Own eggs vs donor eggs

Hey girls! Has any of you been in a situation where you had to proceed with donor eggs as opposed to your own? How many failed cycles did you have with your own eggs before you decided to move to donors? How difficult was this decision?

I failed second IVF with my own eggs, each time produced zero blasts. The fact we can’t produce a single blast brings concerns about my egg quality. Please share your experiences 🌼

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I did 5 retrievals and 6 transfers with OE before moving to donor embryo. I was 29-30 for all my retrievals so age was not a factor. We had success with our first attempt using donor twice now.

We had two rounds of ivf with one blast transferred on each round. Both failed. Then went with DE and I'm currently 19 weeks with the first transfer. We have one frozen left from that round. I had surgeries and only one ovary and just turned 40 so took 4 months of work, worked on mindset, diet and supplements and DE in clinic in prague and from all that something worked.

@Laura I was going to say the same thing like the man is 50 percent of it all women who ttc should have there man go Chek their sperm I doing home test kit at home to see his sperm mobility and sperm count

@Laura & @boymom 😍😍 before the fertilisation process whether ICSI or IVF they do a sperm analysis to check the quality (motility, morphology & number), DNA fragmentation can potentially help, but it depends on what day the embryos are failing to develop as to whether the Sperm has even been able to have an influence on its development yet. The sperm although it does the fertilising, doesn’t actually start to share its ‘DNA’ as such until Day 3. So if the development is failing before then, it can be more certain it’s the eggs.

@Anni we had two failed cycles where our embryos fertilised & developed abnormally and by Day 3 weren’t suitable for any transfers. We started the Donor egg route in April this year and I’m now nearly 17 weeks pregnant after our first cycle, with one embryo in the freezer. I did have what’s called an Immunological map done (a biopsy) and it came back with some markers that meant I’d never be able to develop/carry my own egg through the first trimester.

@Phillipa hey what is a immunological map? Did you do that at your clinic?

@Lucie it’s similar to an ERA (endometrial receptivity analysis) I had both done at the same time but a biopsy is taken of your lining and they assess it for abnormalities, my immunological map found inflammation in two areas that were causing my problems. So as well as all the general medication I was on steroids and Aspirin too.

@Deborah thanks 🙏 I also had surgery on my left ovary which basically does not function, so they take eggs only from my right one. I’m 41. What did you do to work on mindset, which diet and supplements were you taking? And which clinic in Prague you used for donor eggs if you don’t mind me asking. I did two cycles in Prague too, one with Gennet and one with Fertility Port.

@Phillipa thanks for sharing, this is really helpful ✨✨✨ ours actually made it to day 5 but stopped growing then. One looked promising so they left it to day 6 but it stopped then. So I don’t think it’s sperm. We have MFI but they select via their advanced sperm sorting methods and ICSI.

@Phillipa did you get that test done in UK together with ERA?

I’m currently in this situation. I’m in my first IVF cycle. They retrieved 5 eggs, 4 were mature, 2 fertilized and sent for testing. 1 was abnormal and completely unusable and 1 was a high level mosaic which means most of the cells are abnormal. My doctor now says we are dealing with an egg quality issue. He wants me to proceed to the transfer as there is a 25% chance it could turn into a healthy baby. But now I’m freaking out because my insurance only pays for IVF 3 cycles per lifetime. So I feel limited. Do I try once more for myself. Or do we use an egg donor which insurance doesn’t pay for at all. And if we do that as our 3rd cycle, i don’t know how many eggs we get. It’s so confusing and heartbreaking.

@Jessica thanks for sharing your story. If you don’t mind I would like to PM you x

@Anni yes of course!

@Laura thank you Laura! I’ll look into all of those things. I plan on asking my doctor about improving egg quality at my next appt. I’ve heard a lot of people here talk about COQ10

@Laura thank you! My husband is also taking a multivitamin as well.

@Anni apologies your reply only appeared in my feed now. I worked with a fertility coach who provided me with a fertility friendly diet (message me your email) and I'll send it on. The supplements she recommended were for my immune system (I'll include the detail in the email) and the mindset we worked on fears, hardwired beliefs and believing that I would be a mother, we created a plan B if it didn't work. Letting go of the pain that the journey had caused already, meditations to relax, I was colouring to conceive, pictures of the womb and babies, all helped me to create the vision board. Also had to let go of stress from my job. I'm almost 26 weeks now and it's all going good. To be honest I rarely think about the fact that it's a donor egg. I feel so connected to the baby already. We went to Cube clinic in prague and I couldn't fault them. All of it was easy and straight forward

@Laura at this point I’ll do anything. COQ10 and Omnitrope👍🏻 thank you very much!

Hi Anni, I’m in a similar position to you.

First cycle: 15 mature eggs, 3 fertilised (IVF) due to thick zonas around my eggs. Only 1 made it to day 5 but was a low quality embryo and was a failed fresh transfer. Second cycle: 19 mature eggs, 9 fertilised (with ICSI this time) but again only 1 made it to day 5. This time it was a good grade and we had assisted hatching to help with the zonas, but we’ve just had a negative result from that sadly.

The first cycle we didn’t take any supplements or change our diet but the second time we made absolutely every change and bought into every supplement going. Sadly it didn’t work for us and I suspect that we just have poor quality sperm and eggs.

We haven’t spoken to our consultant yet re our results but I’m interested to see what they say. Unfortunately I don’t think we want to put ourselves through another round (emotionally or financially) with such low success. I think a donor may be our only option, so I’m happy to find this post!

@Laura thanks for sharing your story ✨ I’ll PM you if that’s ok 👌

@Anni hi -I’m 42 now, I started retrievals at the age of 37. I have low AMH, and unfortunately don’t respond well to ivf stims. When I started journey I retrieved only one egg per cycle and they all made it to blast but failed the PGT GENETIC test. I changed my diet completely, gave up alcohol, caffeine, reduce gluten about 90% -I do have a slice of cake occasionally, added more salmon and veggies. I saw the quality of my eggs not only increased I finally got an euploid embryo. My egg count never really increased but I believe due to my lifestyle changes I saw a difference in the quality of my eggs. Hope this helps and don’t give up hope too soon!

@Devi thanks for responding! 🤍 where are you now? Did you transfer your euploid embryo?
As for me apart from diet changes I decided to choose donor egg route.
I don’t have it in me with multiple retrievals I would have to go through to get one normal embryo.
Thanks for your tips 🙌✨ wish you all the best 🙏

Hi Anni, have you gotten any closer to your decision? We have just completed our 3rd round. This time we opted for short protocol over long from the stance of quality over quantity. Again we only had 1 good quality embryo out of 7 fertilised and it didn’t stick. We are booked-in to have a chat with our consultant tomorrow morning but I’ve also been chatting to a clinic in the Czech Republic about embryo adoption as I feel this is our most sensible next step. I’m just physically and emotionally IVF-ed off. Xx

@Laura yes, I have decided to start donor egg treatment. I can’t cope with having to go through so many retrievals to get one normal embryo that might not even stick. So we will try DE now. Have you thought about DE route as well?

Oh interesting with embryo adoption, I suggested this to my partner but he was against it for now. Which clinic in Czech Republic were you talking to?
I had a treatment in 2 different clinics in Prague.

I think I DM’ed you some time ago, feel free to DM me if you want to chat x

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Own eggs vs donor eggs

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