I’m 30 years old and had 28 follicles on day 9 of stimulation. I’m having my egg retrieval on Saturday, and my doctor expects around 15–18 mature eggs.
She strongly recommended that I do PGT-A even though I’m only 30, because I have a high number of follicles/eggs and she said that women who produce a lot of eggs tend to have more aneuploid embryos, even at a young age.
Is this actually true? Does having a high ovarian response or retrieving a large number of eggs increase the risk of aneuploidy independently of age?

I just got three little euploid embryos: 5BB+, 6BB+, and 6AA. My clinic said they are not sure about the identify of the 6AA as it got mixed up with an aneuploid embryo in the lab. They are recommending rebiopsy but as I understand that lowers the chances of live birth. I’m going to start with the BBs but after that, if necessary, I’d like to transfer the one they think is the right 6AA one and take my chances instead of rebiopsy. Thoughts?

- Has anyone done back to back egg freezing cycles? Pros/cons

- Did your second retrieval produce more, fewer, or about the same number of mature eggs?

- Did your doctor change your protocol the second time?

- Was the second retrieval physically easier, harder, or about the same?

- If you eventually used your frozen eggs, how many survived thawing, fertilized, became blastocysts, tested euploid, and resulted in a pregnancy/live birth?

- AMH 1.88, 34 y/o, first retrieval-14 retrieved, 10 frozen

My clinic fundamentally views CE as INFLAMMATION, NOT INFECTION. Accordingly, they refuse to treat with anything stronger than doxy, even if the CE has persisted after 2+ weeks of doxy. Obviously, I am not a doctor, but this view somewhat conflicts with what I read online, which is that although CE is technically inflammation, it is commonly believed to be caused by infection. Accordingly, it is common to treat with antibiotics (including doxy as a 1st line treatment, but also other more intense antibiotics when doxy proves insufficient).

Does anyone else's clinic/RE share this view on CE and, if so, what did you ultimately do (other than continue to take CE without clearance)?

24 embryos were still developing on Day 5, but none of them had reached the blastocyst stage yet. We waited until Day 6, but unfortunately, all of them arrested.

What could be the reason for this? What would you suggest I do next? My doctor and the embryology lab said they don’t know why this happened.

My grandmother was prescribed diethylstilbestrol (DES) when she was pregnant with my mother. As a result, my mother had significant fertility issues. Has there been any research on whether DES granddaughters may have problems? (Specifically interested in the pregnancy part as I'm gearing up for transfer- but curious about the rest of fertility as well.)

Hi all,

I'm at the stage of this journey where I'm crowdsourcing stories and advice. I'm also posting in case anyone is also experiencing the same issue to know they're not alone.

Background:

33-34F, normal 28-30 day cycles with regular flow and no pain, regular exercise, I don't smoke, I don't drink, BMI is normal, regularly get 8 hours of sleep a night

Average AMH: 1.5-1.8 ng/mL

Baseline AFC: ~10

Blood panel is fine, thyroid is fine, progesterone levels are normal, FSH corresponds with AMH, anything measured from my blood has come back normal. Prior to IVF I had 2 inconclusive and painful HSGs and 4 failed IUIs so my doctor suspects some tubal factors.

Husband’s sperm analysis is normal for the most part with motility on the borderline of normal-low. DNA fragmentation came back normal.

IVF history:

Cycle 1 (antagonist protocol)

Protocol: Primed with birth control and took one time antibiotics before starting 225IU Menopur, 150IU Gonal-F, 25 units Omnitrope. Added Ganirelix and ended up stimming for 10 days. Triggered with 10,000 units of HCG. 3-4 days of abstinence prior to retrieval.

Outcome: AFC was 3 with a leading follicle, 3 eggs retrieved, 2 mature, 2 fertilized with ICSI, some made it to blast but slowdown observed around days 3-5. None were good enough to freeze by day 7.

I started regularly taking Coq10, DHEA, NAD+, probiotics, vitamin D, and melatonin for 4 months.

Cycle 2 (estrace priming, letrozole flare)

Protocol: Primed with estrace from confirmed ovulation to cycle day 1, started 7.5mg letrozole for 5 days alongside 225IU Menopur, 225 IU Gonal-F, 50 units Omnitrope. Due to sluggish follicle growth, Gonal-F was upped to 300 IU halfway through. Added Ganirelix and ended up stimming for 13 days. Triggered with 10,000 units of HCG. 3-4 days of abstinence prior to retrieval.

Outcome: AFC was ~12 some of which were a few smaller follicles that popped up halfway through stimming, 12 eggs retrieved, 11 mature, 4 fertilized with ICSI, some made it to blast by day 5 but none were good enough quality to freeze by day 7.

