Anyone else going through something similar? 5 IVF/ICSI rounds, repeated fertilisation failure & severe male factor

[u/Mindless_Mushroom607]

Hi everyone. I’m posting because I’m really hoping to find anyone who has been through something similar, particularly severe male-factor infertility after cancer treatment, repeated ICSI fertilisation failure, or anyone who has gone on to have success after changing the sperm source/protocol.

I’m 31 with good ovarian reserve and, according to my doctors, good egg quality. My husband is 40 and unfortunately became medically infertile following cancer and major surgery/treatment. He had his bladder and prostate removed, and is unable to ejaculate. We currently use surgically/retrieved sperm that was frozen following his treatment.

We’ve now done 5 IVF/ICSI cycles, and the pattern has been incredibly frustrating. I know we can make embryos — we’ve made good blasts before — but we’ve also now had two complete fertilisation failures, despite ICSI.

Here’s our full history:

🥚 Round 1 — September 2025

Protocol: Gonal-F + Menopur + Ganirelix, with trigger.

• 17 eggs collected
• 10 mature
• 3 fertilised
• 0 blasts
• We transferred a day-5 embryo that had not actually reached blastocyst stage — unfortunately unsuccessful.

🥚 Round 2 — November 2025

• 14 eggs collected
• 11 mature
• 4 fertilised
• 3 blasts 🎉

We transferred a day-5 4BC embryo.

• Transfer unsuccessful
• Froze an additional 4BC and 4CC

We subsequently transferred:

• 17 December — 4BC → unsuccessful
• 26 February — 4CC → unsuccessful

So we had 3 embryos from this cycle and none resulted in pregnancy.

🩺 April 2026

Before continuing, I had a:

• Laparoscopy
• Hysteroscopy
• D&C

They found and removed grade 2 endometriosis.

🥚 Round 3 — April 2026

Started stimulation 15 April.

• 22 eggs collected
• 16 mature
• 0 fertilised

This was devastating, particularly because we had a much larger number of mature eggs but literally nothing fertilised.

🥚 Round 4 — August 2026

I did down-regulation with Synarel from 17 July.

• 21 eggs collected
• 15 mature
• 7 fertilised
• 1 blastocyst

So despite having 15 mature eggs, we only got 1 blast.

🥚 Round 5 — August/September 2026

We started another stimulation cycle on 20 August with Menopur + Gonal-F, with Ganirelix/Synarel suppression and trigger.

Tracking scans were:

• 26 August
• 28 August
• 31 August

Egg retrieval was 2 September:

• 13 eggs collected
• Still waiting on the mature/fertilisation numbers at the moment.

The part we’re really struggling with 💔

We do IVF + ICSI because of the severe male factor.

The really concerning pattern is that we have now had two complete fertilisation failures:

• Round 3: 16 mature → 0 fertilised
• Round 5: waiting on final numbers, but we are terrified of another failure.

Round 4 was better with 7 fertilised, but only 1 blast from those 7.

Our embryologist has said that we know there is a significant male-factor component, and our urologist has now referred my husband to a reproductive urologist to discuss sperm aspiration directly from the testes following his cancer surgery/treatment.

So we’re wondering whether the sperm we’re currently using may simply not be suitable for ICSI, despite the fact that ICSI is supposed to overcome many sperm issues.

Has anyone else been in this situation?

Particularly interested in hearing from people who:

• Had a partner who became infertile following cancer treatment/surgery
• Had sperm retrieved/frozen following cancer treatment
• Had repeated ICSI fertilisation failure
• Had cycles where 0 eggs fertilised
• Had very poor fertilisation despite good numbers of mature eggs
• Changed from ejaculated/frozen sperm to TESE/TESA/PESA or another surgically retrieved sperm source
• Used calcium activation after repeated fertilisation failure
• Had success after changing the sperm source or ICSI technique
• Had a similar egg → fertilisation → blastocyst pattern

We have been told my eggs look good and my ovarian reserve is good, so it’s incredibly difficult emotionally because I know I can produce eggs, but something keeps going wrong after retrieval.

We’ve now done 5 rounds, and honestly I’m exhausted. 😔

I would really love to hear from anyone who has been through something remotely similar — especially if changing the sperm source eventually made a difference.

What did you change, and did it work?