39 year old - excellent egg collection and blasto results

[zirafica]

Hi all,

I've been following this forum for a couple of weeks as I've just started my IVF journey, and I've noticed a lot of people ask for advice on how to improve their egg quality.

I had my egg collection (EC) on Friday and came back with really good results, so I wanted to share what my life/diet/supplement regime is, in case anyone finds it helpful.

I am 39, started with
27 follicles,
21 eggs retrieved,
14 fertilised,
14 good quality on day 3, and all
14 turned to good quality blastocysts on day 5 (worst rating 4BB-).

Blastos now sent to PGT-A testing due to my age (so still chance that none of them are actually any good, but at least the numbers are very high, especially for a 39 year old)

I was on 12mg Reckovelle, 75g Menopur and then 1 shot of Fyremadel from day 5. I was triggered with 2x Decapeptyl on day 12 and had my EC exactly 2 weeks from starting the injections. I was initially prescribed Ovitrelle as well to trigger but due to number of follicles was told not to use it due to risk of OHSS.

I lead what I would call a relatively healthy lifestyle, but I think the biggest benefit comes from my diet (I am Mediterranean and have never gotten accustomed to the British way of eating).

Lifestyle & Habits

• Smoking: Never smoked.
• Alcohol:
• Rarely drink (mostly social occasions).
• At dinner: occasional glass of red wine (once in 4 months maybe).
• Socialising: usually white wine spritzers or vodka soda with fresh lime (not lime cordial).
• Lots of water daily: 2-3L minimum - this I have been doing for over 15 years

Diet
General Principles

• No processed sugar - no cakes, no biscuits, no ice cream, jam, honey, chocolate spreads, nothing that has sugar added to it or would be considered a dessert - I was diagnosed with insulin resistance in my 20s and have naturally kicked all of this out from my diet. I now feel physically sick when I eat sugar and can't sleep
• strong focus on enough protein and fibre in all meals consumed
• All meals are home made from scratch
• I do eat fresh fruit (mostly in yoghurt bowls: 10% Greek yoghurt + chopped fruit + nut butter (unsweetened, no palm oil) + chia/flax/linseed). I will have an apple or some kiwi on their own, but most times look to combine fruit (sugar) with fat and protein to kill the glucose spike
• No canned fruit or fruit yogurts
• No added sugar in drinks.
• I only cook with olive oil (high quality for salads, lower quality for cooking) or butter (for scrambled eggs for lunch)
• No rice (quinoa instead).
• Mostly plant-based, with limited meat (never have meat at home, very rarely purchase and if so use immediately)
• No bread, limited pasta (once in 2-3 weeks, always with homemade sauce)

Beverages

• No black tea (this is a preference not a health choice)
• Used to drink coffee - home brewed (unsweetened, with soy milk; switched from oat milk due to glucose spikes) but stopped as apparently caffeine has been showed to have negative impact on fertility
• Hot drinks:
• Fennel tea (daily)
• Mint tea
• Homemade ginger tea (sliced ginger boiled 20 mins)
• Matcha latte with soy milk + collagen creamer (daily - always first drink of the day)

Sweets

• Occasionally 70% dark chocolate or yoghurt bowl with fruit I described above if craving sweet stuff

Meals

• Breakfast: None (I fast until lunch).
• Lunch (daily, consistent):
• 3 scrambled eggs
• 1.5 slices Maasdam cheese
• Nutritional yeast flakes sprinkled on top
• 1 big tablespoon of cottage cheese
• 1 big tablespoon of hummus
• Salad (mixed leaves + tomato + red onion + cucumber/avocado/peppers, with olive oil, salt, and balsamic/red wine vinegar)
• Vitamin C effervescent drink
• Smoked salmon when I remember to buy some
• Dinner (90% of the time plant-based):
• Roasted tofu with roasted veg (sweet pots, peppers, onion, beans, chickpeas, broccoli, kale, whatever we have at home), seasoned with salt+olive oil
• Sautéed veg with garlic and tomatoes
• “Fake Mexican”: wholemeal wraps + homemade guac + salsa (chopped toms and onion) + Quorn/meat mince + beans + corn
• Lentil curry (from scratch) with spinach
• Thai-inspired dishes
• Always homemade from scratch
• Big fan of cheese, gherkins and hummus/guac for snacks! with cucumber sticks or olives (no crackers or extra carbs) + pickled beetroot

Meat

• Rarely cook at home (mainly plant-based). Will occasionally order in restaurants although mostly go for fish when eating out (significant other doesn't eat fish so never cook at home)
• Occasionally I will roast a whole chicken (every ~2 months, primarily to make bone stock the next day (with carrots, celery, onion, broccoli stalks, parsnip, boil for 3+ hrs), which is then consumed daily as a snack or hot drink).
• During injections: ate more meat (steaks, turkey mince).

