Poor Embryo Quality
0 Replies
Ethan129 - January 20

Dr. Smith,

Last month I completed my 1st cycle with my donor. She's a proven donor numerous times over and is in her mid-twenties. I'm a 42 year old male. During the cycle, 37 eggs were retrieved from the donor.....27 of the eggs fertilized.....at day 3, there were 12 good looking embryos (9 female and 3 male)......however, at day 5, there was only 1, 4.5 grade (out of 5) blastocyst and 2, 3.5 Grade (out of 5) blastocysts. The remaining embryos didn't develop normally. Unfortunately, no pregnancy resulted from the embryo transfer.

Regarding my sperm, the semen analysis I had done several months ago was well within the normal range. And earlier this month, I had a sperm DNA Fragmentation test performed and the results of that test were also good with DFI%=10% and HDS%=3.7%. So, I am feeling very perplexed as to why the cycle results were so poor. As an aside, I'm working with a clinic on the West coast which has a very strong reputation and their own lab. I'll mention 1 additional thing. I live a very healthy lifestyle and the only medication which I take is Propecia. Is it possible that the Propecia is somehow affecting the embryo development (and the fact that 9 of the 12 Day 3 embryos were female!!!)? As a precaution, I stopped taking Propecia last week but am unsure how long I should stay off of it before providing another semen sample to be frozen. The half-life of Propecia is only 4 hours but I've also read that the Sperm in one's body today was actually produced 70 days ago so I'm not sure if I need to wait another 70 days before providing a new sample.

Any thoughts you have would be much appreciated.
Thanks for your time.

 

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