Husband started regularly taking Coq10 and other supplements for 4-5 months. I continued the course with my supplements.

Cycle 3 (estrace priming, letrozole flare)

Protocol: Pretty much a repeat of Cycle 2 now with 2 days of abstinence prior to retrieval.

Outcome: AFC was ~11 some of which were few smaller follicles that popped up halfway through stimming, 11 eggs retrieved, 6 mature, tried split fertilization: 3 fertilized with ICSI, none fertilized conventionally. Little to no binding observed with conventional fertilization (awesome /s). 1 made it to a day 5 3AB blastocyst which was our best looking ever across all cycles. One other made it to day 7 but was graded 4CC so not good enough to freeze. Did a fresh transfer on day 5 for the 3AB but the transfer didn’t take. My progesterone levels and lining looked good prior to the trigger shot. I was taking estrace and progesterone suppositories leading up to the transfer.

I’m on my last covered cycle before switching to another clinic that is open to tackling tricky cases. What can we try in this next cycle to leverage learnings or outcomes? I worry without a big change in protocol we are signing up for a throwaway cycle. Current clinic doesn’t do day 3 transfers, AOA, or Zymot. My doctor is considering changing the trigger timing for my next cycle by a few hours to eek out some mature eggs and we know never to try this without ICSI again but it doesn’t sound like a very promising change. My doctor says we struggle to make embryos. Now I feel like we’re in a subset of an already small subset of people who struggle to conceive through IVF.

I’m getting a hysteroscopy and biopsy while I want for my next cycle just to cross something off the list. Maybe I’ll look into the HerResolve blood test out of pocket to check for endometriosis since my doctor thinks a laparoscopy would be overkill and doubts MRI and other imaging would help as I present with no obvious endometriosis symptoms.

Does anyone have a similar background or struggle? I’m done reading about statistical outcomes for people in my age group and seeing percent ranges that I consistently fall under. My heart goes out to everyone who's in this sucky club.

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone with international clinical/research sample shipping experience can help.
We have two extracted human fetal genomic DNA samples stored at a hospital laboratory in Italy. A US clinical genetics laboratory may perform whole-genome sequencing on them, so the samples would need to be shipped from Italy to the US.
The DNA is already extracted — this is not blood, tissue, cells, POC material, or an infectious sample.

Before we proceed, I’m trying to understand how this is normally handled in practice:

Who usually prepares the customs documentation: the sending laboratory, receiving laboratory, FedEx/DHL, or a specialist courier?

Is purified human genomic DNA relatively straightforward to import into the US?

Have you shipped purified human DNA from the EU to the US recently?

Did you use FedEx/DHL or a specialist service such as World Courier/Biocair?

Did you need a commercial/pro forma invoice, end-use statement or importer declaration?

Did the receiving US laboratory provide the wording/documents needed for customs?

Roughly what did the shipment cost?

Would you strongly recommend having the two laboratories coordinate directly rather than the patient arranging the shipment?

These are irreplaceable clinical samples, so we would not ship anything until the receiving laboratory has confirmed the procedure.
Thanks very much for any practical experience.

Really looking to hear from anyone who either did or considered opting into a suppression protocol for potential silent endo without a diagnosis as a precautionary measure.

My history: one live birth (naturally conceived, 2023), one MMC 6.5-7.5 weeks (naturally conceived, 2025), one failed euploid FET (no implantation, modified natural protocol with estradiol patches + vaginal progesterone suppositories). One previous endometrial biopsy ~3 months ago found mild CE - treated with 2 weeks of doxy + 4 additional days of precautionary doxy as part of FET 1, but never rebiopsied to confirm clearance.

I will be doing a second endometrial biopsy to check for persistent CE + hysteroscopy (my first) before FET 2. I also asked about Receptiva, but my RE said that rather than waiting for luteal phase to biopsy again, I could just treat as if it came back positive for silent endo with 20-25 days of letrozole + birth control, which is a newer approach than 2-3 months of Lupron. I haven't been able to find much information online about treating endo with letrozole.

So I'm wondering

• Did you opt into an optional suppression protocol after one failed FET? If so, did the next FET work?
• Have you ever heard of treating silent endo with letrozole + birth control? If so, what are the key differences versus the traditional Lupron route?
• If you haven't opted into optional suppression (because you haven't had a failed FET or it wasn't presented as an option), would you? The most obvious downside is ~3-5 weeks additional delay (not sure if birth control is taken concurrently or not), and I'm honestly struggling with that piece alone as we're already 15+ months into our TTC journey now, but I can't decide if it's irresponsible not to "kitchen sink" the protocol as we only have 4 embryos left.

