Low AFC

[RMCx3]

Hi- ive had 3 recurrent miscarriages. I saw a specialist and had a 3d scan of my pelvis. The scan was all positive save for that afc is 6 which below average for my age (38 years old). Me and my husband dont have any children.

We are at a lost, what do we do? Try again naturally? Do IVF? What success do we actually have? Shall we freeze eggs whilst we try?

Completely deflated and heartbroken 💔

Ps i also posted in the wrong topic so apologies if you see this post twice.

Hey ,
I only collected 3 eggs on my last round and we were so lucky to have 2 blasts but both were awful. 4cc and 3cc but I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant. Im also 38. There's definitely hope x

Congrats! Very happy for you. We've not considered ivf yet. Not sure what we should be doing now and worried time is running out.

Have you been referred to the recurrent clinic?

AFC is only important if you’re going for IVF because it determines the number of follicles you’ll be able to recruit.

Mine was 3 when I was your age and I was still able to conceive naturally albeit after 7 miscarriages but I had no problem getting pregnant and it seems you don’t either. IVF won’t guarantee egg quality. You can have the embryos tested but that doesn’t guarantee anything. It would be pointless freezing eggs at your age because they are much harder to freeze and thaw and most of them don’t make it. If you’re freezing anything make sure it’s embryos,
much hardier.

Are you taking anything to improve egg quality? Has your husband has his DNA fragmentation checked?

I suppose for us we did IVF because we wanted to test our embryos but out of 3 cycles we only got one embryo and that was abnormal. We then did ovulation induction so I’d produce 2 eggs every month to double our chances and after more miscarriages we finally got a good egg and a healthy baby. We resigned ourselves to only having one child because I was almost 43 by the time they were born having started trying at 38.

Yes saw the clinic after second MC and referred again.

Thank you for this. Im so happy you had a rainbow baby. And i resonate with you, we also will just be happy with one. At the moment IVF is not something we are thinking about and the the private gynaecologist I have seen has given me a cocktail of medicine/injections for when I do get pregnant. This was before i had my 3d scan with a different gynaecologist.

I will ask my consultant about anything i can take for egg quality.

Your AFC is largely irrelevant from a POV of natural conception, you only need one follicle/one egg to fertilise/implant to get pregnant.

AFC is more relevant for IVF/assisted conception because it tells them what drug protocol might be best, and how you're likely to respond.

CoQ10 and DHEA are normally recommend for egg quality, but some people say to get DHEA levels checked before supplementing as it can mess with your cycle.

Might be worth getting a copy of "It Starts With The Egg".

With an AFC of 6, don't waste it on freezing eggs - you'd need several cycles to get enough eggs for a good probability of a live birth. And eggs are "unknown" quality when they're frozen, nobody knows if they'll survive defrosting, fertilise, make it to blast, etc.

If you're in a stable, secure relations and looking to go down this route then you'd be better off going the whole hog (IVF) and creating embryos with your partners sperm, then you'll have much more understanding of the quality/quantity, etc of everything that gets frozen than you'd ever have with eggs alone.

Or you could do a mix of both eggs and embryos, but either way, you're likely to need 3+ cycles of IVF to get a good insurance policy of embryos, and even more cycles for just eggs. But at the end of the day, it only takes one embryo, and nobody really knows which one that will be!

DHEA is taken to increase testosterone. You need to have your testosterone levels checked before and during taking DHEA if you’re taking it because high testosterone impacts egg quality.

CoQ10 is highly recommended. Also Vitamin D and Methyl Folate rather than Folic Acid. I also recommend ‘It starts with the egg’. I made as many changes as I feasibly could without going overboard. Who knows if it worked but it certainly made me feel we were doing everything we could and some of it is actually just good for you anyway so I still live by a lot of it.

Thanks for reply. Ive been thinking this too, and at the moment we are keen to stick with natural conception. I will look into COQ10 and DHEA and discuss with my consultant.

You have given a lot more information in an easy digestible way - thank you.

Thank you. I will look at methyl folate too. At the moment im on 5mg of folic acid as this was prescribed by my consultant.

I know what you mean. I want to do what I can, so I dont live in regret.

Ah ok - i will read the recommendation as well. Thanks all