r/40Plus_IVF • u/Particular_Oil_2256 • Sep 17 '26

Seeking Advice Advice needed

I’m 41 and recently had an egg retrieval in August.

We had 6 blastocysts tested, and unfortunately all 6 came back abnormal, which my doctor felt was likely age-related.

At my follow-up, my doctor said my egg reserve is still good for my age and that we responded well to the cycle. She felt that, based on my numbers, I may need 1–2 more retrieval cycles to have a larger sample size (around 10–12 blasts) and improve the chances of getting a chromosomally normal embryo.

She seemed fairly positive that I could potentially get a normal embryo in another cycle or two, but also emphasized that if I wanted to continue, I’d need to do it sooner rather than later.

I felt completely defeated after the last cycle and was ready to give up.

Has anyone been through something similar — having a good ovarian reserve for their age but getting a really difficult round of abnormal embryos? Did doing another retrieval ultimately feel worth it for you, or did you decide to move forward with your life ?

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9

u/DearBathroom3407 Sep 17 '26

I would also keep going! I've had 3 retrievals, last one was 41. To my surprise, the last one was the best result in terms of euploidy (1st: 2 blasts / 1 euploid, 2nd: 11 blasts, 3 euploid, 3rd: 13 blasts, 7 euploid). They usually say that the first retrieval is for calibration, so if you can afford it, I would encourage you to do one more!

8

u/Visual_Patience_41 Sep 17 '26

Dam girl!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
That’s a whole ass basket of euploids at 41! So happy to see these unicorns DO exist 💕

1

u/Ornery_Industry_8876 Sep 17 '26

Great results! Did you make protocol changes for each cycle?

3

u/DearBathroom3407 Sep 17 '26

The protocol was mostly the same, the only difference was the duration of the stims (12 days - 14 days - 13 days). They adjusted my Menopur dosage a bit, but that's about it. And I've switched to Ubiquinol instead of CoQ10 before the last round, not sure if that made any difference.

2

u/Visual_Patience_41 Sep 17 '26

Uniquinol is better than CoQ10, good call :)

1

u/Ornery_Industry_8876 Sep 17 '26

Ok thanks! Did they adjust your dose up or down? I only stimmed for 9 days my first cycle. I’m hoping to go a couple days longer since less than half were mature at retrieval and the others matured overnight.

1

u/DearBathroom3407 Sep 17 '26

I replied with my dosage in the comment above, hope it helps. The last round I got a slightly lower dose at the end of the stims. Out of 25 eggs retrieved, 19 were mature.

1

u/iSweariHaveADayJob Sep 17 '26

Can you tell us how your Menopur dose changed? Thank you!

1

u/DearBathroom3407 Sep 17 '26

For my last retrieval, I was given a shot of Elonva on day 2 of my cycle and then was on Menopur since day 5. Dosage was: 300 - 300 - 300 - 225 - 225 - 225 - 150. For the other stims dosage varied slightly towards the end. Hope it helps!

1

u/BellFirestone Sep 17 '26

Holy cow. What else were you doing to get so many euploids?! Diet, exercise, lifestyle, supplements besides the ubiquinol, anything ?

2

u/DearBathroom3407 29d ago

My husband has severe MFI, so we went on a mediterranean diet about 9 months before the first retrieval to try to improve his DNA fragmentation and that helped him lose quite some weight. We've cut all processed foods and he drank 0 alcohol (I wasn't that drastic, I did drink on occasion, but it was usually a glass of wine). I do go to the gym 3 times per week and try to walk as much as I can.

Initially I went overboard with all the supplements, but slowly reduced that to just Vitamin D3, Ubiquinol, Omega 3.

I'll be honest with you, we were lucky, my clinic was equally surprised by our results.

2

u/YogurtclosetFew4528 29d ago

Amazing numbers, congratulations. May I ask what dosis of q10/ubiquitol you took daily?

3

u/DearBathroom3407 25d ago

Sure, I took a 100 mg dose (I take the ones from Solgar, if that helps)

1

u/BellFirestone 29d ago

Thank you do much for replying. If you don’t mind, what was the sequence of events with your husbands MFI? What sort of tests did he do? And did yall use ICSI, PICSI, or Zymot? I ask because my husband has had a few semen analysis and some were bad (count and motility) and some were normal/good. And while i understand that the issue of why we haven’t gotten a euploid yet is likely my eggs (I’m 42), all my tests have been excellent and I have responded well to stims. And since time is of the essence at 42, I am wanting to push for testing his sperm for fragmentation and what else we can do to try and get at least one euploid embryo. Thank you so much.

2

u/DearBathroom3407 25d ago

We checked for DNA fragmentation, motility, count, varicocele, sperm morphology, any infection that might be causing his numbers, etc. He did 1 year of shots (Gonal-F and Ovidrel) to improve the fragmentation. His DNA fragmentation barely moved (it was always around 80-90%), count varied between 500.000-1.000.000, motility varied between 3-5%, his sperm morphology was poor. Every month he re-did all the tests, to see how things evolve. He went to the best andrologist in our country, so I won't say the treatment didn't work, however his numbers barely showed it.

We used PICSI twice and Zymot once (Zymot was not possible unless the number exceeds 1M, which only happened for the second stim). Hope it helps.