IVF: How many follicles?

[Tootsiepops]

Hello,

I'm six days in to stims, and I had my first scan this morning. The sonographer said I had seven good sized follicles - the largest of which was 16mm - and three smaller, less mature ones.

I have to admit to feeling a little disappointed as I thought there would be more.

Can anyone who's been through this already tell me if I can expect to get more follicles to grow between now and egg collection (a week today), or if I should expect to get around 10 or fewer eggs?

I know it's all a bit hit and miss, but my AMH is 17.5 and my follicle count was 18 when I was getting scanned as part of checks for egg reserve. I'd sort of assumed that I'd get more than 18 follicles whilst taking IVF drugs.

Does anyone have any experience of ending up with more eggs come EC than they did at their first scan?

Hi - your antral follicle count (day 1 follicle count) changes every month, so it's definitely possible that you had 17 last month and 10 this month. Try not to feel down hearted - quality is more important than quantity and it really does 'only take one' (yawn). I'm on my 4th cycle and have had a different number of follicles every time. Sounds like yours are growing well and you've got a good AMH so fingers crossed this is your lucky cycle! Good luck.

Oh and usually about half of all mature follicles will contain an egg, although sometimes they'll find more. You therefore probably won't get 10 eggs from 10 follicles but as I said above, quality is more important than quantity. Good luck!

I agree it is quality not quantity that counts. I did natural/mild rounds. The most I ever got was four eggs. I was fine with that.

This is true. I know quantity isn't the same as quality, but we're self-funding at a London clinic and can't afford anymore than one fresh cycle, and a frozen, so hoping that more eggs = more chance of a FET if this cycle doesn't work.

Clinic has taken my drugs down from 300 iu to just over 100 iu now so I expect they are trying to grow what's there rather than encourage additional follicles.

I've tolerated d/r and the first week of stims pretty well, but I am getting crazier and more neurotic the closer I get to EC / ET...

A mantra on one of the Conception threads is IOTO - it only takes one. One egg, one sperm, one embryo is all you need. Good luck.

Its not quantity that matters, you just need one. First batch I got 17 eggs, none viable. Second I got 5 viable eggs and 5 viable embryos. 3 of these are currently running amok in the front room. 2 didnt make it. Hang in there and dont worry too much at this stage, its a rollercoaster and you are just along for the ride, there is nothing you can do about it. Just hang in there. Xx

I'm back in the clinic tomorrow, so will see how / if things have progressed. I know I'm being silly really worrying about 'only' having 10 eggs. That's a good, solid number and I should consider myself lucky.

I've got four more days of stims left, and egg collection pencilled in for Sunday.

Scared!

Had second scan today and I now have 12 follicles over 10mm. Sonographer said one or two more might pop up between now and my trigger shot. Waiting to hear if they might bring my EC date forward. Might be Friday now instead of Sunday.

Hi Tootsie

Just wanted to say hello as we are very close timewise in our ivf cycles (I started the thread asking why everyone else is so fucking fertile )

I don't have anything particularly helpful to say other than 12 follicles over 10mm sounds good to me!

Just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you and wishing you the very best of luck

I also have EC scheduled for Friday! Fingers crossed all round. I agree with Happy, 12 follicles is good.

Thank you so much happy and blue! My clinic just called and I trigger tomorrow for egg collection on Saturday. I feel very scared all of a sudden. Please let me know how you're both getting on. I am usually quite stoical, but I could really use some hand holding at the moment. Lots and lots of luck to you both!

I'm sooo up for some hand holding!! Although I am a bit rubbish at keeping up with threads - I promise I'll be thinking of you even if I'm not posting.

If everything goes according to plan (and it might not, as there was some random fluid in my uterus at my last scan) I should be having my transfer tomorrow. Am shitting myself

I hope everything goes well with your respective egg collections. I had mine on Saturday. I've never been sedated before, so was a bit worried, but it was absolutely fine. I thought I would be awake but dozy, but as far as I was concerned I was completely unconscious! Felt a bit crap afterwards but had a takeaway for tea to make me feel better

Good luck for tomorrow! So exciting and terrifying. I am a nervous wreck. Although - as someone pointed out - we're just along for the ride - it's pretty much out of our hands once it gets to transfer and entirely up to the embryos!

