Your thoughts on asking for higher stims

[EggFreezing36]

Hi all,

I am single and freezing my eggs for hopefully future use if I meet someone.

I have done two egg freezing cycles so far, and froze 6 (out of 8) on first round and 7 (out of 8) the second round.

This is from being 37 with a low AMH, i think 5.4 pmol or something. So I presume these numbers are not bad....but what I am curious about is this:

Both cycles they start me on 150 Meriofert and 225 Fostimon, before upping me both times after a few days to 225 Meriofert. Due to my low AMH surely I am not at risk for OHHS.

I have read on some forums that strong drugs can impact egg quality, my clinic said this isn't true, but makes sense.

Unless it's true that they can impact egg quality, I don't understand why my clinic wouldn't start me on 225 of both from the start? I don't want to push for this and disregard their advice, but I do wonder if I could have got more eggs by doing this.

Would appreciate any advice

@EggFreezing36 Hi there,
Im far from an expert on all this but I have had 2 collections, both on the same dosage with very different results.
First collection retrieved 14 follicles, only 2 made it to 5 day blastocysts, second collection they collected 8 follicles, 5 making it to 5 day blastocysts. The outcome for myself was better with the lower follicle collection as quality appeared better.
Maybe this could be the reason for the lower dosage, quality over quantity …. Just a thought 😃

With an AMH of 5 ish you would expect 5/6 eggs. Sounds like what they're doing is working for you. I personally don't tend to question much, I'm paying a lot of money for their advice so it seems sensible to try and trust it (and less stressful)!

Thanks. Yep I know it's expected for my AMH, just curious as to why they are not putting me on higher stims but as you say, they are the experts...

Yes, quality over quantity is true. But when I asked my clinic about higher stims impacting quality, they said this isn't proven. So that's why I was confused about ok...if higher stims don't impact quality why not whack mine up?

I'm not sure how helpful this will be but my first round of IVF I was on top dose (375) Ovaleap, I ended up with 9 eggs, all bad quality, No blasts, no frozen, failed cycle.

I've just done my second IVF cycle and they changed my dose to 225 Meriofert, I was on that dose for 8 days, they then reduced me on day 9 to 150 and day 10 and 11 to 75! Day 12 I had none! I had 17 eggs collected, 16 were mature, 12 embryos, 9 blasts and 6 of those were top quality to freeze and 1 top quality has been put back in yesterday :)

From this, I believe the lower dose helped me. I have also read that growing your eggs to quickly can affect egg quality so this may be due to a higher dose on some people

I'll tell you what I did and the results make no sense so it's probably totally unhelpful!

My first round I was on 225 ovaleap. I got 10 eggs which resulted in 2 blastocysts, both average quality.

My second round I was on 450 menopur. I got 6 eggs which resulted in 3 blastocysts, 2 good quality and 1 poor quality.

I'm sure there are reasons for the different responses, but they're beyond the doctors!

Oooh @wtawtaw your results are interesting. Do you mind sharing your AMH and age? I'm 39 and my AMH on my first round was measured as 7.1, on my second it was measured as 3.6.

Yeah sure, I was 35 on first cycle and my AMH then was 15.8, I'm 36 now on second cycle and it was 11.7. I did start taking ubiquinol after the failed cycle for at least 3 months before starting another cycle so that could of helped with quality too!

My first cycle was short protocol and this cycle was long protocol

@wtawtaw Thank you 🙂

My first cycle was long and second was short.

It really all has felt like a bit of a shot in the dark to me so far. I'm yet to meet a doctor who knows exactly what they're doing.

@countrypunk do you do any changes in-between cycles? Im sorry it hasn't worked so far yet - do they know what they would try next?

@countrypunk sorry I just re read your post and you don't mention if the were a success of failed? Have you got any frozen embryos?

@wtawtaw Oh sorry! So my very first transfer failed. It was a 3bb. My second was a 5bb and I got pregnant, but miscarried at 9 weeks. I suspect it was an abnormal embryo because the pregnancy measured far too small from our 7 week scan and never caught up.

I had a 4ab transferred last week. OTD is Sunday 😬 I've got 2 more in the freezer, a 4ab and a 5bc.

I take lots of supplements, including ubiquinol, magnesium, vitamin C and a very expensive pre natal supplement that contains lots of antioxidants. I also take something called NMN which has been shown to improve egg quality in old mice! https://www.british-supplements.net/products/nmn-nicotinamide-mononucleotide

Who knows if anything is making a difference! It makes me feel like I have a little bit of control (even if I don't really).

Good luck with your TWW! Bloody awful isn't it 😆

@countrypunk eeek! Good luck for Sunday!! How are you feeling? Are you an early tester?

@wtawtaw Argh thank you! On my first round I tested at about 7dp I think and obvs got a negative. It just prolonged the agony because I then tested every day, hoping for it to become positive. So no more early testing! Plus my partner has forbidden it!

Good luck to you too. Will you test early?

@countrypunk no I won't be, but the the anxiety of test day is tragic 😅

@wtawtaw ❤️❤️❤️

@EggFreezing36 Also apologies for hijacking your thread!