Advice again from the experts--got more info on embryo issue

[thedutchgirl]

I thought I'd start a new thread, as I have questions and was hoping you experts could help.

As I posted in the July check-in, we fertilized frozen donor eggs from a 20-year old donor. 7 of 8 fertilized, but none made it to blast. We have not yet had an appointment with our RE for more information, but the nurse was able to get us additional information to to help us as we choose a donor for the 4 eggs we get free.

Our doctor (we're at CCRM in Minneapolis) recommends we use a new donor, and ideally if possible use a donor who is currently cycling for the bank (we used CCRM's bank) so that we can fertilize 4 fresh eggs.

Admittedly, I am not an fertility expert in the way that so many of you are. I'm old (43), so we went to an RE after 3 months of trying, and learned my tubes are blocked. We decided to go with donor eggs, for the faster, more likely chance of success. So I don't have years of being steeped in treatments and numbers and what things mean.

We still haven't had our official re-group with the doctor, so I'm basically trying to figure some things out on my own. We got the recommendation through the nurse, from the doctor, to try to help speed along the selection of the 4 new eggs. Oh, we haven't done DNA fragmentation texting for my H, but he's had SA at two different clinics with excellent results each time.

Questions:
The recommendation for a new donor makes it seem like the eggs may have been the issue, correct?
Does the recommendation for fresh eggs indicate something related to the sperm? 

I know I could Google, but I trust you all more than unsourced randoms on the interwebs. Thank you for any thoughts you might have! 

[seeyalater52]

I’m guessing they are recommending fresh because you’re only going to be working with 4 eggs, and that way you aren’t adding in the wild card about how many thaw correctly etc. It’s just one less factor to have to worry about.

Using a proven donor would be ideal in this circumstance, as it would give more insight into whether the issue is the donor (less likely but definitely possible with an unproven donor) or whether there is a sperm factor you should look into more seriously ( or consider donor embryos.)

[thedutchgirl]

Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. I don't know if we'll be able to get fresh, but we'll see what the egg bank says.

I definitely would like to switch to a proven donor to increase our odds.