# Total failure to fertilise using husbands healthy sperm and 5 donor eggs!!



## Sula123 (Sep 28, 2012)

Hi everyone,

Have come looking for some opinions really. I am a 40 year old who has been ttc since 2008. Diagnosed with poor ovarian reserve, DH's sperm described at one point as superhuman!! Long story short tried IVF in 2008 which was cancelled as my ovaries failed to produce any follicles!!!  After a period of trying to come to terms with the future being childless, We had a consultation at Care Nottingham and donor eggs were discussed... We decided this was our way forward... Anyway  we were couple no 1 and received 5 eggs...Couple 2 received 4. I know each case is different but I was sure we would have had more than 5 from a donor that is screened for the purpose....forgive my naivety!! I also do not want to sound as if I am ungrateful....the woman that donated the eggs to us will never know how much that gesture meant to us...it gave is hope if only for a short while. 

All 5 eggs failed to fertilise with DH's healthy (normal parameters) sperm!!!!! I know this can happen... But healthy eggs and healthy sperm? Does anyone else have any experience of this? Also cannot get back in to speak with the consultant until the end of oct, which seems extreme to me!! Surely after paying thousands of pounds they could try to fit us in for a "failed review" a bit sooner than this? Am I wrong to feel let down that they did not discuss ICSI with us prior to Fertilisation? I was fully emotionally and mentally prepared that after ET I may not become pregnant as there are no guarantees, but I feel if they  told us there was even a tiny chance that healthy sperm and healthy eggs may not fertilise and about  ICSI we may have opted for this in the first place and If not at least we would not feel as let  down!!!

Sorry to ramble on in my first post! Just don't know what to think really!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and again if I sound naive or ungrateful that is not my intention.


----------



## Ellie.st (Mar 11, 2005)

Dear Sula123
I am so sorry to see your news.      

I don't really have any answers to the questions you have raised but didn't want to "read and run", so I hope that what I've written below, based only on my own experience, might help a bit.

If I understand correctly that your donor produced nine eggs in total, then that would be quite a reasonable number.  You might expect, say, two-thirds of these to fertilise, and then a proportion of these to be suitable for transfer/freezing but things don't always work that way as there are so many variables. A larger number of eggs doesn't necessarily give you a higher chance of success, and might even reduce egg quality.  In my case, I got the best fertilisation rates (and my two babies) from the cycle which produced the lowest number of eggs, and I have seen alot of examples of success from small numbers of eggs on FF postings.  Re ICSI, as far as I know, it is normally used only when there is some suggestion that sperm quality isn't good, as it does potentially carry some risks to embryos that IVF doesn't.

You do get instances of zero fertilisation although I think it is quite uncommon.  I do think clinics do not always highlight that things can go wrong at any stage during the IVF process.  I had two tortuous cycles myself where anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and, the first time at least, I was just not prepared for it as I expected everything to go smoothly until the final hurdle of finding out whether it was a BFP or not.

I think all you can do at the moment is wait until your review appointment, and then go through what happened step by step with the consultant.  Perhaps you could contact the clinic now to say that you would like a review with the embryologist too.  I know that the end of October seems a long way off but at least that gives you some time to do some research and get your questions ready (as well as knowing how to respond to whatever information you get).  In my own experience, reviews were always 4-6 weeks min after a failed cycle, although I don't know the norm at other clinics, so I wouldn't feel that you are necessarily getting poor service by having to wait.  I do know how frustrating it all is, however, and I do feel for you.     

Hang on in there.      

Ellie


----------



## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Ising icsi can sometimes damage the eggs, there for they only use it where necessary.

My friend had 0 fertilisation, they found out it was due the outside shell of her eggs being too hard for the sperm to penitrate.  Her next cycle they used icsi and it worked, they had great fertilisation and ad a result had a baby girl.  I know her clinic said it was very very rare. 

But like Ellie said sometime fertilisation just does not happen.  I hope you get some answers. Xx


----------



## beattie2 (Dec 30, 2005)

Sorry to hear about your cycle. Saw your email and didn't want to read and run. We had zero fertilisation in cycle number 5  (our second isci cycle) . All our previous cycles has good fertilisation rates and the two cycles done since have also had good fert rates (back to ivf). I never got a satisfactory explanation about what happened but researched reasons for zero fertilisation extensively. The kind of reasons I came across were as follows:
1) Eggs not fully mature / over mature and therefore unable to fertilise
2) Problem with sperm
3) Other problem with egg (eg tough shell)
4) Problem with lab conditions
5) Egg damaged by isci injection
5) Unexplained

It may be that you never find out what happened but you need to try investigate all of the above- there is no reason why the clinic could not start an investigation before you meet your Consultant at the end of the month and I would insist on this. The embryolgists should be able to tell you if there were any obvious problems with the egg or sperm sample + if there were any problems for the other egg recipient . Also were there any wider problems with the lab on the day (other cases of zero / low levels fertilisation, problems with embryo quality ?)  

In my experience ICSI does not necessarily improve fertilisation rates unless there is a specific reason for needing it (we only did it because the clinic we were at seemed to prefer ISCI over IVF) and were advised to go back to IVF after our zero fertilisation experience. 

All the best- make sure the clinic invesitagate this fully

Bx


----------

