Gigantic lead follicle, cycle canceled. Need advice please

andreamm31

     Im 38 years old with severe DOR, AMH 0.27, AFC 5.  I had 2 miscarriages which prompted me to seek an RE.  My first cycle only yielded 3 eggs and during retrieval, they got 2 and both were really bad quality and fell apart pretty much immediately.  Ive been on coq10, myo-inositol, royal jelly, vitamin c, prenatals, fish oil,  minerals, B12, glutathione, turmeric, and Chinese herbs for the past 3 months.  I also have been getting acupuncture consistently once or twice a week for past 3 months.

    Today, on day 5 of stims, my cycle got canceled because I had a 17 mm gigantic follicle.  She said I will ovulate in a day or two.  I asked if I could convert to IUI and she said she didn't think it would be a good egg.  Has anyone tried having sex anyways to see if it would fertilize?  Am I playing with fire by doing this?  We are planning on embryo banking to have more than 1 kid (hopefully 3 kids).  But we are starting to realize that my IVF and eggs may not work and we might need donor eggs ultimately if our next cycle fails again.  So is it dumb for me to try and see if this egg would fertilize naturally or am I setting myself up for another miscarriage?  Has anyone done this and been successful with a lead follicle so early in the cycle?  Of note....I did estrogen priming and did a follicular antagonist protocol, so I was on cetrotide and also HGH for a week before I started stims.  

   

ladyp0tter

I can certainly understand how you are feeling since I am trying an FET with an indeterminate egg and a PGS tested Abnormal egg (Trisomy 11) after getting a batch of 7 eggs that 6 were abnormal in.

I feel like it is a last-ditch effort for me before trying to do an ER one more time when it may (and probably) yield similar results (0 normal embryo's) thanks to my age (just turned 44). SO...MY ADVICE...is go for it. It may lead you to a MC or it COULD lead you to a baby! If it is a MC, you will be prepared, and worst case is that you wasted another 2-3 months. I truly hope you get your baby!!

andreamm31

@ladyp0tter  Gosh, I hope that indeterminate egg is your miracle baby.  Thinking of you and sending you lots of luck with your FET.

 I think my worry is if I try on my own and get pregnant, what if I have another missed miscarriage and I waste 4 months of my time and by the time I try again, I have no good eggs left or none at all.  Its so hard to make a decision!  

aes324

I have been a lurker for a while, but thought I might have some insight here.  I just finished my second ER a couple weeks ago and the same thing happened to me - day 4 monitoring picked up a 17 mm lead follicle with all the others less than 6.  They actually let me continue the cycle since they hadn’t picked up a cyst on the baseline.  They lowered my stim meds to 300 gonal f and 225 menopur, and that one continued to lead, I think it was 35 the last monitoring appt.  After retrieval they said it was indeed a cyst and they drained two test tubes of fluid from it, but it did not have an egg.  I did recover a total of 12 eggs, with 11 mature, 10 fertilized, and I had 4 that made it to blast and PGS testing.

aes324

I am very sorry they made you cancel, that stinks!

andreamm31

@aes324. That is really interesting.  Something is messed up with it because they did a progesterone yesterday and mine was at 0.2 or something crazy low like that, but it should be up since I must have ovulated it.  I did get some faint lines last week on Friday and Saturday that would mean I was ovulating.  But why is my progesterone so low.  It makes me wonder if it is a cyst.  It definitely wasn't there on my baseline either.  That sucks because obviously you can keep moving forward with a lead follicle cycle and still retrieve a lot of eggs.  grrrrrrr.  Gotta just let it go and move forward and prepare for the next cycle.  She was going to start me soon on Lupron but I go to Hawaii in 2 weeks and I don't want to bring refrigerated meds on my vacation and so I told her we need to wait till my next cycle so we can have a break.