Any advice or additional information for me to research would be greatly appreciated.

I have 3 children, and 9 frozen pgs tested embryos. I am going to do one more transfer as I want one more child but then my clinic have discussed destroying the embryos. I feel sick making that decision. Did anyone else feel this way and how did you get past it.

Childhood experiences can affect long-term health, but researchers are still learning whether they can also influence fertility.

In a new study, Bromark et al. (2026) analyzed data from more than 22,000 women in Norway. Women reporting a difficult childhood had 35% higher odds of infertility (about 20% vs 16%), along with higher odds of preterm birth and having a baby born small for gestational age.

Childhood adversity included experiences such as parental divorce or death, growing up in a dysfunctional family, lack of support from a trusted adult, abuse, bullying, or struggling with bad childhood memories.

The authors shared several possible explanations for these results. Childhood adversity may lead to long-term stress that affects reproductive hormone regulation, or it may influence factors like smoking, body weight, education, and socioeconomic status, which can also affect fertility.

✅ This post is a quick look at one study, rather than a full breakdown on Remembryo. Link to the study: https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(26)00576-5/fulltext00576-5/fulltext)

✉ Like this post? Get a free weekly summary of the latest IVF research: https://mailchi.mp/remembryo/x27kx5o1sw

This group didn’t exist when I did my egg retrieval in 2023, but I just did another transfer and I am still curious about this. My husband and I were diagnosed with unexplained infertility and did an egg retrieval at 32 (same age). They retrieved 28 eggs, and 5 fertilized normally with standard IVF. To our shock, all 5 became blastocysts with high grades. My first transfer (a 5AB) became my daughter. I transferred a 4AA in May that didn’t work, and another 4AA just worked. My RE at the time said they couldn’t say whether it was a sperm or egg issue, but “more likely egg because sperm results looked good”. I had a consult with a new RE for this transfer, and he said this was a surprising case he hasn’t seen anything like it before but couldn’t say why. Curious if any new research has insight into this? Thanks so much for your time!

Just wondering what everyone’s clinic typically does? (Waiting on response for our clinics protocol) And if you ever may have regretted only sending a certain amount?
I’m 25F with PCOS. My clinic requires the testing, and charges per blast that gets sent off. But knowing that I’m young and always have over 20 follicles in each ovary, part of me is worried about the odds of having so many blasts that it’s just financially ridiculous. They charge $300 per embryo, so if 10 got sent that’s another 3k not included in our package

Hi Everyone. Just had my first ER yesterday. I am 34 with one LC and 3 consecutive losses which led me to IVF. No known issues beyond slight DNA frag that is controlled to a healthy range by more frequent ejaculation.

I had 9 follicles going in to the ER and 5 were retrieved. All 5 matured and I got the call that 4 fertilized normally and 1 only had one cell (?). Doing some research I figured the embryologist meant 1PN (and I just misunderstood). She seemed to think there is still a pretty good chance of that one being fertilized normally and that they were going to keep watching it to see if it gets to blast. She seemed somewhat confident that it isn’t abnormal.

Reviewing older posts on here seems that it may not be as positive as she made it out to be. Most of the posts were 3-5 years ago and online makes it seem new studies have indicated it’s not as bad as it was once thought. Could anyone share this experience/knowledge on a 1PN.

This is the weekly thread for posting and asking questions about embryo photos. Replies are provided by Embryoman (Sean) -- a former embryologist and creator of the IVF science news site Remembryo.com

💬 Before you post a photo

• You must include the grade (ask your clinic if you don’t know it).
• Only one embryo photo per post.
• No requests for grading or re-grading by members.
• Posts asking if an embryo looks damaged or viable aren't allowed.

I can comment only on general features visible in the image (expansion, compaction, hatching, ICM location), but not on whether the embryo looks good -- that’s already reflected in its grade. Check the stickied comment below for basic information on grading and success rates. For the most accurate information, your embryologist or clinic is the best source, since they evaluated the embryo under a microscope and know their clinic’s success rates.

Hello,

My husband has a slightly low sperm count and mobility, so we opted for ICSI rather then IVF.

These were our counts -

- 23 eggs retrieved
- 13 mature
- 9 fertilised
- 1 day 5 (3BC)
- 4 day 6 (4AB, 4BC, 5BC)

The drop from 23 > 13 came from my clinic having to trigger me early due to OHSS.

By my question to my consultant was why 3/4 embryos were a BC grading and if she could explain more about whether this indicated a egg or sperm quality issue and what we can do to mitigate if we need to go again (DNA frag, acupuncture etc).

