3rd cycle, 3 follicles

[FingersXssd83]

So it's looking like our third egg retrieval is only likely to harvest 3 eggs max from our scans over the last few days.

We've had 10 and 6 eggs previously. This cycle I've changed from Menopur to Gonal F and this is our third back to back cycle.

I feel pretty devastated. I know people can get a BFP from low numbers but it's looking more unlikely with so few eggs. Also worried that my ovaries are packing in from the meds and my age (I'm 36 soon!) as the numbers are decreasing.

Has anyone had any success with three follicles? Thoroughly hacked off with my DH, he made us wait and now to be in this position. Ugh.

Feel like IVF is ruining my life. It's isolated us and just want to go out, have fun, eat bad food and not have it constantly on my mind. All the effort and patience I've given to it has done me in!

It would be great to have some ladies to chat to who have been in or are currently in a similar position. Bit fed up of seeing all the high achievers on the main infertility boards ☹️

x

How much Gonal f were you on? Just did my first round and got 4 eggs. I was on 150. A girl on another thread told me she had similar poor response on 150 but they upped it to 250 and next time she got a much larger number of eggs so I am hoping it’s the dose and that an increased one may make the difference.

What do you mean DH made you wait if it’s your third back to back cycle! I am thinking of only waiting a cycle so wait for AF post first round, have a month to relax then next AF start off again with the cycle.

Don’t usually post but faced a similar situation so thought I would give you some hope.

When I was scanned I only had 3 follicles of decent size, as we were paying for the treatment we were advised to stop at that point so we could get a 50% refund and start the cycle again. If we were unsuccessful at retrieval we would receive no refund.

We decided as we had come this far we would continue and only 2 eggs were collected.

It was an anxious wait to hear how they got on and we were very disheartened when only one fertilised.

We went ahead with implantation at 3 days but didn’t hold out much hope for a successful result.

We now have an amazing 9 week old little girl. It really does only take that one lucky egg.

Good luck xx

Hi Annie, can I ask what grade your embryo was? We were similar to you and I’ve been holding out no hope as it was 6-cell at day 3 and a few hours away from where it should be blastocyt for 5 day transfer so a grade 3. Thanks for your story!

Thanks so much for your replies, ladies!

@AnnaSteen I'm on 375 of Gonal F. They up your meds each cycle as our consultant says your ovaries generally need more each time to respond. Hopefully your new dosage will do the trick for you :-)

I meant to say that my DH made us wait to TTC and I've progressed with back to back cycles to try to compensate. Sorry if I'm being unclear, my head's a bit all over the place.

Wow @Annieh12 that's an amazing story that gives me some hope. How many cycles did you do and do you mind me asking how old you were when you conceived?

I'm just praying we get to transfer something if we're lucky on day 2/3.

🙏 💖🍀

@AnnaSteen the embryo was 8 cells at day 3. They didn’t think there was any point waiting until day 5 with me only having 1.

@FingersXssd83 I was 33 when I conceived. We were very fortunate to get lucky on our first cycle as we also had to get ICSI so it was quite expensive per cycle and we were unsure how many cycles we could afford to do.

@FingersXssd83 - I'm really sorry you're going through all this stress. I'm just wondering why you're doing your cycles back to back? My clinic wouldn't allow anything less than 3 months between cycles as there's lots of evidence to show that the stimulation response is worse on back to back cycles. I did find it frustrating having to wait 3 months between my first and second cycle (at age 40 so know what you mean about time pressure), but am now so glad we did - it gave me three months to make changes to improve egg quality too and the response was so much better second time around (currently 30 weeks with twins) 😊

Hi @CritterTamer thanks for your reply! Our consultant said that so long as we had two bleeds or two months after BFN before the next cycle, we'd be fine. My last cycle before this was much longer than usual for me though so I'm guessing (hoping!) that my body hasn't settled down. I'm presuming this cycle is out so we're going to book a fancy holiday and try to enjoy the summer and then go again in Aug and depending on what the dr says start to consider DE. Congrats on your twinnies, that would be my dream 😊💕 xx

4 follicles, 2 eggs, 1 embryo, 1 bfp who is now 4 years old and running around in a captain America outfit.

Quality over quantity. It really is true. I was 35 and I thought my ovaries had had it too. In fact- I was pregnant again 8 months after the Ivf baby was born (natural conception)!

Wow! Love your story @Ilikeviognier, it's given me a huge boost and thanks very much for sharing 😊 We had better news at our scan yesterday. 9 follies are in with a chance of producing eggs now. Retrieval is tomorrow so here's hoping to a more reasonable haul than we initially thought. It's all down to fate now 💕💕 x x

Good luck!

Thanks so much @Ilikeviognier

They got 5 eggs today and spotted some endo, which I wasn't aware of before.

Will be happy to get 3 embryos although I think 1-2 is more realistic.

Hopefully this is third time lucky for us! 💕🍀

How are you, @FingersXssd83? Are you having your embryo transfer today?

Sadly not @RedPandaFluff. We got four embryos in the end and because of the suspect endo cyst, they froze the them on day three. I stopped the meds and need to go back for a scan in a month to see if the cyst is still there. If it isn't then I can do FETs. If it is, I have to have a lap and have any adhesions removed before I can continue with IVF. We were previously unexplained and I've done 3 short protocols which make endo inflammation worse. They haven't seen it on any other scans but knowing what my periods are like, I'm 99% sure I've got it. Really gutted as it reduces chances of success but I need to take the drs advice and sort it out before progressing with any transfers. Have a feeling this cycle could last the whole year :(

Hope you're feeling great in your early pregnancy x x

We went out drinking and eating all day yesterday, kind of made me feel better but also worse as you're aiming for that perfect transfer to give you hope and I ate lots of naughty food instead. DH has been amazing picking me up. Very lucky in that respect x x