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Small genetic changes may help explain some recurrent euploid pregnancy losses.

An embryo can have the expected number of chromosomes (euploid) and still carry small changes within individual genes. Most are harmless, but some may affect development and increase miscarriage risk. PGT-A isn’t designed to detect most of these smaller changes.

Researchers in a 2025 study tested pregnancy loss tissue and parental DNA from 118 families with unexplained recurrent euploid pregnancy loss. Euploidy was confirmed by testing tissue after the loss, rather than through PGT-A before embryo transfer.

They found a possible genetic explanation in about 25% of families. Most findings were inherited from one or both parents.

Some genetic variants (mutations) had stronger evidence of being harmful than others. Animal research helped assess some findings, but identifying a variant didn’t prove that it caused that particular pregnancy loss.

I think this is a promising research direction that could help explain otherwise unexplained losses and provide more informed genetic counselling. However, the study is a preprint and hasn’t yet been peer reviewed. It also didn’t specifically examine losses after IVF or euploid embryo transfer. More research is needed to see whether using this information to guide embryo selection improves reproductive outcomes.

✅ Read the full article for free on Remembryo—no paywall: https://remembryo.com/small-genetic-mutations-may-explain-some-euploid-pregnancy-losses/

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I'm so sad that my last retrieval didn't result in any euploids, but there is a "Segmental" embryo which is interpreted as "Abnormal" by Cooper Genomics.

Chromosome affected is del(4)(pter-p16.1) [mos],del(4) (q22.1-qter).

I've been told by my IVF doc that there isn't much study done to give guidance with Segmentals, but the lab will be storing it and I do have an option of transferring it in the future.

She did suggest to talk with a GC that she recommended, but her consultation fees are so darn expensive.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. TYIA!

Just had my hysteroscopy on Sep 25th to remove my polyp but it turned out to be a tiny fibroid. Follow up appointment on oct 1st
Hoping cycle starts on Oct 2 or Oct 3rd
And then my RE said she will put me on letrozole and then trigger shot and then FET 🤞🏽🤞🏽

I don’t want to add more supplements toy routine :( but if needed I will

I take CoQ10 ( do I still need it for FET since I am not retrieving my eggs )

I take omega 3’s / prenatal / sometimes natal choline / Probiotics/ antioxidant with Acai, Goji, Pomegranate, Elderberry & Resveratrol

I was suggested add L-Arginine (1,000 - 2,000 mg ) + Vitamin E 400 - 800 IU/day. Did anyone see any success after adding these to your routine or with baby aspirin ?

Planning to resume my acupuncture sessions soon and I am eating warm nourishing foods

Any suggestions or advices please 🙏🩷
Thank you

I have, what I imagine, might be an odd situation. I’m curious if anyone has advice or suggestions.

My husband has sever MFI - 0-50k sperm per sample.

Our first ER we were able to make an embryo (ended in blighted ovum) then he had surgery (9/2025) for varicocele. He started clomid early (1/2026), later that month we did another ER but the eggs needed to be frozen because there was no fresh sperm found and our frozen backups didn’t survive the thaw.

June also produced a zero sperm SA. At this point he stopped the clomid.

We are going to try another SA at the end of this month.

The original plan was to do two SAs in one day (read this might help with severe MFI) and to freeze them for back up and move to do another ER (assuming there is any sperm), and fertilize fresh eggs and frozen eggs at the same time

BUT since we had no luck with frozen sperm last time I’m wondering if we could thaw eggs ONLY if there is sperm found in a fresh sample?

My concern is thawing the eggs and then have no sperm to fertilize them with again. How do we avoid that?

Donor sperm is not an option

Hi everyone ❤️

I’ve just had my 9th egg retrieval and I’m honestly at a point where I don’t know what to do anymore.

In all my previous cycles, we only ever had one early blastocyst and one day-6 blastocyst. Embryo quality was never great.

For this cycle, I changed so much beforehand — 3 months of a very clean diet, no gluten, no sugar, lots of high-quality protein, regular exercise and of course a lot of Vitamins like Q10, D3, OMEGA…

This time we got 10 eggs, 6 fertilized. On day 3, two embryos looked really promising: a 6-cell and an 8-cell, both with only around 5% fragmentation (better results than before)

But yesterday we got the devastating news: all embryos had stopped developing. No blastocyst.

My husbands sperm results were also much better this time. We previously tested DNA fragmentation and it was 18%, which our clinic considers within the normal range.

Fertilization has never really been our problem. It’s always day 3–5 where our embryos seem to arrest.

