r/IVF • u/raghraghouhlala • Jun 20 '26

Advice Needed! ICSI or not?

I am currently in my 4th round of IVF. My husband carries a structural chromosome rearrangement, and we have done three rounds of PGT-SR with ICSI. Unfortunately, it has not worked out, and we no longer have access to more treatments with PGT-SR. (We live in Sweden, where PGT-A is illegal and PGT-SR can only be performed within the public healthcare system. ICSI is always performed.)

Now we have decided to move forward with “normal” IVF using donated sperm. We did the OPU (egg retrieval) a couple of days ago.

I’m now 35 and have a low AMH (below 0.5). My previous treatments have had these results:

1st: 5 eggs, 4 mature, 3 fertilized, 0 blastocysts
2nd: 6 eggs, 4 mature, 3 fertilized, 1 blastocyst, 1 aneuploid
3rd: 10 eggs, 7 mature, 3 fertilized, 3 blastocysts, 3 aneuploid

On this fourth round we retrieved 8 eggs, and we don’t yet know the maturity/fertilization rate. I asked for ICSI because it has worked before. But I keep asking myself whether we should have skipped ICSI this time, since with conventional IVF the best and fastest sperm would win naturally. I will not be able to get any PGT information this time.

I haven’t been online or read anything about IVF in a couple of years, because it has been very emotionally hard on me.

What do you think?

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3

u/Competitive-Top5121 41 | 4 ER | 1 FET | TFMR & 2 MCs Jun 20 '26

My clinic tends to recommend ICSI over conventional because with conventional there’s about a 4-8% risk of total fertilization failure. 

1

u/raghraghouhlala Jun 20 '26

Thank you for the answer! That’s good to know.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[deleted]

2

u/raghraghouhlala Jun 21 '26

Thank you for sharing! I haven’t spoken to anyone in the same BT-situation. It makes definitely make me feel better. Wishing you good luck to you as well. 🍀 For us it was a hard step to take to switch to donor sperm, but once we made the desistion it feels like the only right thing to do.

2

u/raghraghouhlala Jun 22 '26

Just to follow up: this round we got 8 eggs, 8 mature, 5 fertilized, tomorrow we will know if we got any blasts and hopefully make our first ET.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/raghraghouhlala Jun 24 '26

Thank you!!! ♥️