"diagnosis" finally

Care75 · #1 (**permalink**) 11-20-2006, 03:57 PM

Patty- My aunt never got pregnant with my eggs. In fact, the eggs crapped out after 2 days- just like this cycle.

So, after all of this time with "unexplained infertility", I finally have a diagnosis. We had an appointment with RE today and found out my eggs are shot- and probably always have been.

Anyway, basically he said that there was an egg quality issue (I had 30 % fragmentation at day 2 on all of the embryos). Because of my egg donor cycle (I was an egg donor for my aunt 5 years ago) and the fact that 2 different sperm specimens were used (both of which have tested fine for motility) he concludes that my eggs are of poor quality. He doesn't think it's age but a kind of cytoplasmic issue in the RNA/DNA. So probably my eggs have always been bad- nothing I did, nothing environmental. And I asked about all of the tests and why this wouldn't show up. Apparently, I am the exception to the rule. I produce eggs every month (yeah, crappy ones), have normal labs (FSH, etc.), ovulate, etc. So there's no way of knowing they're crappy besides IVF. Most people with my "normal" test results would do well doing IVF. He said there is a small chance that if I had heterosexual "relations" with a man- I might get pregnant- by the luck of a good egg in the mix of bad ones. But it's likely that a high percentage of my eggs are bad which explains why 6 IUIs with injectables and two IVF attempts failed. So I guess the good news is that since I technically have had two "IVF" cycles (because of the egg donor cycle) he recommends that I never try to use MY eggs for an IVF cycle. He made it sound like if this was my first IVF, then he would suggest doing another protocol with my eggs to make sure this wasn't a fluke.

RE immediately brought up the idea of using my partner's eggs before we did. DP started spotting yesterday, so she will probably get her period tomorrow which means we could do the Clomid Challenge test this cycle. He suggested meeting with him following these results to discuss doing a cycle with her eggs- me as a "gestational surrogate" as he called it. I suppose we are very fortunate to have an extra set of eggs to work with. I'm not sure if we'll try IVF again right away or not, although DP would prefer not to be pregnant.

Anyway, I feel pretty crappy but at least have some answers- FINALLY.

Sorry so long- thanks for listening!