of which I’m hoping a few will be euploid 🙏🏻.

Its frustrating for sure, but given that you’re already doing and taking the right things maybe this is just an unlucky one. Crossing my fingers for you that you beat the stats and all 4 make it to day 5 though!

as previous poster said - it all starts with the egg is a good source of info.

@Zypig well... 4 were developing as they should and the remainder still alive but slower. Could they still catch up?

They can, one of ours is a day 6 frozen embryo, which having researched is really not that big of a deal for an FET, more an issue for fresh transfer as you are out of sync.

If you have more than 4 still alive at day 3 then perhaps the others are the 50-70% that might not make it to 5 day blast but you could be left with 4 lovely embryos at the end ready for testing, which wouldn’t be a bad result I don’t think. Good luck!

@Zypig so we got the call today and I think you're right in that it's a super unlucky cycle. 1 ready to biopsy today and 2-3 more hopefully tomorrow they said 😭

Ah that’s so frustrating, I presume today is day 5? It’s so bizarre, I had one cycle where I got 5 untested blasts and tried the exact same protocol 2-3 months later and got zero! No logical reason for it, just luck is all I can think. I’m sorry if this one has been one of those unlucky ones for you.

Do you think your diet affected it a lot?

I think on my second round (where I got 6 blasts from 10 eggs, 3 euploids) I followed a no carb diet religiously. My lunch would be chicken breast with avocado. Dinner a protein and veg. Breakfast 4 eggs. Snacks only nuts. Wouldn't even try a bite of cake. I think I relaxed a little with this current round, would have the occasional bite of a biscuit, maybe half a slice of cake (not every day). Could that have been it?

And yes , day 5 today!

Honestly I didn’t (consciously) change anything. I have no explanation for the variation beyond our bodies being funny things. I think overall diet can have an effect, i.e. eating well generally matters, but I can’t imagine that a biscuit here and there is going to dramatically change the outcome.