Should I go for a 5th ivf cycle?

[Dodeedoo]

hi all, I’ve had 4 ivf cycles now as follows:

1st: 5 eggs retrieved, 2 fertilised- 1x 8 cell 3 day embryo transferred, bfn.

2nd: 5 eggs, 1 fertilised. Didn’t make it past 5 cells. No transfer.

3rd: 5 eggs, 3 fertilised. One 5 day blast transferred (graded 3bc). Chemical pregnancy.

4th: 11 eggs (max dose stims) 1 fertilised. Made it to 5 day blast, graded 4AA. Transferred but early loss.

im so hopeless now. We have one round left and I don’t even know whether to use it.

can anyone help? Has anyone had so many cycles and had a success?

thanks xx

How old are you and what is your underlying reason for doing IVF? Are you doing ICSI? The main barrier in the above seems to be low fertilisation.

I’m 36. We did icsi in our second round and it was the worse of the lot :( thank you for replying xx

Sorry, my underlying reason is blocked tubes.

Have you had any feedback from your doctors? Tubal infertility usually has good prognosis because there's no reason to suspect issues with gamete quality.

Has there been a full semen analysis? PICSI is something that can be added to ICSI to try and select the best sperm.

A conversation with the embryology team could also give some insight.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone here ...
My first cycle only 1 day 3 embryo and bfn
2nd cycle again just 1 3 day embryo bfn
3rd cycle no viable embryos
4th cycle ended up with 5 blasts, fresh one bfn, 1st ever frozen ended up in chemical, 2nd frozen miscarriage at 7 weeks and then 3rd frozen was bfn. I have one left in the freezer and another round paid for upfront but feel like giving up also!

The most successful cycle I had in terms of bfps and more embryos was the 4th cycle I took a 600mg coq10 for 4 months before this, seriously cut down on the drink and also had DH on all the vitamins too not sure if this helped that cycle. We added in an extra too with the fertility clinic this round it was something called ZyMot which is apparently a little device that choses the best sperm of the bunch for the icsi procedure

Also, are the drs checking your progesterone levels before transfer? I only figured out by transfer 4 that even though I was on high dose of progesterone it still wasn't high enough (my body doesn't absorb it well) so had to go on more injections. These were the rounds where I did get a bfp so feel as though that may have had something to do with it x

Our first round led to total failed fertilisation of 19 mature eggs (huge shock). We changed donor (same sex couple) and they used Artificial Oocyte Activation (AOA)/Calcium Ionophore and the next round was so much better - leading to my current pregnancy (20 weeks currently and scans all good) and 5 blastocyst embryos frozen. It could be worth asking the clinic why they think the fertilisation rate is quite low. My clinic thought that there wasn't the influx of calcium that was needed for fertilisation in the first round. Worth seeing if your clinic offer the add on perhaps? Although you are getting some fertilisation still.

Also may be worth looking at genetic testing for any embryos you do get. An extra cost though of course.

And as others have mentioned about progesterone levels too.

Good luck 💕