What were your follicle count and sizes?

nursettc

Hello and baby dust to all! I am on Follistim 150iu daily (started CD3) and Letrozole 5mg (CD3-7). I had a follicular transvaginal ultrasound today (CD8) and to my surprise I had six 8-11mm follicles (3 on each ovary). In the past I have only had one less than optimal sized follicle. I return on CD13 for another ultrasound to determine if they have grown.

Can anyone else share their follicle count and sizes with me on whatever CD you had your ultrasounds? Any success? TYIA

mayflower513

You are on the pregnant after IF board so everyone here did have success.

kristimh80

@nursettc This is a question for the Infertility board. I'm sure they'd be happy to help  

nursettc

mayflower513 said:

You are on the pregnant after IF board so everyone here did have success.

Yes, I know That is why I am asking here. I'd like to know how many follicles and what size they were with your successful pregnancies.. if anyone is willing to share?

JWatt5

I’m guessing you’re IVF based on the number of Follicles. I’m IUI but after a lot of time on the boards - try not to focus on the numbers. While the numbers do hold certain realities, there’s a lot of mamas here after IF who were left with just one embryo to transfer. Stay positive. Hope all goes well for you. 

mayflower513

I don’t remember how many follicles I had on which days, but my AFC was 18 and at my ER 15 were retrieved, of which 11 fertilized and I ended up with 8 blasts, 1 of which we did a fresh transfer with which was a 4aa, and I got my BFP.

ETA: OK, I went back and looked and I started stims on 5/4 and on 5/9 I had 8 follicles 10+ and 12 that were less than 10.  On 5/11 I had 11 between 10 and 17mm.  On 5/12 I had 11 between 10.5 and 21, on 5/13 I had 16 between 10 and 21mm, 12 of which were over 14mm - I also triggered that day.

kristimh80

I ended up retrieving 50 eggs...at the end of it all, had 24 mature and had 6 good blasts o Day 5-6 to send to PGS testing, 2 were normal. We got lucky on our 2nd transfer with my last embryo. So in the end, the amount of follicles amount doesn't always matter as much as the quality. I know girls that didn't have many going into retrieval, still come out with good mature one's and got pregnant. There's just a lot more factors going into it all. Some just lucky their 1st try and some it takes numerous rounds. 

mbradfo2

Reiterating that the numbers don't really matter -- I had about 15 folli's total and they retrieved 10 eggs, 9 of which were mature. Only 5 of those fertilized but we got 2 day 6 blasts, one of which became my little girl. You just need 1 to go the distance; obviously having quantity helps, but I've seen lots of women with huge numbers of eggs or blasts struggle to get a BFP while those with 1 or 2 get a BFP first or second try.

DecemberDoll27

@nursettc don't worry about quantity and trust your doctor. We only retrieved 7 eggs but got 4 blasts out of it which was a very good percentage. However after 3 transfers that failed or ended up in CP I am now pregnant with my very last embryo. I guess you never know what will happen. But you have to work together with your medical team.

wabash15

Are you doing IUI or IVF? also it really depends.... having that many this early in the game for IUI is not a big deal because they don't usually all become mature... andplusalso you won't trigger till you have mature follies  (18mm or larger) I've never heard of someone doing clomid and letrozole in the same cycle... its a bit odd... 

for me I could have anywhere from 1-4 mature follies on the same dose of letrozole. bodies are weird and don't respond the same way every cycle.  if your doing TI, it may not be as successful as IUI.

prudence9-2

@nursettc yeah, like other women here said, don’t worry about numbers.

On my first IVF I had 30 follicles. 21 mature, 20 fertilized, 8 made it to day 5/6 and out of which, 4 were PGS normal.  I transferred all 4, one by one, and had 4 failures (1 MMC, 1 CP and 2 BFN) 

On my second IVF I had only 10 follicles, 6 mature, 6 fertilized, 6 transferred on day 3 and I’m now 26 weeks pregnant with one baby. 

Also keep in mind that I’ll be 43 in 2 months. Which explains why my percentages of normal embryos is small. 4 out of 30 in first IVF and I’m assuming 1 out of 10 in second. 

Holls214

We 26 follicles throughout the process all varying in size. They got 16 total after the retrieval and we ended up with 11 or 12 blasts. We sent them for PGS testing and ended up with 8 normal embabies. 
We transferred our highest rated one which was a boy and it stuck the first time. He’s now 3 months old. Again just like what everyone else said I agree with. 

cashewchicken

The number doesn’t matter, like what everyone says. My second retrieval I had about 25+ follicles, my RE retrieved 15 eggs but only 3 were mature. Ended up with 5 blasts after maturing eggs in vitro. All 5 were abnormal by PGS. My third retrieval I had at one point over 40 follicles and I stopped follistim dosing and coasted for a few days before retrieval. What that does is that some larger follicles will continue to grow while smaller ones will just stop growing. I don’t know how many follicles I had before retrieval, but we retrieved 15 eggs of which 10 were mature. All 10 fertilized, 7 became blasts, 4 were PGS normal. One of the normal blasts is my 5-month old son. 

For me, the follicle numbers didn’t indicate success, what was more important was whether the eggs were mature and the percentage of the mature eggs over the total collected. I used different stim protocols for retrieval 2 and 3.

Polythene Pam

One dr kept saying I had 20+ while the other was counting 5, I can’t remeber the sizes. We ended up with 10 eggs, 5 embryos made it to day 5, and we have our son now. Sorry I can’t remember specifics. Crossing fingers for you!!

LadyMillil

For IUI I did 3 cycles and had 4, 2, then 1 and all were BFNs. For IVF I had 8 follies, all mature, ended up with 7 embryos and the first one transferred was successful.