One IVF round after years TTC, poor blastocyst quality and next steps?

[Create2026]

Not sure why I’m posting really. I guess for advice? Partner and I have been ttc for nearly 3 years. Got pregnant quite quickly early on but it was a chemical, then nothing since.
i have a 6 year old from a previous relationship - she is amazing and has bonded so well with my partner (we got together when she was a baby).
So despite trying it’s stayed a sort of “see what happens”, and we’ve genuinely carried on quite happily throughout all this, as the life we’ve made together in our second marriages (as in we are both eachothers second spouse!) has been good. But the question of doing something about our infertility has come back a lot - and after many, many back and forth conversations and drs appointment (I had 2 polyps removed), we decided to try one round of ivf just to see what would happen. My partner was not keen and was adamant it was just one go.
We went with create as I wanted a mild approach (again, not taking over). We got 7 eggs, 4 embryos and at embryo transfer today we were told we just had one blastocyst - poor quality at 4CC. Transferred but I don’t have much hope.
i’m just wondering if anyone else did ivf as a “last resort”, to sort of finish the conversation either way? As I don’t know what this means - is the fact we only made one poor blasto likely that the same would happen again if we tried again? Or is it a complete numbers game? I know this sounds super naive but just wanting a hand-hold I guess.. I went in feeling fairly casual but I’m pretty gutted today..
i’m 39 and partner 45 by the way

Please don't give up hope, there are plenty of top quality blasts transferred first that don't take and then the final embryo with the lowest grade is the one. They all have a good chance or they wouldn't be transferred and as far as I know a big part of the grade is to do with the likelihood of surviving the thaw not necessarily likelihood of turning into a healthy baby. Keep your feet warm and laugh a lot to help with implantation (seriously! 😄). In terms of results I do think it can vary a lot from cycle to cycle, have you had your AMH tested? The outcome does sometimes improve cycle on cycle as medication is tweaked based on response although your egg and conversion numbers are good so hopefully the next round if needed the odds fall differently and you have more attempts. Are you doing all the usual? No alcohol or smoking for either of you, no hot baths or too much cycling/laptop on lap for your husband, zinc and ubiquinol supplements if you like the look of them (I would never recommend them to others as not a medical professional but my husband and I both took ubiquinol for 3+ months) and zinc and walnuts are particularly good for sperm apparently. But keeping my fingers crossed for a lovely outcome for this cute little blast!

@Create2026 do you know any more about the underlying reasons for requiring IVF - were there any investigations beyond polyp removal? Do you know your AFC/ AMH and was a semen analysis done?

Good luck with this transfer @Create2026 . You just never know. As @Waitingforday6 says, you always hear stories that it was that last/lowest graded embryo that worked out.

We did exactly that - IVF as a last resort to draw a line under things. Unexplained secondary and I'm 39. My AMH wasn't great. 4 eggs, 1 fertilised and turned into a 5AB embryo, which we transferred. Just found out today that it didn't work. Same as you - I wasn't getting my hopes up and just wanted to say we had tried everything before moving on with our lives. But I did get my hopes up and I am gutted :( Based on my AMH / age and the results with this round (plus cost/time/energy/emotion that went into it), we won't be trying again.

Ah thank you so much @HM2024 - it’s so nice to hear from someone in a similar situation. May I ask how old your LO is? I feel exactly the same - I did get my hopes up and started imagining being pregnant, having a baby etc, and now I feel so much worse than I did before! Almost wish we hadn’t opened ourselves up to this like it would finally answer the question! And when I look online I see so many people who don’t have children at all, or who have put their life into ivf and getting pregnant, and we’ve never done that - we never really wanted it enough to. But now I’m filled with regret at not trying harder! 🥲

My LO is 4.5 now. It breaks my heart that I can't make her a big sister.

I felt the same - that we didn't want it 'enough'. That other people wanted it more. You follow people on social going through round after round.

But we did want it. You don't put yourself through IVF if you don't.

Our failed round means there's no more hope. No more thinking that it might happen. That has hit me hard.

Its purely a numbers game unfortunately. First round of ivf is really just a trial run, alot of people dont have success first round, you might need a sperm analysis, you might need icsi, you might need higher medications. What happens with the first round might be completely different with a second round. When I was trying for my now 4yr old son, we did a round of ivf and didnt get great numbers or embryos, first transfer ended in mmc, the next embryo didnt survive the thawing process and the last embryo didnt stick, my very next round of ivf then gave me my son on the first transfer. I went back to use another embryo when he was 6 months old and I had another successful transfer but unfortunately that was my angel baby, I then went and had another transfer and that gave me my now 2yr old daughter. So one round was a complete bust but my second round I got 2 beautiful full term babies and my angel baby.

It’s the clinic and their protocol, we went with create and did their mild IVF, my wife (we are a same sex couple) has a high AMH and AFC, but they only retrieved 8 eggs and we ended up with 1 x day 6 4CC embryo which resulted in an early chemical. We weren’t happy as create wanted to just repeat the cycle with no changes and said it was a good result. So we switched clinics, we went with Care and this time got 3 x top quality day 5 blasts and I’m now 16 weeks pregnant with our first transfer.

I firmly believe that they are misleading patients with their “mild IVF” and that there is no evidence that routinely using lower doses of medications results in better outcomes.