Hi everyone! I just had my 2nd failed egg retrieval (age 30)

Cycle 1: 13 eggs, all mature, 4 fertilized normally/6 abnormally (all 3PN), 0 blasts

Cycle 2 (ICSI and zymot): 28 eggs, 21 mature, 7 fertilized normally/3-0PN,11 3PN, 0 blasts (1 day 6 Morula)

My clinic discards all of the 3PN. However they were 3PN with 2 polar bodies. In my very preliminary research this seems very strange. How can I interpret this and advocate for myself if possible?

Are there any other embryologists here who have underwent IVF at their own clinic? I’m at that point in my infertility journey and am having reservations about doing it at my own clinic. For context, we are a very small clinic and I am the only senior level embryologist on site. If you did IVF at your clinic, how did you handle being involved in your own case? Does your clinic have policies about this? Did anyone here actually do any of their own case? My main concern is ICSI/Biopsy as the juniors are not signed off on these yet and I am offering a lot of guidance day to day. Looking for advice.

Background

My husband (38) and I (38) are doing our first round of IVF. I am currently on Day 4 of stims.

My husband is addicted to nicotine and uses Zyn (nicotine gum). Last week he started nicotine patches (at 21 mg) though he is still supplementing the patch with 1 zyn (6 mg).

I’ve expressed my concerns to him multiple times over the year. He also wants to quit, but it will take time. The situation sucks, but here we are.

- He has had two normal seman analyses over the past 4-5 months, the latter one testing HBA Binding (91%). We have informed our RE about his nicotine usage, but based on his SA, he said that he wasn’t concerned and did not recommend him to quit (I was surprised).

- I was diagnosed with DOR with AMH of .96 and initial AFC of 11 at my first workup. I had my first monitoring appt. at stim Day 4, and they counted 20 small follicles, which I was so pleasantly surprised with. It makes me sad and worried to think that this cycle could be seriously compromised by my husband’s nicotine usage. Which brings me to….

Egg or Embryo Banking?

- My husband wants to quit nicotine and I believe he can and will, but I also believe it will take at least another month or two. Sperm takes 3 months to develop. My egg retrieval is next week.

- We planned to make embryos but given his nicotine usage, should we be considering egg freezing instead? Then that would give him a bit of time to quit nicotine. As far as timing, my clinic requires a 4-5 month period between ER and FET anyway.

Does any one have any advice? If you have been a similar situation, I would love to hear from you. If you haven’t, but have thoughts, please share!

Thank you!

Hi everyone. I only have one euploid after a verrrry long journey. It is a day 6, 5AB... BUT the iDAscore / embryoscope score is 3.8. This makes me very worried. Did anyone have success with an embryo with a low iDAscore? Thanks so much

Hi everyone,
I’ve been on this IVF journey for about 4 years now and have gone through 7 egg retrievals. I have DOR in both ovaries, and over those 7 retrievals we managed to create 6 embryos.
We tested one embryo, which came back as high-level mosaic. It is still frozen, and I haven’t discarded it.
In February 2026, I transferred one of my untested frozen embryos. It implanted, but unfortunately I miscarried at 6 weeks. The loss was incredibly traumatic, and now I’m terrified of going through another transfer and potentially experiencing the same thing again.
I’m considering transferring another one of my frozen untested embryos, but part of me keeps wondering whether I should have the remaining embryos thawed, biopsied for PGT-A, and refrozen before doing another transfer. I brought this up with my doctor, but he is reluctant to test embryos that are already frozen.
Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Did you choose to:
● transfer your remaining embryos untested, or
● thaw, biopsy/test, and refreeze them?
If you thawed and tested previously frozen embryos, how did it go? Did all of your embryos survive the process?
And for anyone who had a miscarriage after an untested embryo transfer and then went on to transfer another untested embryo, I would really appreciate hearing your experience too.
I feel very lost about what to do next and scared of making the wrong decision. Any experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated. ❤️

Interested if anyone has been in a similar situation. I had four eggs on my last cycle, but abnormal fertilization in 2, one failed to fertilize, and one normal fertilization with ICSI. This is the first time we haven’t had 100% normal fertilization in three cycles.

Anyway, all the embryos arrested except the 3PN, which is not a day 6 4BC blast. We are doing PGTA testing, but results are going to take quite a while because the lab is backed up. Curious if anyone has experience here. I’m 27. Last cycle had 2 day 5 4BB embryos, but both were aneuploid.

I am in the strange position of having more embryos than I needed. I had hoped to donate to them research, but that seems to no longer be an option. I also asked about donating them for practice, but was told that’s off the table as well. Donating to another person is not an option.

So now I am making peace with discarding these precious embryos and it is killing me. What actually happens? Are they thrown into a biohazard waste bin? Flushed down a drain? What is the actual process?

Im so stressed i don’t know whether i should go to medical analysis college or biology college i really don’t like to work with animals or insects i have phobia so i dont knlw where to choose biology or medical analysis

Hi all,

I am needing some advice. I am 4 days post a 6 day hatching embryo transfer. I caved this morning and took a clear blue test, to my surprise it was positive. Followed up by a FRER digital that is also showing positive.
My concern is my ovidrel trigger, I took that on the 30th of July.
What are the chances of this being a false positive vs being a true pregnancy?

Any advice is appreciated. This is my first ever positive pregnancy test in my life. So I am trying to stay guarded, but hard not to be hopelessly excited.

I have a bs in molec bio from 2020, and ive been a veterinary assistant for a few years. I would eventually like to get into human embryology, but should i start by applying for animal embryology positions? Is that a good career path?

I have two, grade 1 and 2. Heard the the success rate is lower. Should I transfer both at the same time? I also have a 2AA I was planning to transfer first.

Hi everyone,
Just got our PGT-A results back from our cycle, and out of 5 embryos tested, here is where we stand:
1 Euploid (Day 6, grade 4BB)
1 Non-informative (Day 6, grade 4BA)
3 Aneuploid
I’m feeling a mix of emotions right now. On one hand, I’m so grateful to have one chromosomally healthy embryo ready to go. On the other hand, I’m trying to figure out what to do about our non-informative one, and hoping to hear from others who have been in a similar spot.
A couple of questions for this amazing community:
1. Has anyone had a "non-informative" embryo result? What was your next step? Did you decide to thaw, re-biopsy, and retest it? If you did retest, did it come back euploid, or did it end up being abnormal/damaged from the re-biopsy?
2. Success with Day 6 4BB transfers? For those who transferred a single Day 6, 4BB euploid embryo, how did your transfer turn out?
Would love to hear your experiences, advice, or any success stories with similar results! Thanks so much in advance. ❤️