# IVF Success Story with really LOW Motility & LOW Sperm please



## MinxyChick

Hi, I've started the 2ww and am already driving myself crazy trying to compare myself to everyone else to work out if we have a chance. 

I would love to hear a success story where the motility is really low like 2% sluggish & no excellent. 

IVF1 - 13 eggs, 12 fert = 0 blast & best by* day 5 a 6 & 8 cell*. - short protocall
IVF2 - 21 eggs, 16 fert = 0 blast & best by *day 5 = moruella* - short protocall
IVF3 - 12 eggs, 7 fert. Opted for a* 3 day transfer of a 6 & 8 cell, no blasts by day 5.* - long protocall

In the 9 months between IVF2 & 3 we have done literally everything we both can, DH's count has gone up to 14m for this attempt but 2% were sluggish, no excellent & the rest doing nothing. So no improvement in motility. 

The Dr's have suggested donor sperm previously so I'm guessing if this doesn't work that's what they'll say. Not sure if I'll be able to convince DH, its a bit leap.

If anyone has a success story with simialry poor sperm I'd love to hear it, also if anyone has any thoughts on whether we should move to sperm donor. Please be brutally honest :kiss:


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## MoBaby

Hey! I wanted to say your DH sperm is way better than my DH sperm (his count is usually under 100,000 per mL and usually lower than that although it did go up to 600,000 per mL and most just twitch; not fast swimmers at all)...We have been lucky to have two BFPS but unfortunately I MC both and we are trying to figure out why. RE says its not a sperm issue. So it is possible! We are about to do our final FET in July and are hoping it sticks around :) GL with your wait! I hope you get your BFP out of this cycle. We may move on to IUI with donor sperm if no bfp or may give ivf one more go around. I'm being optomistic that we will get our bfp this next cycle and wont have to think about that :)


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## MinxyChick

Thanks for the reply. I hope you get your BFP this summer.
Its all so frustrating when we don't really know what causes these things to happen. Moving to donor is such a big step but I don't want to spend all my money, emotions, energy on using DH's sperm and then have to move to donor when we have nothing left for that.


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## peartree

Hi, your figures are definitely way better than my DH's. We have count of less than one million and 0% rapid motility. We did ICSI, have a beautiful 2 year old daughter and I am currently 18 weeks pregnant with our second baby. 

I'm not sure why your doctor is suggesting donor if you are getting embryos to transfer? I don't really know the science behind things, but would ICSI allow the embryologist to pick the best looking sperm to inject?


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## MinxyChick

Peartree - wow well done. Hearing this gives me hope. ICSI is meant to allow them to pick the best. I think they've suggested donor as we never get to blast. Fx'd for this cycle. 
Can you remember how many eggs you had & did u have a 3 or 5 day transfer?


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## peartree

i over respond, and get quite a lot of eggs, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

My first cycle, 27 eggs, 9 fertilised. Transferred two 2day embryos (clinic only did 2 day transfers). 6 of them frozen but both our FETs failed.

My second cycle, I can't remember how many exactly, I think about 13, and around 8 fertilised. The clinic tried to take to blastocyst, but by the fourth day only two were front runners = one was a compacting morula (which is on track at day 4) and one was a bit behind that. The rest were not of good enough quality to freeze.

I think from looking at the quality of the embryos from the fresh and frozen cycles, my embryos all look perfect up until day 3, really high gradings - top 2 of scale, and by the 4th day seem to deteriorate for some reason. I haven't looked into this - I'm not sure if it's the age of my eggs (I'm 37 now, 34 on my first ICSI cycle), or the quality of his sperm.

Both fresh cycles were successful, with singleton pregnancies from 2 embryo transfer. I guess that means that you don't *have* to get to blast to get a successful pregnancy. I don't know how you feel about donor sperm, but there is definitely hope that you will get pregnant even if you don't 'make it to blast'. 

Hope that gives you hope, wishing you a successful cycle x


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## MinxyChick

Hi, for anyone finding this old post, we opted to do Donor Sperm. We did an ICSI cycle using DS in January 2014. Again we never got to blast. Embryo quality the same as with DH's sperm. Haven't had follow up yet, but this leads us to believe one thing - poor egg quality. Its the only variable that hasn't changed. We also threw Eeva at the last cycle to cover all our bases. We are now looking into donor egg using DH sperm. This feels a very trial and error process.


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## MoBaby

Awww :( I'm soo sorry!! We finally got success with dh sperm and due to have c section in just 15 days! I'm sorry about your long road. There is a donor egg thread here and it seems very successful!


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## BethK

Has your doctor talked about ICSI instead of IVF? We were told we should do ICSI instead of IVF due to DH's low sperm mobility.

Sorry, posted before i saw your update! x


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## MinxyChick

Mobaby - big congratulations. Its stories like yours that give me hope the DE with DH sperm will work. I'm hoping with younger eggs as well will give us that extra push.

BethK - not to worry. We did ICSI all 4 times. Even with DS our clinic does ICSI as it can lose something by being frozen.


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## Lovebug1821

Hi,
My husband's sperm count was worse than yours. i know the motility wasn't good either. We did IVF w/ICSI. We were successful on our first try, now pregnant with twins. I do want to say anything is possible! Do not give up hope! 
Sorry, I'm not familiar with donor sperm so I won't be much help with that!

But i wish you all the luck in the world!!!


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## MinxyChick

Congratulations. Thank you, reading this makes me hopeful that this could work with DE.


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