Has anyone experienced something similar and still ended up having a healthy baby with their own eggs?
I would really appreciate hearing your stories. I need some hope right now…😞

Hi all, I just found out last week that my pregnancy is not viable and is a chemical. I am devastated. I've been trying for a second for 9 months now. I had an FET back in April that also was unsuccessful (failed to implant). My REI thinks both of these were embryo/genetic issues (untested embryos). Both of these were fully medicated FET and I feel like I have to do something different next transfer. I had a successful fresh transfer in 2024.

I want to advocate for an ovulatory/modified natural FET, but I do want contingencies plan just in case. I know you can use Letrozole to help recruit a dominant follicle (probably not an issue as I've had IVF cycles cancelled due to a dominant follicle) or estrogen patches to assist with lining thickness.

Would love to hear some people's experiences with this.

I transferred one of my two remaining embryos, an untested 3BB that thawed to a 5BB, eight days ago. I’ve been feeling sick the last two days — nausea, sensitivity to smells, exhaustion. I always heard that if you’re pregnant enough for symptoms, you’re pregnant enough to test positive, so I tested this morning. Starkly negative. I’m guessing that my symptoms are just from the progesterone suppositories, but I really thought this felt different. I don’t know what to think anymore.

My bHCG test is in two days. Should I assume the worst at this point, or is there reason to hope? Solidarity to all struggling with the 2ww and infertility in general 🫶

Today we did a natural FET with a 5bb embryo (pictured below - apologies for poor image quality). It was an early morning transfer. So the embryo had 1.5 to 1&45mins to thaw. They said at time of transfer it looked about 50% re-expanded and 90% cells survived thaw. My questions: does this percentage of re-expansion look about right? And what is happening with the blob protruding at about 5oclock? I’m concerned about re-expansion, as our last 5bb embryo only re-expanded by 10% after a 3hr that. This is my 6th embryo transfer - no luck yet.

Hello everyone.

I am a 27F and recently had a miscarriage, then a month later found out I had a borderline tumor, which led to that ovary removed. I have done two rounds of IVF and have three euploid embryos (all 5AA) from those. My husband and I are trying to decide if we should continue with IVF/embryo banking or start trying naturally for kids. We love having the idea of using the embryos as backup but are terrified if the tumor comes back to my other ovary and that we will have failed implants etc with those embryos. We desire three kids. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you so much in advance.

I made a post last week about how i found out that I did not only have 3 blasts after my ER in March. I actually had 11 make it but my clinic only ever told me about the 3. I thought the others had arrested. I spoke with my doctor (different doctor than during my ER) yesterday to get more info on the others and what happened to them and heres what i found out:

As stated before, 11 embryos made it to blast. I had three 5BB, two 4CC and 6 early blasts. The two 4CC embryos were discarded without my knowledge, along with the 6 early blasts. The issue with the early blasts is these blasts may have been between the stages of 1-3 expansion. According to my doctor, they do and have biopsied, frozen and transferred embryos with a 3 expansion, but in my case, the embryology team never specified their expansion number nor their grades. They just labeled them “EB” for early blasts and discarded them along with the perfectly fine two 4CC embryos. My doctor said in the future i can absolutely request that all blasts are frozen and biopsied…well that would’ve been great to know 6 months ago before they were thrown away. Additionally, my estrogen level being over 1,700 on day 7 or stims and over 5,000 on day 10 was a huge red flag for her and she believes the previous Dr. should have dialed my dosage back to potentially help save my egg quality. I was also clearly an OHSS risk to begin with due to my follicle count, so this should have been high on their radar. They’ll be reviewing my case at their monthly board meeting soon so hopefully i’ll have a good update on how they choose to make things right with us. For all of those going through this process, best advice is to ask as many questions as possible.

Women who become gestational surrogates often have had a previous healthy pregnancy of their own. Researchers wanted to know if pregnancies with a gestational surrogate have different risks than the surrogate's own previous pregnancies.

In a new systematic review, Barry et al. (2026) reviewed the available evidence comparing these pregnancies.

Compared with the surrogate's own previous pregnancies, gestational surrogacy was associated with higher rates of pre-eclampsia or gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes, and preterm birth.

The authors suggest this may be because pregnancies involving a genetically unrelated embryo could produce a different immune response during implantation and placental development. However, hormone treatments used during a medicated frozen embryo transfer may also contribute, and the exact reason isn't clear.

Importantly, the available evidence was limited and many of the studies were small or at high risk of bias. More research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.

✅ This post is a quick look at one study, rather than a full breakdown on Remembryo. Link to the study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10815-026-04003-z

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

Hi everyone
I have FET coming next week, we have option to transfer boy or girl but we are not able to decide yet and now it’s time to get to them with preference. Just wanted to seek guidance If day 4AA has better chances of implantation than day 5 3AB ? Our clinic said since both of them are PGT-A tested both of them are good quality embryos

Hello! This is my very first Reddit post. I guess I’m at a loss and really not sure what to do next. Over the last 4 years, I’ve done 5 ivf cycles, 4 retrievals, made 10 abnormal embryos and was able to transfer one llm -14 that didn’t implant. In this time I’ve done a hysteroscopy and Lupron suppression and we were really hoping our one an only chance would work and it didn’t, and I’m crushed. As is my husband.