Come on embryos!

I can certainly hold hands...this is my 4th go so I'm becoming a bit of an expert at the old sedation/collection/transfer routine (unfortunately)! I'm a poor responder so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll get a reasonable number of eggs tomorrow morning. I have 7 decent looking follicles at the moment. Tootsie you are quite right - you are along for the ride. There's nothing you can do about the outcome so you might as well relax and hope for the best.

Happy the egg transfer is nothing to worry about - it's usually over in 5 minutes. Only uncomfortable thing is having a full bladder and being dying for a wee, aside from that, it's fine.

Hi there

at my first scan I had only six follicles at my first scan. I had a very bad AMH result though.

At the next scan I had 8 and the largest was 22mm. The rest were between 10 and 15 mm.

At egg collection they got 6 eggs.

FWIW I then had the IVF and now have a 4 year old son :)

Hello

Just thought I'd add my stats.

Have high AMH (37.5) so my clinic expected me to respond well to stimming. I did initially (had 24 follies between the 2 ovaries) and then things started to tail off - after 12 days of stimming I had only 4 follies above 14mm and only 3 close behind.

Had EC this morning - only 4 eggs retrieved. No idea what they're like - I will find out tomorrow.

The Dr said that she couldn't understand why I'd not responded very well given my AMH. This is my first round of IVF so I guess it's always going to be treated as a bit of an experiment re: response.

My clinic will only do a 5 day transfer if there are 4 or more eggs which are fertilised and growing normally. If the number drops below 4, they will do a 2 day transfer. I am assuming that I will have a 2 day transfer (if we get to transfer stage at all) given that I've only started off with 4 eggs to begin with.

Bit of a disappointment, but such is life. Have already written this cycle off and am ready to move on to the next!

Best of luck to you :)

It's really interesting to hear how everyone else got on. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to any of it, does there? I am due for egg collection at lunchtime on Saturday. Slightly terrified, but trying to keep stress and anxiety levels down.

I never made it to a blast transfer despite pcos and growing 20+ follicles each time. Collected 13-9 eggs, but low fertilisation of 25% left only 2 good embryos each time. But as im pg with dc2 it really does only take 1 good one.

Hey Tootsie

It's swings and roundabouts - I have 24 follicles but on Wednesday after 7 days of stims the biggest by a long way was only 13mm. Most were under 10mm and I was a bit gutted So you can grow them better than me, even if I can make more follies!

I hope collection goes well on Saturday

Thank you! I've just done my trigger shot and am now sitting worrying that I will ovulate before egg collection on Saturday

Wish I could skip the next two weeks and just get to the outcome...

I had egg collection this morning....7 eggs! I'm very chuffed, that's the most we've ever had (this is my 4th and final cycle). I'll get a call tomorrow to see how many have fertilised. IVF is an evil swine, once you stop worrying about one thing there's another thing to worry about. Tootsie, best of luck for tomorrow. Egg collection is a piece of cake so don't feel stressed. Early ovulation is rare so don't worry about that either (easy for me to say, I know!)

I had 13 follicles at the scan pre-ivf, 12 growing during the cycle, but at egg collection they got 19! We were going through this all last year so I'm thinking back to it all a lot at the moment- I had EC on the 24th feb. It did work for us, DD is 3m now. I hope so much it does for all of you too.

That's really great, blue! Good luck for good numbers tomorrow too!

Wow - moggle you must have some sneaky ovaries to be hiding so many extra eggs!

I am trying to remain calm for tomorrow. I could really murder a ton of vodka right about now....

Just back. Nine eggs. Bit disappointed but I really don't know why. I'm being emotional and silly.

Any news blue and imps?

Tucked up in bed now (with some dairy milk). Fish and chips for dinner and then I can start worrying about how many eggs will fertilise overnight!

9 eggs is great Tootsie, well done! Don't be disappointed. It only takes one.

Pleased to report that all 7 of mine fertilised, I got a call this morning. Now just need to hope some of them hang on until day 5.