Less number of eggs? please help

[medi28]

Hi All,
I had my u/s after 1 week of fertility drugs (gonal-f) for IVF and I had only 4 follicles 2 in each ovaries. My FSH is 7 and am young and even my baseline indicated good response so they continued with Lupron and gonal-f. I dont know what happened. I believe one should get more than 12 mature eggs to have good results. My nurse told me that after few more days of meds more follicles will come however the eggs from those follicles may be slow in developing to embryos. Like they may become 4 cell or 5 cell embryos on 3rd day when transfer has to happen. I dont know what to do should I ask them to cancel the cycle and proceed later may be or continue with this one? I am so nervous right now. How many eggs did you have in your first u/s please help.

[medi28]

Thanks for the replies you guys. We continued with it and now I have 7 follicles. One strange thing tough is that my right ovary stopped at two and 3 more totally 5 follicles are present in left ovary. Has this happened to anyone i.e. one ovary producing less than half of the other ovary?

Also the difficult part is we have to communicate with the nurse only and she just says that you doctor wants you to do this and do that. She wont answer so many questions.

Retreival could be sometime on 9th. Compared to others in this forum's old posts my stimulation is going on for long time. I believe stims or normally for 10-12 days. Mine is already 15th day :-( donno whats going on with me.

[jessting]

  What does your doctor say? My doc will not run a cycle for less than 6 eggs if you are under 40. he cancels are soon as first egg count if less than 6. He told me with statistics, that would be a waste of money. That being said..I have heard of girls getting pregnant with 5 eggs..and hoping there is a few that are perfectly mature and fertilize well.

Sometimes with the gono/ant protocal you do get less amt of eggs..but inmy case the Quality was better than when I hyperstim with a normal IVF cycle. my first reg cycle had 36 eggs..none made it to blast..where my ast cycle(gono/ant) protocal i had 10 eggs..and 5 made it to blast..So sometimes Quality is better than Quanity!  SO..in other words...I wish you luck bc i have heard good and bad with few numbers. If you eed anything ..feel free to ask. I have been going through IVF for 2 years..and curreently on my 2ww with 3rd roung. Take care- Jess

[jakl726]

hi-
i wouldn't call it experimenting.  ART is not (at least not yet) an exact science or medicine.  on top of that... we (women) are all different in terms of how we respond to meds and how our hormones respond.... ie.  some women have longer period...some have shorter... some have heavier - some have lighter and with or without pain.  so it i hard for doc in the field to use one protocol for everyone (and trust me you wouldn't want them (the docs) to use the same on you that they used on mary if mary did not respond well to begin with.  i hope i'm not confusing you further.  if ever... each protocol should be designed specifically for that woman and this is why the first cycle is getting to know your body BUT it doesn't mean that you wouldn't get success on your first ivf cycle.  you are young(ER) so hopefully you'll do great with the first pass.  older women going on their first requires more tweaking on their meds.

the first cycle (mind you i was taking the 2nd to the highest dose of meds) and i was 3-yrs older than you were now.  i had 6 eggs/follicles retrieved, 4 survived for fertilization, and only 2 survived after and was implanted.  i did not get pg with this cycle.  the second... i had 8 eggs/follicles retrieved.  5 survived for fertilization, and 4 survived after and 3 was worth implanting.  i got pg but m/c at 7-wks due to chromo abnormality.

i hope this information helps you.  feel free to ask more or send me a msg.  good luck and try not to get frustrated...  relax and hope for the best... BFP.
let me know how you are doing.
-jo

[medi28]

Hi, I am healthy and under 35. It seems we may have to go through with this cycle. As you said this is like learning but I really dont like experimenting on me. Its so frustrating when you expect something and things are not going in your direction.

Can any of you tell me please how many follicles did you have after your first week of stimulation medications?

[jakl726]

ps.  if this is your first ivf (or ART) procedure... you doc may still be learning (as you are) how your body is reacting to the meds.  i'm sure you know... all women react differently to all the meds and you yourself will slightly respond to the meds differently in each cycle.  so don't be too hard on yourself and your doc.  

[jakl726]

how old exactly are you?  and, are you relatively healthy... as in no other previous or existing medical condition that would make your ovaries produce small # of follicles?

a total of 4 follicles is on the low side but you do not necessarily need 12 mature eggs to have good results.  of course the more you have the better but more doesn't mean you'll have good results.  some have small # of follicles but still got pregnant.

i also read from another post that quantity (# of eggs/follicles) is important with IVF but quality (how good the eggs/follicles) is important with IUI (hopefully someone can weigh-in on this).  what are you planning to do with your eggs/follicles if you cancel?  i think you should never cancel especially if you ovaries are already producing eggs/follicles.  you at least do one of the ART procedure b/c one of these eggs/follicles may be your golden one.

good luck and talk to you doc about your choices.