TTC#2 Possible Poor Egg Quality. HELP!

Hi Ladies-
I haven't been on BB since TTC my first child in 2008-9. It feels strange coming back, but I remember the support from talking with others.

We are TTC#2 IVF and are struggling with it. We are having a low fertilisation rate, and most of them are not surviving to blastocyst. I had EPU yesterday and only got 4 eggs (my lowest number), and 3 fertilized, but abnormally, so we have nothing to put back this cycle. This is the first time this has happened to us. We conceived our daughter on standard IVF cycle #2. I have endometriosis.

Does anyone have any suggestions for improving poor egg quality, or for increasing fertilisation rate? I'm keen to try ICSI next cycle, but DH is anxious. What are your thoughts on that?

Any help/advice/support would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks ladies!!

Hi hun, I'm sorry you're having some issues now with IVF. I'm much older than you (42) but I did my first cycle of IVF when I was 38 and I got great number of eggs and good quality. We used ICSI with that cycle. I recently did a cycle earlier this year also with ICSI, and I also only got 4 eggs like you, 3 of them fertilised and I had one day2 embryo transferred but the pg resulted in a m/c (chromosome abnormality). So after that cycle, I have been doing lots of acupuncture and have been taking chinese herbs. I am currently in the middle of a new stim. cycle and will be interested to know if I get any more eggs than last time and if the quality improves. I wish you much luck with your next cycle x

Personally, I turned to acupuncture and TCM to improve our IVF chances. My acu (who specialises in fertility) recommends 4 months of weekly treatments to maximise egg quality for an IVF cycle, however any amount of treatment will help. I also take all the supplements she recommends. I started after IVF#3 was BFN yet again, so we did 2 IVF while I was doing acupuncture - we had nothing to transfer with IVF#4 (see below) and IVF#5 gave us DD.

It is also interesting to note that I had my first ever BFP in my 2nd cycle with the acupuncturist (natural conception). At that stage we had done 6x IUI, 3x IVF and 1x FET (all BFN), we had been TTC almost 3 years and my endo had not been diagnosed or treated. Even though it was a chem pg, that BFP gave me a lot of faith in the benefits of acupuncture. When we started TTC#2 last year, I got a BFP in my 2nd cycle with her again! Another m/c (chromosomal issues), but it was still amazing to get a BFP so quickly (only the 3rd month of charting). I'm hoping we'll get another natural conception with her assistance and be third time lucky (ie not a m/c).

Another thing to consider is your clinic's experience with growing to blast. Is yours one that does it all the time or just for some patients? Mine is one that only does it for some and the one time we tried we ended up with nothing to transfer (from 7 eggs, 6 embryos, which was the most we ever had). We got DD from a 2dt of 2 below average quality embryos, which were the only 2 embryos we got from that cycle. That was also the first cycle we did ICSI and the first IVF cycle after my lap (to diagnose and remove endo). I'd have no hesitation in doing ICSI again.

GL with your next cycle. :goodluck:

Thanks for taking the time to respond, ladies! I appreciate it.

I have been considering doing accupuncture to support IVF, but as IVF is so expensive I wasn't sure if I should be adding extra cost/stress. We wanted to try one more cycle without changing too much (I had a FT in Jan and this was my second Fresh Cycle) as we fell on the second cycle with DD#1 (my dr said I can get pregnant and carry the pregnancy to term, so that's a positive start). From here I'm not sure where to go/which things to try/what questions to ask. My gut is that accupuncture would be a good way to go. I would also consider ICSI, I wanted to do it this cycle, but DH is very worried about it. He feels that it's 'interferring a bit too much', that there's a 'higher power', a reason that one sperm made it into the egg and not another, and who are we to 'alter' that. He (an engineer) also feels that the technology is relatively new (15 years, isn't it?) and therefore it's still a bit risky. He told me once that he was worried that our second child could be considered an 'experiment'. I can see some of his points, but I have so many friends who have conceived using ICSI, and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere at the moment. And while I don't like to pull the 'this is what I'm doing vs this is what you're doing' card, I AM the one having the surgeries and injections and hormones, and I don't feel like I'm heading in the right direction with it.

Our clinic tries to get most women (depending on their situation) to blastocyst, and my very first cycle I had a 3d (I think) transfer but it didn't survive. I have an appointment with my dr on Friday, but I think the things to focus on are egg quality and increase the number of eggs being fertilized (our first cycle this year was 60% - 6 out of 10 eggs, which I thought was ok, and my dr agreed but he wanted to see more (2 made it to early blastocyst but didn't survive, had one transferred), and this one was 0% - 0 out of 4 eggs - my worst rate ever). I also want to talk to him about having another lap to clean out Endo - which I know is back (he collected more than 4 eggs at monday's EPU but the others (not sure how many) had endo). I mentioned this before starting this cycle and he didn't think it was the biggest problem, but said he'd do it if I wanted it. I think this time he'll suggest it. More money. More delays. But worth it for a BFP!!

I will definitely look into ICSI and accupuncture more, and try to do a little more research before my appointment on Friday. I had also wondered about talking with a naturopath (when we were TTC#1 I talked to one - just one who works in our local chemist - and she put DH onto antioxidant vitamins, and that's what he was using when we fell with DD). She could possibly have some lifestyle/vitamin advice, altho' I am taking elevit and DH has used the same vitamins since TTC DD.

All the best with your cycles too, and thanks again for your support. This is such a difficult journey to navigate sometimes - so many highs, lows and various emotions in the middle.

Hello we also did icsi with our first ivf cycle however we did this due to some male factor issues. We had a 65% fertilization rate. By day 3 our embies were all 8 cells and above, by day 5 none had made it to blast. I also did acupuncture to support my ivf cycle. We ended up with a bfn and I got AF 3 days after transfer so it wasn't good.
I think if icsi helps your fertilization rates your DH should try and get his head around it. I guess overstimming a woman to produce as many eggs as possible in one cycle sort of interfers in nature- this is a whole new thread so let's not go there!!
Not sure how helpful I am just wanted to share another experience. As a side note in the month between ivf cycle 1 and preparing for ivf cycle 2 I kept up the acupuncture and did some Chinese herbs and I am currently just over 6 weeks pregnant.
Goodluck with whatever you decide x

For what it's worth, DH and I are both engineers and we had no problem with trying ICSI. 15 years isn't new technology. That's not to say your hubby isn't entitled to his own opinions on the subject, of course.

If you think the endo is back, I'd lean towards the lap. Again, that's just my personal thoughts based on my experience. We did 4 fresh IVF and 1 FET without treating my endo and they were all BFN. We did 1 fresh IVF after my lap and it gave us DD. Our egg and embryo count were similar in all the cycles and the ICSI didn't really make any difference to our fertilisation rate. The one big difference was the lap.

Of course, I'm quite biased on the subject of whether or not to do a lap before IVF when endo is involved/suspected, so take it with a grain of salt.

I don't have any other ideas..... but thought I'd suggest you join us in the LTTTC & AC thread.... there's a bunch of us in there at the moment, and it's a great support

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...ly-181697.html

FX is goes well for you this time!

xxx