8 replies to this topic

[cj123]

Hey everyone.  So a bit about me I am 29 as is my husband.  Our infertility is strictly male factor (Congenital Absence of the Vas Deferens).  We have done two cycles at Aurora, one cancelled, one a complete flop.  Our second cycle everything went well until day 4 where our embryos stopped developing and we transferred one Morula on day 5, which didn't result in a pregnancy and our other 7 embryos weren't good enough to freeze, only one made it to blast but apparently was bad quality (In total we had 22 eggs retrieved, 10 fertilized, 7 Morula on day five none to freeze).  I am just curious is anyone has had success with VFC that was different from that first cycle.  We have a consult with VFC in June, but are still back and forth of whether another cycle is going to end any different from the last one.... I guess I am just looking for some sort of encouragement.  I'm not sure what would go differently as it would good up until the end when all our embryos died... seeking similar stories that turn out positively.  

[Highest hopes]

I'm sorry to hear this

 

One thing I notice in your signature is that your partner had TESE and then froze the sperm.

Interesting, because mine had TESE also and I inquired about freezing what they didn't use and they said no, it's not recommended to freeze it. In our case it was done just before using it.

 

So I am kind of stumped as to why yours was frozen and ours wasn't. However ours was at another clinic so not sure... Or maybe it has to do with the condition - in our case, DNA fragmentation is the issue.

[cj123]

Interesting.  My husband's condition is essentially that he was born with a vasectomy.  He is just missing the tube that lets it leave his body.  Our clinic said the success rate doesn't matter if it's fresh or frozen.  They said our cycle was just a fluke.... and that didn't sit well with me.  I am wondering if we used fresh sperm, even PESA - we tried for a PESA but there was a malfunction with the needle so they didn't get any from the PESA.... I don't know.  I feel like something needs to change with our cycle otherwise it will just end in the same result.  

[Highest hopes]

I was looking this up and apparently it is common to freeze TESE sperm so now I'm thinking that maybe our advice not to freeze it was specific to our diagnosis. Sorry for any confusion. I'm not sure what to advise for you overall but I wish you good luck

[pearljam1997]

I'm sorry you've not had success yet and totally understand how you feel, feel free to check out my about me page to see what all happened with us.

I will mention here that we did use frozen TESE sperm with one cycle that went badly and when we switched to vfc we used PESA same day as egg retrieval, so mature motile sperm, fresh! And had a completely different outcome, 7 embryos!

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask either here or via pm.

[schlepp]

I'm sorry you've not had success yet and totally understand how you feel, feel free to check out my about me page to see what all happened with us.

I will mention here that we did use frozen TESE sperm with one cycle that went badly and when we switched to vfc we used PESA same day as egg retrieval, so mature motile sperm, fresh! And had a completely different outcome, 7 embryos!

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask either here or via pm.

We have to use PESA sperm and did frozen as they said there was no difference. The sperm went from looking great and motile before freeze to terrible after thawing. We ended up with only 4 eggs being fertilized out of 13 mature. They all looked great until after day 3 when 1 stopped and then 2 stopped on day 5 at morula. We got 1 day 5 blast out of it. I was told the slow down past day 3 was also likely caused my sperm, along with the poor fertilization. 

 

No RE has ever admitted that freezing is the cause but I am adamant that we are doing it differently if we cycle again and will only be doing fresh. I don't want to have any doubt. 

[pearljam1997]

Schlepp I'm glad you are advocating for yourself and not taking any chances. Go with your gut! TESE sperm is also quite different than PESA sperm as TESE sperm are actually extracted from tissue that's been removed from the testicle, not a pretty procedure at all! Plus it's immature and all that, PESA is just a needle into the epididymis and then extracted that way so it's mature motile sperm as you know. I'm actually surprised they didn't thaw some prior to the cycle to see how it looked.......I'm sorry you had to go through such a horrible experience. Please keep me posted on how things go with the next round, I'm curious! And hope it goes beautifully!

[schlepp]

Schlepp I'm glad you are advocating for yourself and not taking any chances. Go with your gut! TESE sperm is also quite different than PESA sperm as TESE sperm are actually extracted from tissue that's been removed from the testicle, not a pretty procedure at all! Plus it's immature and all that, PESA is just a needle into the epididymis and then extracted that way so it's mature motile sperm as you know. I'm actually surprised they didn't thaw some prior to the cycle to see how it looked.......I'm sorry you had to go through such a horrible experience. Please keep me posted on how things go with the next round, I'm curious! And hope it goes beautifully!

We were told the PESA sperm are also immature and usually have low motility. They said they mature and gain their motility after leaving the epididymis. They also mentioned that in the epididymis is where the DNA compacts in the head so possibly some of the sperm were lacking this. As well, we asked for a PESA and all of our forms at the clinic say it is TESA sperm. So we have no idea what we were actually given.

If this round is a BFN we will go back to the urologist to ask all of these questions before next steps. I really think the issue was freezing due to the drastic difference from before freeze to after thaw.

[pearljam1997]

Very strange as we were told differently. All sperm we have frozen were all mature and swimming at the time of freeze. Dr Hudson explained that they mature as they move along the epididymis so I guess there could be immature sperm present depending on where in the epididymis it was taken from.

And I agree, obviously there's an issue there for sure. Keep us posted.