IVF long stims - any good outcomes please?

[Ubergood]

Hi everyone,

I am on my second round of IVF at the minute. I have low AMH.

Last round I stimmed for 12 days (I think), had 20 follicles of which around 13 looked a good size for retrieval and they only retrieved 5 eggs. 3 fertilised but 1 abnormally, 1 stopped developing on day 4 and 1 made it to a day 6 blastocyst.

This round they have kept protocol the same as I responded way better than they thought I would (I only had 2 follicles on each ovary at baseline so they were amazed how many I had during scans) but they have doubled trigger injection as it seems I didn’t absorb it well last time - they think a higher dose will release more eggs.

I am currently on day 16 of stims, which I wasn’t expecting. They are slow growers this time. I have around 16 at the minute, but egg retrieval was expected on Friday there which they postponed to Monday and now they have postponed until Wednesday next week, which will mean 18 days of stims. On Friday past the nurse seemed to think I would be ready but doctor has said not quite yet, so I wonder do they think a few extra days will yield more eggs.

Online seems to indicate longer stims means poor quality and has less positive outcomes. My friend just said she heard that longer stims meant better egg quality but I can’t find anything on that at all. Has anyone got any experience of longer stims and good outcomes? I need a boost here to keep me going as I am loosing the will! So any stories would be well received

Hi @Ubergood, I did stims for longer and on a higher dose in my 2nd round, it was last year so I can't quite remember but I think around 15 days versus 11 in round 1. My 1st I got 8 eggs, 5 mature, 4 fertilised. They'd expected me to get around 10 from follicles. 2nd round I was also supposed to do a double trigger which changed last min, but it was a different trigger medication to round 1 anyway. 2nd round I got 9 eggs, but all were mature. All my round 2 eggs fertilised and we got a good number of embryos too.

I think the change of meds and longer stims helped! There's so many variables and I'm sure a lot of it was luck, but I reckon it helped. It is a bit of a balancing act though with drugs and timings. Good luck!

Aww thank you for getting back to me! I appreciate it.

Turns out they were slightly slow growing but generally ready for egg collection a few days earlier but Doctor decided to prolong it to get the smaller eggs to catch up and try to get more eggs at retrieval seeing as I only got 5 eggs last time (I had about 16 follicles on scan last time, so they think trigger injection wasn’t absorbed well and so they didn’t release from the follicle wall and couldn’t be collected).

And we got 12 this time and they are all mature! So that’s a great outcome. I was worried as I’d read online that slower growing follicles generally results in poorer egg quality but fingers crossed. I will update on day 5 also for anyone else who turns to this in future for some guidance or information. My doctor was so excited he ran out after surgery and told me that we got 12 before the embryologist confirmed it - he was chuffed his decision to prolong stims had paid off. But I did 18 days of stims in the end, compared to 11-12 days last time (can’t remember exactly). I was on the highest dose (450) both cycles so they couldn’t adjust that anymore, so only change was double trigger injection and prolonged stims.

@Ubergood great news, everything crossed for the next 5 days of development!

Thank you!!

Thought I would update incase anyone comes to this later looking for some advice - we got 7 fertilised and 4 blastocysts. So the longer stims gave me some better results!