ICSI killed my eggs? (Conventional IVF with way better results than ICSI)

Hi everyone,

Sharing this story to see if anyone can relate or has any answers.

F(31, AMH of 46) and M (36) with unexplained infertility for over 2 years. 3 unsuccessful IUIs. Not a single positive test (tested pretty much all the time, so I am sure I did not have a chemical).

We’ve undergone rigorous testing. M screened for DNA fragmentation, F screened for endo (deep infiltrating endo that is not attached to anything was found on specialized ultrasound, but doctors concluded that does not tremendously affect fertility). Lifestyle has been excellent, all supplements taken, acupuncture, etc.

We opted for IVF, as this was the next step for us.

Just recently I had ER with a very gentle stim protocol due to high AMH.

Overall, 17 mature eggs were retrieved.

We opted for 50/50 fertilization: 8 eggs were fertilized with ICSI and 7 were fertilized conventionally. ICSI was done as a sort of «insurance» in case conventional does not fertilize at all. Joke’s on us!

Here are the results:

ICSI: 1 egg did not fertilize. All others arrested after day 3.

We’ve got 1 poor quality (4CC) blast.

This makes 14% blast rate, and the blast is quite poor.

Conventional: 3 eggs did not fertilize.

We’ve got 4 blasts in total: 3 good quality blasts (5BB) and 1 a bit poorer (6CB).

This makes 66% blast rate, despite poorer fertilization. Also, on Day 0/1 5 of those conventionally fertilized were under observation, as they did not have good signs of proper fertilization.

This makes me think, that ICSI must have contributed to the poor performance of the ICSI batch.

Did anyone experience something like this? Is this common? Does it diagnose anything?