We are in the middle of a fresh cycle, I have been stimming for a week on high dose of 450 due to low ovarian reserve. I'm really disappointed with today's scan. It is the first time we have tried using human growth hormone to try and recruit some of the smaller follicles. When I was scanned 4 days ago things were looking great as there were a good amount of follicles (for me - I never get many) and I was optimistic, even thinking this might be our best cycle yet. Today's scan presents a completely different picture with few follicles that have responded to meds and those that have responded have not shown much growth. I know there is nothing to be done other than see what next scan brings but I wondered whether anyone has seen changes after a week of stimming? In my very first IVF cycle I went to egg collection with few follicles and no eggs were collected so obviously I want avoid this from repeating.
Feeling frustrated.
Thanks for reading and support xx
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Skittles11
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on my last cycle IUI as you know my leading follicle didn’t grow further than 13mm for 3 scans which was really disappointing so they increased my medication I was on. Can they increase yours anymore ? Thinking of you Holly sending loads of best wishes your way x
Thank you Claire for your words and suggestion. The doctor spoke briefly about the possibility of increasing the dose for a couple of days, I think they don't usually do it as I am already on 450 which is the standard high dose. Waiting for bloods to come back which should give some sense of what to do next. I hate being in this bloody loop (as we all do). Sending you hugs xx
Hi Skittles. You are on a jigh dose of stims as it is, so just maybe they will increase again, I wiuld like to think so. It's tough for you, but hang on as we've got everything rossed for you. Diane
Hi skittles - keep positive! I have a low reserve too and my first scan showed 6 follicles, when I went for my next scan I could see they had grown and now I had 11. You are on a high dosage of stimulation too, keep positive. Wishing you all the best xx
Sorry no advice as my amount of follicles also tended to decline with each scan, but just wanted to say I’m thinking of you, and I totally get why it’s frustrating but my hope is the eggs you do get are good ones again! I got one extra embryo with GH even though it didn’t look like that was going to be the case at first, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will be the same for you! Xxx
Thank you. I hope for better news at my next appointment. This disappearing follicle act is just not fair. I get terrified of going to egg collection and getting no eggs again too, just don't think I could cope with that now xx
It’s absolutely not fair! And I totally understand why it’s made you anxious. There’s still hope though. NemoFish suggestion about protein is a brilliant one. I just remembered that’s what my sister’s clinic told her to do when she hadn’t many follicles and it did help her. You could try making your own chickpea hummus or maybe a big lentil bake? Those were things I swore by when trying to get more protein because I also don’t eat much meat. Xxx
I had 12 and then went down to 4 by the end of it. They decided to give me an extra couple of days before collection. After collection I woke up and they collected 9. An extra 2 were because I am a natural carrier of twins but 3 were just a surprise that had grown . Things can just happen in this game. Keep the hope really do. Even with those 9 only one fertilised over night due to sleep lroblems so it was really like having only one collected. That one egg then developed against the odds and now he’s inside me 33 weeks pregnant. A miracle. Keep positive all the time x x
Thank you for sharing what you experienced and congrats to you. My doctor has already spoken about giving me a couple of extra days from her original plan so hopefully that will help. X
I can't really give any advice hope they adjust your meds and follicles catch up and grow! Sending lots of hugs and positive thoughts your way! 💕❤️🤞🍀💓🌻
Hey Skittles! It can definitely change! Both my cycles started out a bit underwhelming, but I went at the protein like mad! Made me feel a bit sick but getting in 100-140g a day and I really think it helped to get those follies growing! Best of luck and keep us updated, I’ll be thinking of you! Xx
Thank you Nemo. I will try and up my protein. What kind of things were you eating to increase your protein? I don't eat much meat but do each chicken. Thank you for your thoughts and wishes xx
I’m veggie so predominantly protein shakes and bars like Myprotein and Grenade, lots of nuts (took a box of walnuts, almonds and Brazil nuts to work every day), chia seeds in with yoghurt/ fruit/ cereal, and a couple of babybels a day. Does get a bit much but it’s only for a short while so it’s bearable! Xx
I would definitely follow nemofish’s advice. Protein is vital, I had Lentils soups and pomegranate juice or seeds every day as they are packed with goodness. Also I drank nearly a litre of fresh organic milk every day or finish it by the 2nd day. I honestly don’t like milk so much but thought I would throw everything at it! Best of luck ❤️
Hey Skittles, totally understand you. I am a low responder. Been doing IVF for over two years now. High stims did not work for me. No matter the dosage I only ever got a maximum of three follicles and on average two each cycle. My last cycle I started off with a good AFC however it diminished along the way and I ended up with one follicle. I'm glad we didn't cancel the cycle as we have an expanded 5 day embryo which is now frozen. Sometimes although you have low quantity you may still get a result. I am now going to try to bank some more embryos through natural cycles with very little stimulation. The doctor says there is no point in using them if my body never responds. Everyone is different though so I think it is good to try different approaches and see how your body responds. But if it doesn't don't worry too much as low follicle counts can still lead to good embryos.
What was your protocol? I’ve done similar and think it depends on your protocol if I R.E.M. right we have similarIssues. Maybe they should have increased the stim meds. Clomid and hgh worked better for me got more eggs but didn’t necessarily mean that they all made it to day 5 xx
Hi, sorry about crappy results. Is there a reason why they are giving you max stims if you have low reserve? For low AMHers, less is more. High stims just fry the eggs and don't produce high quantities. Low stim or natural IVF works better from what I understand. Hope you get a healthy embryo out of this round but if not, I would look into another approach.
Hi Skittles11, I just wondered what happened next in this cycle. Did you get more follicles by the next scan? Did any of the smaller follicles grow? I am in a similar position at the moment (see my post last night) also having taken growth hormone but on a flare protocol and having had 9 follicles at my baseline scan but only 2 good sized follicles at my next scan after 6 or 7 days of stims and 2 tiny ones that they say won't go anywhere or catch up the others in their opinion. Also, do you think taking the extra protein people recommended helped you? I hope this cycle did get better for you in the end. It's all so incredibly upsetting and disappointing isn't it . We just dont have it in us to do another cycle after this one (unless it is just to replace a cancelled cycle) so if they suggest cancelling this one on Monday I will be terrified about losing 2 potential possibilities and going through it all again to just get the same or worse
Hi Koala365 I'm sorry to learn you are experiencing something similar. Its very disheartening to go for scans to get news of poor growth or not many follicles.
If you click on my profile and scan down the posts I have other ones on there that describe what happened in the cycle.
I didn't get any additional follicles but the three I had did show signs of growth albeit slow growth.
But basically my right ovary didn't respond to the meds so we had my left ovary only. Follicular growth was poor throughout and comparative to previous cycles where I had larger and more follicles, we triggered on this cycle when I had a 20mm, a 16mm and a 15mm.
They got 2 eggs from me and hypothesised I'd ovulated 2 additional eggs by the time of egg collection. Both eggs fertilised but both embryos showed abnormal development on Day 2. They put it down to poor quality eggs.
My doctor kept saying to continue this cycle and to be honest I had a gut feeling I should have cancelled but I went ahead and was hugely disappointed.
I don't know if the protein helped. I try and eat more protein when stimming because I've heard it can be beneficial and my doctor also mentioned it but my response seemed poor nonetheless. I'm currently going through another cycle at the moment myself and again have poor response so I totally understand where your concerns are coming from. I also don't have unlimited resource emotionally or otherwise to keep going.
When is your next scan? Perhaps you could go to that and see if much has changed? Xx
Hi, Thanks so much for this. My next scan is tomorrow (Mon) but because injections are every other day on a flare protocol (except for the one which is meant to prevent you ovulating) and Friday was an off day Sat was injections and Sun another no injections day, I will only have had one more set of stims by then so I guess I am unlikely to see a huge amount of change to my two tiny follicles which the doctor thinks won't go anywhere as they should be 10 by now or to my two decent sized ones (12 and 13). I am wondering whether to let them cancel but ask them to do IUI or let us try naturally at the correct time when these two are ovulated instead and keep me on all the same meds. This is the first cycle since they discovered I have various indicators for implantation failure including high levels of natural killer cells so I was meant to be on steroids, low dose heparin and have intra lipid infusions from embryo transfer so I will need to find out if that is even possible! Also it probably doesn't help that they said my lining is currently thin at only 5.1 so they might say all of the above is pointless as nothing will implant anyway This is meant to be out last attempt as I am 46 now and IVF has been putting so much pressure on our relationship my husband reluctantly conceded to do this cycle. If it is cancelled and we do a new protocol he will be okay with that but if we go ahead with just the two follicles that will count as out final try and he won't do another one. I'm starting to think that if the IUI thing is a possibility if they cancel this cycle and start me on a new protocol next month then that does at least seem to give me two bites of the cherry! I wish this wasn't all so hard. I hope your current cycle is going well xx
I can relate to everything you are saying in terms of the disappointments and relationship pressures.
I had the same thoughts and feelings regarding what to do with my cycle this time. I had my last cycle for context where I just got two poor quality eggs and I guess this was not an outcome I wanted to repeat so I have been comparing how the follicles are progressing directly with previous rounds and could see the numbers were not promising.
That said we made the decision yesterday to cancel the current cycle. We asked about IUI and trying naturally instead and have opted to try naturally. I don't expect anything from it but better than nothing. I wasn't sure of the advantage of IUI instead of natural unless there were sperm factors at play. Anyway the doctor told me to give it one more day (on no meds) and then to take the trigger. I am not convinced I even have a mature egg (biggest follicle yesterday was 16mm as my follicles are normally pushed bigger than this) but again at least it feels like trying something.
Only you can decide what to do in your circumstances but I totally understand the pressures you're describing. They are simply overwhelming. I guess you need to look at the likelihood of getting something viable. In my case I knew that when I've responded slowly at stim stage I have never had good eggs and I have had multiple cycles. When I've responded more quickly and when both ovaries have responded my egg quality has been better resulting in blasts. Have you got other cycles you can compare to to see where you are comparatively? Xx
Sorry to hear that as no-one wants to have a cycle cancelled but it does sound like the best thing for you given your history. Did they discuss trying a new protocol if your trying naturally after trigger doesn't result in you getting pregnant? Because of my age and the fact they had to get my IVF approved by the board due to my age, they might deny me a replacement cycle if I cancel especially as when I queried the protocol due to the poor response the consultant told me I was a lot older now than my last IVF 9 months ago so it was most likely my age. I do have 4 previous stim cycles to compare it to. The most recent in October 2021, I only had 5 follicles following a long down regulation and a more standard protocol of 300 ovaleap and 150 menopur, but all 5 yielded eggs, 4 of which fertilised and on day 3 there were 2 good quality and 1 average quality embryos that I could have transferred. Nothing resulted in a BFP though. The cycle before that was mini IVF where they give you a low dose every other day in the hope of getting one or two much higher quality eggs. I got two eggs and one went on to be excellent quality and transferred on day 2 or 3 but they nearly cancelled that cycle due to not enough growth but upped my meds to higher dose and every day instead so perhaps I do have some history with protocols which involve injections every other day not working so well for me? Again BFN. The cycle before that in January 2021 I got 6 eggs and 2 day 5 blastocysts were transferred. Again BFN. The cycle before that in october 2020 was an abject failure with only one embryo that tried but failed to make a blastocyst but was not good enough to transfer and petered out day 6. I started supplements, read It Starts With The Egg and changed my diet after that. Based on my history, I might get lucky and have something to transfer on day 3 or 5 with only two follicles but that feels massively high risk/low odds especially when that would be my last cycle ever and I might have nothing to transfer or nothing even collected. Then again maybe I have stepped over into an age category which means everything has gone dramatically downhill plus I will need to establish whether I could still use the heparin etc if I did cancel the cycle. Thank you for all the information though as that is really helpful. I hope your next cycle is a success or better still this one even though it was cancelled. I will definitely pray it is. Xx
Thanks so much for thinking of me. Todays scan was confusing at best. Follicles have grown to be 1 x 19, 1 x 18, 1x 10 and 1 x 9. Nurse sonographer said that sometimes they can get an egg from a 10 but it might not be mature, usually they like them to be 12 or above. Apparently my estradiol blood test on Friday was low at only 500 as well. She seemed to think they would be triggering me today but obviously I want to have a call with the consultant to go through my options. It still looks to me like the most I am likely to get if I go through with egg collection is 2 eggs and they might not even fertilise properly or result in any embryos to transfer if they do. If I do cancel though, I would want to know that I can still take the meds that are supposed to assist with my recurrent implantation failure such as clexane, steroids and intra-lipid infusions due to my high NK cells and MTFHR gene mutation results which have only been diagnosed since my last IVF attempt. On the other hand, there are some potential issues with doing another cycle if we abandon this one. I have managed to get time off work to do this IVF and it would be inconvenient to do that again. My husband has also been working from home for two weeks so we don't run the risk of catching COVID and damaging sperm/embryo quality (as neither of us has had it yet and at my age I don't think we can afford to wait three months after having COVID to do our next cycle) and is unlikely to be able to do that again. Then there's the whole psychological thing of having your life on hold for another 2.5 months (if we revert to the previous protocol it had a 1 month down regulation) and the affect on work and our relationship (the 1 month down regulation used Yasmin which made me feel so horrendous and totally irrational but ultimately made my follicles all grow at the same rate so worth trying to get through again). Will we finally get a holiday this year - our year has been dominated by IVF which has been in train since March with all the tests and re-tests? When will I be able to go out with friends without worrying about catchin COVID and damaging my chances in my last ever IVF? Sorry for the long ranty response! In the circumstances, what would you do? I have also just submitted a post entitled "Trigger or Cancel? What would you do?" which has some more details so hopefully some others may respond if they see if today before I am due to make a decision on this. I am sure I also read a post on here somewhere from a lady who had had several egg collections but never got to the stage of embryo transfer but had been pregnant twice from her cancelled cycles where they tried naturally after the eggs from that cycle were ovulated but I just can't find it on here again which is very frustrating as I would like to see what she and others wrote and even make contact with her too. Thanks for reading this long post. Such a confusing scan and such a difficult time. So glad I am not working today!!!
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