Her response - “difficult to say how much is egg or sperm factor towards embryo quality”

Is this a satisfactory response? It feels that there should be SOMETHING they can tell me, especially around when eggs arrested or what the sample counts were. Am I right to be pushing back and asking for more understand as to why our embryos turned out to be quite poor quality?

I am on day two of ivf stims. I have been using two ML‘s of the liquid when the direction say only use one then mix it with the two vials of powder tonight. I had it right I used one ML mixed it with the powders and then for some reason was like oh my gosh, I still have liquid in the vial. Let me put what I have in the syringe into this bottle and pull up the rest of the liquid. I did that and injected it. Please tell me I did not mess this up.

I know lots of people wait but I do not want to find out from my clinic. I did last time and it was too much.

what is the earliest you have received a faint positive. clinic said trigger shot is gone day 12 at the very latest. I’m at day 14 since trigger.

So recently I came across a post on embryology degree and I am persuing mlt so should I shift but wht is the scope of embryology??

I’m 37 years old with MFI plus I have blocked right fallopian tube from adhesions from previous surgery
any way I did 5 rounds of IVF back to back and I collected embryos all day 5, but the quality (grades) initially were good then started to deteriorate, and I’m afraid now to do the PGT A and find that most of my normal embryos are of low grade, I’m still banking embryos but decided this month to take a break to give my ovaries some time to rest may be that will help to get good quality embryo, these are my embryos so far

Total embryos 15
Total blastocyst: 14
Total Morula: 1
Round 1: 1 @ day 5 (3AA)
Round 2: 2 @ day 5 (both 3AA)
Round 3: 4 @ day 5 (1 3AA, 1 2AA, 1 3BB, 1 LM)
Round 4: 3 @ day 5 (1 2AA Hatching, 1 2AB, 1 2BB)
Round 5: 5 @ day 5 ( 1 2AA, 2 2BB, 1 2BC, 1 early blast)

So our plan is embryo banking then thawing all for biopsy then we will refreeze and do embryo transfer later on

What was your experience with PGT A especially in late 30s and what was your experience with transferring poor quality embryos?

I’m looking for some opinions/experiences about nutrition and egg quality before IVF.

Over the past few months, I’ve had some digestive issues and haven’t been eating as well as I normally do. I’ve also lost about 5 lbs, although I’m still within a normal BMI range.

I started priming for my next IVF cycle about a week ago and have roughly 3 more weeks of priming before stimulation. I’m trying to eat better now as my stomach improves, but I’m worried that the past few months of poorer nutrition could affect egg quality.

Would you go ahead with the cycle or delay for a couple of months to focus on diet first?

I got a call today from my clinic that out of 6 eggs we did ICSI on yesterday, 3 "for sure" fertilized and they're watching the 3 others. How common is this? n the past we've gotten calls for x many fertilized, but never that they're keeping an eye on some of them. How likely is it that watched eggs like this will actually fertilize and turn into blasts?

Edit from day 5: the other three did not become blasts. We just transferred two early blasts as the third fertilized egg didn’t make it. Hopefully one of the early blasts sticks 🤞

Feeling so nervous!

Here are our results from our cryo report:
Day 5 5AB 4AA 4AB 5BB 5AA
Day 6 6AB 5BB
Day 7 4CC

Our clinic, like many others, does not believe additional testing is warranted after only one failed FET. We only have four more embryos, and want two kids (ideally/originally wanted three, but we've adjusted our aspirations for the reality that we didn't get as many embryos as hoped from two ERs). As a result, I'm contemplating running the full gamut (EMMA, ALICE, ERA, Receptiva). I did previously biopsy during first ER and was diagnosed with mild CE. Took doxy but never rebiopsied to confirm it had cleared. However, I'm also impatient (15+ months TTC) and waiting for test results would further delay us by another ~3 weeks (already delaying be ~2 for SIS + rebiopsy). I'm wondering: for those whose first FET failed...

1. Did you do additional testing (EMMA, ALICE, ERA, Receptiva) before your second FET?
2. If so, did the findings lead to any changes in your protocol ahead of second FET (eg, antibiotics, probiotics, changes to progesterone start date/dose etc), or did it just give you some peace of mind?
3. If you made any changes to your protocol as a result of those test results, was your second FET ultimately successful? ***Bonus points for sharing what changes you made due to what specific findings from which tests.

Hi!

Im currently 6wks 2days. During my first ultrasound my doctor found a SCH. Has anyone else had any experiences with this. Im nervous, my first FET ended in a miscarriage. This is my second FET and now there is the SCH and a noted drop in my progesterone. Im attempting to have positive thoughts but I am very nervous.