Extremely low amh-looking for hope

[Dreambp]

This is my first post. I have recently been told I have reduced ovarian reserve. I am 37 and my AFC count was 5, AMH was 0.7pmol.I paid for a private fertility assessment as my husband and I had decided we want a baby but just wanted to make sure we had plenty of time as I was bringing my weight down to a healthy range, it was pretty devastating to be told the results and I'm just looking for some hope of natural conception. I am really struggling to come to terms with the fact that we might have missed our chance. Can anyone help? Thanks

[Marisa32]

Low AMH is not a problem when ttc naturally, as long as you ovulate every cycle. You get that 1 egg regardless. Low AMH is usually a problem when doing IVF because the stims won't necessarily work to create many eggs for collection. My AMH was 0.52 when I got pregnant with my first at 38 and 0.16 when I got pregnant with the second at 41. IVF was not successful in my case, both conceived naturally. Good luck. Make sure the sperm is in a great shape when ttc naturally also get yourself checked to make sure no tubes are blocked etc. Also, TSH needs to be below 2.

[Dreambp in reply to Marisa32]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, it's such great news that you now have your two children. It's given me some hope! My consultant said that with such a low AMH level that my chances are significantly reduced (10-15%) with IVF. And with such a low ovarian reserve that I'm probably heading towards an earlier menopause, so time isn't on my side as well as the egg quality probably being poorer. It's all been such a lot to take in but I'm doing all I can to improve my overall health and egg quality. Interestingly, I was told that TSH of under 4 was ok? Luckily the sperm is good, one less thing to think about! I live in hope, all it takes is one healthy egg 🤞

[Marisa32 in reply to Dreambp]

Be careful with TSH, that number 4 is OK for general population. Guidelines for pregnant women or women ttc are different and much lower. Under 2 ideally 1. You don't have much time, that's true. I think I went into perimenopause right after having the 2nd baby. Egg quality is not AMH related, it's more age related. At 40, only 1 out of 12 eggs is good on average, so it takes a bunch of cycles for us to get a good egg. I used to be on a forum for low AMH ladies and many of us got pregnant just naturally or with natural IVF.

[Artist2019 in reply to Marisa32]

Hi can you please tell me which forum this was thank you 🙏

[Marisa32 in reply to Artist2019]

It was an old thread on Mumsnet. Can't remember the name of the group though because it was over 2 years back. It was a bunch of over 40 ladies with low AMH, for which IVF wasn't going to be helpful.

[Dreambp in reply to Marisa32]

I need to get it retested as that result was last year, hopefully it's gone down. Are there ways to bring it down naturally do you know?I'm hoping that I get several years before perimenopause, my mum was 43 so I'll just have to hope for that.

That does give hope, thank you. I suppose nothing is a done deal so I'll just have to remain positive.

[Marisa32 in reply to Dreambp]

AMH goes down with age and your ovarian reserve. Nothing you can do to increase ovarian reserve, as you are born with all the eggs you will ever have. As long as you ovulate that one egg per cycle, you have a chance to get pregnant. (Assuming everything else is in working order, sperm included).

[Dreambp in reply to Marisa32]

Ah, I think I was unclear in my reply, I was talking about the TSH. From what I have read a healthy lifestyle may help but I just wondered if there's anything else I could be doing. I know there's nothing I can do for my ovarian reserve, sadly.

[Marisa32 in reply to Dreambp]

Oh, ok. TSH can be fixed easily with medication. I tried Hashimoto's diet etc but meds were still necessary to keep it down.

[pink_lemon]

Hi Dreambp, as the above poster says, you may easily get pregnant naturally. Just make sure you tubes are clear. Not sure if you have alreday been trying with no success hence ended up doing tests. BUT, egg quality goes down with age. So what happened to me was…started ttc when freshly turned 37. Six months later nothing. Started tests. AMH 1.9, afc of 5, same as you. Made an apt with a fertility clinic thinking we better start that and freeze anything that we still can. Doctor also mentioned flushing my tubes IF ivf does not work. I chickened out of IVF and chose to do hycosy (tubes flushing first as I felt it was less invasive (I was scared of all the needdles in ivf). Hycosy worked, got pregnant right after the procedure. Mmc at 5 weeks, miscarried at 7w, the miscarriage dragged and I ended up lossing 3 months. Got my period. Started ttc again. Two cycles nothing, called ivf clinic to strart treatment. Got pregnant naturally that month and was over the moon. Saw heartbeat. At our 2nd scan at 10w heartbeat was no longer there. Baby passed at 8 weeks. Went straight to hospital for medical management so we could get the embryo tested to see what is going on. Came back with chromosomal abnormalities. We then did karyotype testing, which came back normal, so the two miscarriages happened due to bad egg quality. It took my body much longer to reset, I lost another 6 months. So a year lost altogether to being on and off pregnant. I learned about pgs testing after my second mc a knew it was the right thing for us. Called a better clinic and started treatment. You can read the details in my profile. To cut the story short, we have a baby now and ended up with two more embryos in the freezer. I wanted some extra embryos in case something happened with the first one along the way. I knew that the more time went by the less chance we would have in the future. What we did is not for everyone. Lots of people choose not to pgs test as it is not perfect either. We were told we had 30% chance of walking away with a baby from our clinic, and that we would be lucky if one of our first two embryos was euploid. That one embryo is our son now. We were lucky. Our consultant also said amh and egg quality do relate. I think he did some research into it. It is probably not significant but that’s what he said…anyhow. If you choose to try naturally, I would definitely do hycosy in your place just to make sure there is nothing in the way If you give ivf a go first, yes it may not work but you might get embryos frozen for number 2 down the road. You need to choose the path that feels best for you. Go with your gut feeling.

I too did a lot of reading on forums specialised on low amh when we run into issues and there were lots of success stories. Many of them natural pregnancies, even second ones after the first one being ivf.

Very best of luck 🍀

[Dreambp in reply to pink_lemon]

Thank you so much for sharing your story. Such wonderful and happy news that you got your baby after such a heartbreaking journey. It really must have been so difficult for you, it's all so devastating and unfair isn't it. You raise a good point about the hycosy-thank you, I'll look into that. If I'm honest, I don't know where this journey will take us or even what to think right now but knowing there's still lots of hope is definitely helping. We're going down the natural route while I bring my BMI down, so that IVF is an option that we can choose and I suppose we'll see what is in store for us 🤞

[Anim88]

AMH is such a debatable hormone to assess fertility. It only takes one 💗