Devastated, what would you do?

Hi all,
I havent posted here in a while because I just needed a little break. Quick back story, I have two beautiful DD but my husband and I have always wanted a boy to add to the family. After my second DD with an MMC in between having both of them I couldn’t get pregnant, I did 2 IUIs and they were unsuccessful, we then decided it wasn’t working and rather then spend the money on another IUI we would rather put it towards IVF (which we never thought we would have to go through). That being said we just did our first IVF cycle 11 ER, 7 fertilized, 2 PGS tested and only one came back normal. It was a normal XX and an abnormal XX. Does this mean my husband makes no good boy sperm? Would any of you cycle again? Does any else have a similar story? I need some hope/success stories. Please help. TIA.

I'm sorry to hear about your cycle! As anyone who has done IVF knows -- it's a crap shoot that first cycle and you can't really make any calls on anything off of it.

With two blasts, that's way too small a sample size to make any sort of call on the gender dynamics of his sperm, especially since it's pretty rare to actually have uneven X/Y ratio in sperm.

As for quality of sperm, I know most REs will tell you your cycle isn't enough to determine yet because of how small the sample size is. That's what I was told, since we also had only 1 healthy XX (our other embryo was an unhealthy XY).

However, the embryologist had let us know we had excellent quality embryos until Day 3/4, and had big drop offs after. Sperm DNA takes over after Day 3 in early embryo development, so bigger than normal drop off rates then can indicate sperm issues. Day 0-3 can be a sign o egg quality.

I don't know your ages or pretesting or what your protocol was, so that can help us give you further advice. But, unfortunately, with one cycle and such a small sample pool of 2 blasts, it's hard to make any calls. But having been where you were only to sink more money into another cycle when it turned out we did have a major sperm issue, I am also here to offer any advice to that too.

Omg! Thank you so much for getting back to me TP, I have followed your story for a while, congrats on your pregnancy, btw!
Thank you for the info, I am really considering a second cycle, my protocol was Follistim 100IU and Menopur 75 IU for about 8 days I had about 15-16 follicles ranging from around 13mm-22mm. I had to start Ganirellix on day 8 and 9 and then did pregnyl 5,000IU exactly 36 hours before my retrieval. My FSH was 5.3 and my AMH was 11.3 and I know that’s high and can be an indicator of PCOS but my doctor wasnt concerned about it. What do you think? Would you do a second cycle? I’m 34 the end of October and my husband is 35 the end of November.

Omg! Thank you so much for getting back to me TP, I have followed your story for a while, congrats on your pregnancy, btw!
Thank you for the info, I am really considering a second cycle, my protocol was Follistim 100IU and Menopur 75 IU for about 8 days I had about 15-16 follicles ranging from around 13mm-22mm. I had to start Ganirellix on day 8 and 9 and then did pregnyl 5,000IU exactly 36 hours before my retrieval. My FSH was 5.3 and my AMH was 11.3 and I know that’s high and can be an indicator of PCOS but my doctor wasnt concerned about it. What do you think? Would you do a second cycle? I’m 34 the end of October and my husband is 35 the end of November.

Men make 50-50 X and Y sperm. It was just bad luck and that can turn around in another cycle.

Thanks for your response atomic. I would definitely cycle again it’s just to spend a lot of money that I don’t really have to end up in the same situation would be terrible. I’m going in to see my RE tomorrow and see if he can shed some light on the situation. I would try to cycle again ASAP or wait until November due to going back to work until then. My husband doesn’t want to spend another dime on all of this but he said if we waited and at least tried naturally for 3 months before doing another retrieval he would be happier with that. I’m not happy about that because I have not been able to get pregnant what so ever for the last year and a half now. Ugh, I’m so lost.

Thank you!! And ah, sounds like you stimmed fast like me. Your protocol definitely seems like the standard PCOS protocol so at least your doc was taking that into account!

It's hard. I absolutely felt I needed to do a second cycle, and most people told me that they had better luck with their second cycles. Even our RE was convinced it was just more bad luck. Now, I'm amongst women who did 3+ cycles with bad cycles too.

I think no one can make this call but you guys unfortunately. I don't think I could ever advise anyone just based on how awful and a waste our cycles ended up being.

I will say though about TTC naturally for 3 months: lots of people end up conceiving after IVF! Even people with failed IVF cycles and years of infertility! And here I am 16 weeks pregnant after a FET with 7 natural losses under my bet, so it might have even been the trick for us lol.

Yeah, I’m thinking just trying naturally for a few months before we try IVF again would be the smartest. At least we can say we tried again. I just don’t think I can get pregnant naturally. If you don’t mind me asking how long did it take you to get pregnant naturally after your last IVF cycle?

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Originally Posted by Would luv a son3

Yeah, I’m thinking just trying naturally for a few months before we try IVF again would be the smartest. At least we can say we tried again. I just don’t think I can get pregnant naturally. If you don’t mind me asking how long did it take you to get pregnant naturally after your last IVF cycle?

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I might not be the best example since I have something called hyperfertility (trust me -- not a good thing like it sounds!), but I got pregnant in the cycle right after both my first IVF retrieval (this was accidental as we were going to do another cycle, and we did pull out. Ended up being twins and an early loss) and this current pregnancy was the first cycle after the FET chemical.

Well I think it’s fair to say you’ve been through enough. Hopefully you can let yourself be happy. I’m sure this pregnancy has got you at the edge of your seat every day. I’m the opposite end of that spectrum. I can’t get pregnant for anything now. Wishing you a ton of blue dust! :bluecheer: