Alot of eggs to be retrieved

[Noahsmummy2018]

Hi all,

Just wondered what experience people had of having a large number of eggs retrieved?

This is my 7th ivf cycle, and my 5th fresh one.

First fresh I had 22 eggs retrieved, second cycle I had 17, 3rd cycle I had only 3 eggs (doctors have put this down to a bad month), fourth cycle I had 25 eggs retrieved and I've been to my first scan for this cycle this morning and they've found 44 eggs and to possibly expect there to be even more by the time I go to my next scan in two days time 🙄

I'm not feeling too positive about it, because I've been told that the optimum amount of eggs retrieved is somewhere between 10 and 15 and that it affects the quality if you have alot of eggs.

I've certainly found this to be true in each cycle as my first cycle on gonal f I only had one good quality embryo, all of the other cycles I've had menopur and all embryos have not been good quality.

My third and fourth ivf cycles were both frozen - third one resulted in the birth of my 4 year old son and fourth cycle ended in a chemical pregnancy.

This cycle they've put me on a mix of menopur and ovaleap. I've not took ovaleap before but was told by a nurse this morning that it is used more to increase the quantity of the eggs, whereas menopur is apparently more to help with the quality?

So I now am left wondering why I'm on a mix of ovaleap and menopur - ovaleap 150 and menopur 75. Surely it should be the other way round?!

Feeling really confused 😕

[Ell493]

Have you asked them about the meds?

[Lucyann13]

I’ve wondered the same. I’ve had 3 fresh cycles. The first was Gonal f and only 7 egg’s retrieved but I got a blastocyst (albeit not the best quality) whereas with menopur I got more eggs but the quality took a bit and I didn’t get any decent blastocysts on day 5 at all. My clinic seemed reluctant to change the protocol and just tells me all my eggs are poor quality and it’s not worth trying again but I’ve read that high dose stims can affect quality, particularly in older women. (I’m 40).

[Tnthketnf]

I am afraid only the clinic can answer about the medications dosage. The 10 to 15 eggs as optimum number is something that I read about more than once recently. but I had it in three of my cycles (15, 14 and 16) and no success yet. Only few of average to poor quality embryos that dont implant. You already had success even though your numbers exceeded the optimum number so I wouldn't get too obsessed about it.

You could ask y our clinic again to explain the reason for this protocol.

Good luck

[Solly-44]

We had 37 mature eggs retrieved and got 11 embryos that were good enough to freeze. We transferred 9 and had 3 bfps - my son and 2 that ended in early loss.

Remember that if they’ve counted 44 follicles that doesn’t mean they’ll all contain a mature egg. They stopped my follicle count at 80 but we certainly didn’t get 80 eggs! Wishing you loads of luck, 🙏🤞this is a good cycle for you xx

[Peony85]

Agree with what Solly said and that this is still early, so would not worry about numbers yet, but to see what grows and matures at the end.

For my last fresh cycle which resulted in my daughter and current pregnancy (17 weeks), I had the most number of eggs retrieved (22) but higher quality than any other cycle.

My experience is that different people respond to drugs differently and my 2 worst cycles were with Menopur - both cycles, ended up with nothing to transfer. I have heard from clinics their view that Menopur outcomes are better but I truly believe it depends on the person and underlying biology and for me it just worked opposite to how it does for most people.