Supplements - none a special brand or quality (usually get Boots store brand, H&B store brand or even from Lidl!)

• Vitamin D (highest strength)
• Omega-3
• Calcium + Magnesium
• Folic Acid (added in past year)
• CoQ10 (added in past year) - minimum 200mg a day, try for 600mg but 3x200mg as body can't consume 600mg at once
• Spirulina (taken for a couple of months, not in past 6 months)
• Nutritional yeast (daily, sprinkled on my food)
• Psyllium husk (10g a day)

Exercise

• Pilates at home: 5x per week (20–45 minutes per session, consistent for 2–3 years).
• During injections: replaced pilates with 1 hr 20 min walks (due to movement restrictions).
• Otherwise full time couch potato, honestly on days I don't work out I sometimes make like 200 steps all day :D

Influences - Glucose Goddess (Instagram) - I find her tips for avoiding glucose spikes highly effective - I found her about 6 months ago and she perfectly aligns with how I naturally set up my diet to feel good so if you don't know where to start and all the above seems like a lot, she's a great person to follow for tips and explanations of why I do things the way I do them.

Hopefully this will be helpful to at least one person, and any questions, let me know!

I had 18 eggs but yet we only ended up with one euploid
After pgta

I am pro pgta for anyone aged 35 & older

I was 38 @ egg coll

Absolutely, that's why I said in the beginning we've sent them off for testing and none of them might turn out to be good. The average for my age is 31% euploids so we'll see.
But at least we started with a very high number of follicles, a lot of them fertilised and all the fertilised ones made it to day 5 and made good quality blastos, so for women younger than me struggling with number of eggs this might be useful!

I had ngs done and all 3 of my embryos came out with chromesome 22 missing. I already have a daughter conceived naturally

I’m really going to try my hardest to follow this. Stress is my biggest weakness but this could be my last chance of improving my eggs if I get to that stage

Thank you for sharing! I have a similar diet (Irish, live in London) and we retrieved 32 eggs and now have 13 Day 5 embryos, 4 of which have been PGTA tested and are normal. I am 34. I had my egg retrieval in June.

I do eat more meat and pasta however like you, I do a lot of home cooked meals and don’t eat much processed food. I also do Pilates and I run a lot

@zirafica good results!

The reality is that outcome is mostly luck and genetics not specific diet or supplements. It's worth keeping healthy but this alone doesn't make or break anything.

Honestly Nazy I don’t think you need to follow it to a tee. I think it’s mostly about what works best for you with your rhythm of life (especially with a child!!) and what you can keep consistent. I think me not smoking and drinking definitely helps, and the general healthy eating and supplementation - but like I said I’ve been living like this for years. I wish I could say I did it for 3 weeks and it changed everything cause that would make it so simple! I also do think the fact that I am not very stressed has a huge impact but like, how do you tell people to be less stressed? Especially if they’re dealing with trying to conceive and it not working out as they planned… I also didn’t mention this but I have been doing fertility acupuncture and I feel like that has helped me chill out a lot, but then again it’s one pricey activity to add to everything else!

Omg 4 euploids is so so so good!! Congrats!!! I would be over the moon with that news! Good luck with whenever you do your embryo transfer. I have a 2-3 week wait for our PGT-A results and we only tested 7 out of the 14 due to money constraints so I am hoping so deeply we get 2 or ideally 3 out of those, although stats show at my age I should be over the moon with 2. It’s the biggest drop off and I don’t regret us doing it but with everything else going so well I can’t help but hope it will be ok, and then I immediately remind myself how old I am and how slim the chances are… such an unpredictable process!

This is also true! But I do think how I eat and live has an impact on it, especially at my age and especially since I’ve been consistent with it - again, we’re talking years but it’s just the way I live, the intent wasn’t to enhance my fertility but to make me feel the best I can feel. My fiancé is British and when he explains what most people eat (and what he grew up eating) I can’t help but think it’s so nutritionally low your body can’t be getting what it needs from it.

Thank you! Should be doing our frozen transfer in the next few weeks (which is crazy!) just waiting on my period which should be here in the next few days.

Getting 7 tested is amazing, it’s a wonderful bit of science we are fortunate to have.

Hi, OP, I just wondered if you would be comfortable sharing how many euploids you got in the end? Of course no need at all if you'd rather not.. I just was lurking and following this thread before, being a similar age etc, and was wondering if you'd update?