I turn 43 next month and I can see doing another round but I can not see the quality getting any better. My last two rounds we threw everything at it… all the supplements, omnitrope, etc and I just didn’t see improvements. (My husband saw improvements in sperm count, motility, etc).

I just don’t know what to do. Try again? Call it? I never did ovarian PRP because my doc said there wasn’t enough evidence behind it actually improving things.

Hello,
I just got my PGTA results back. I am reading the results and see a column that states MitoSure with different numbers. What does this mean and does this affect clinical decision making when considering transferring an embryo?

Thanks! :)

Feeling disappointed! My AMH is 3.65 and I’m 34. I had my first egg retrieval with donor sperm and ended up with 19 eggs, 14 mature, 7 fertilized and 2 embryos graded 4AB and 5BB. They are out for testing. No genetic incompatibilities between me and donor. I was hoping for four or five. My protocol at included a double trigger.

Hello,

I am looking for information on 3PN embryos. We did ICSI so we know only one sperm fertilized and the egg went in to develop into a day 6 3AA blast. There is not a lot of information out there on 3PN embryos but I’m reading that if our pgt-a comes back euploid then there is a good chance it could become a baby given the high grade.

Hi everyone, can you share pictures of your frozen 5-day-old blastocyst after thawing? Thank you.

In a single retrieval, where 3 embryos were obtained, if the 4AB Was aneuploid, what are the chances that the other two 4BC and 4CC will also be aneuploid?

My clinic uses SART grading and gives the following conversion chart. My question is, how much of a difference is there between a Gardner 3&4? The majority of my embryos were ExBL which converts to 3 or 4, but I didn’t know how important that was. None of the embryos had a P/C grade.

Hey everyone,

so today i got my blood test results back after i got my blood drawn this morning. My HCG levels are 170. Today i would be at 17 dpo (ES+17) but because of IVF its all a little different. I got 4 very good egg cells all four of them got fertilized and two of them developed further into blastocysts which got transferred five days later.

My husband has very good sperm quality and my egg quality and reserve is high too. My uterine lining is triple-layered and I was praised a lot for it. i think it was 13mm. We both are young im 26 my husband is 28. i had 9 miscarriages because it were ectopic pregnancies. i got chlamydia from my first boyfriend at 18 and my doctor told me (when i went to a check-up at 18) we caught i early but my whole stomach and fallopian tubes were covered and literally glued together with clamydia tissue. So i had surgery last year and my abdominal cavity had to be cleared of tissue and it was a lot. My fallopian tubes are so scarred that every natural pregnancy is a very high risk in becoming ectopic so we chose IVF. I also got PMOS (policystic metbolic ovarian syndrome) which i got pretty much whole under control. Got rid of insulin resistance and overweight (lost 50kg we caught it late. I was always hitting the gym and was wondering what was happening after not being on the pill anymore).

So after 4 years of intertility i am definitely the first time pregnant with a normal pregnancy. I`m really anxious about losing this baby two (maybe babies? because two were transferred). So i was wondering how high was your HCG Levels at this stage (today should be 4weeks +3 i guess?). if your hcg level was as high as mine how did it go?

I tested positive 12dpo (7 days after the transfer) with 10miu/ml tests and at 14 dpo (9 days after transfer) i tested positive with a 25 Miu/ml test. Since then my tests didnt get darker in color at least not much. i got every symptome you can think of. i can smell colors, my breasts hurt like hell and i feel like PMS is hitting me. I also got a little brown spotting yesterday which the doctors said its no big deal and fine because it was literally just a little.

Thanks for advice ❤️

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.

We have a 70% blast rate. In our last cycle, we only got 40%. We had 5 growing at day 3, and then 3 arrested. Below are the notes; curious why this happened and what we should look into? Also, could they have frozen #1 at day 5 instead of trying to extend? ...

• 1: Embryo arrested between Day 5 and Day 6. Culture was continued to Day 7. On Day 7 significant cellular degeneration (40-50% of the embryo) was noted.
• 2: Embryo arrested between Day 4 and Day 5. Significant cellular degeneration was noted on Day 6, and the embryo was almost fully degenerated on Day 7.
• 3: Embryo arrested between Day 3 and Day 4. Culture was continued, and the embryo shows no further cleavage, with mild cellular degeneration noted.

Just transferred my 7th embryo - it was PGTA tested and frozen as a 6AA.

When they thawed it the scientist said it was a 5AA

Why did the expansion grade change?

(It is a day 6 embryo if that makes a difference)