Feedback - Pregnant with a low amh?

[Journey99]

Hi Everyone!  Here's my success story...

Age: 34 (at time of treatment)

Level of amh: 4

Number of afc: I think I had about 11-13 at my last scan before I triggered

Number of eggs at ec: 17 but 4 were immature ( I donated half my eggs so ended up with 5 usable eggs )

Number of treatments: First time Lucky

Dose of drug and long or short protocol: I was on a long protocol.  I started with 2 sniffs twice a day of synarel for D/R.  Then dropped to 1 sniff twice a day when stimming.  I started on 300 menopur and after a week was upped to 375.  I was on menopur for a total of 13 days.  I triggered with Ovitrelle.

Fertilisation: Of my 5 eggs only 3 fertilised and of those 2 were grade 1 8 cell on day 3, the 3rd was not usable as it went from 3 cells to 14 cells in an hour.  The embryologist suggested it had a genetic defect.  DH thought it may have had super powers 

ET: 2 embies put back as a 3dt

Additional Info: My right ovary (tube is blocked) was a bit of a dud and didn't really grow much.  It took ages to respond.  So the mainly it was my left ovary that was the superstar!  The Friday before my last scan I was told not to expect more than 7 eggs at most but over the weekend my follies had a growth spurt.

I'm now currently pregant with twins:)

[FertilityFriends]

[tivoli25]

Hi,

I am currently 8 weeks pregnant with twins during my second cycle of ICSI.

In May 2012 my AMH level was 1.

1st cycle of ICSI - 12 days stimulation with menopur 300iu.  Only 2 eggs collected, and neither fertilised so didn't make it to egg transfer.

2nd cycle of ICSI - 13 days of stimulation with menopur 450iu.  4 eggs fertilised, 3 were viable, and 2 implanted on day 2.

I was taking DHEA supplements for over 4 months prior to my second treatment and this also may have helped with the successful outcome.

Prior to treatment was only given a 15-20% chance of pregnancy with ICSI using my own eggs.

I hope this gives encouragement to those with low AMH.

[Hopeandgrace]

Hi Tivoli, thanks for sharing! What dose of DHEA were you on please? I've been on 75mg but recently dropped to 50mg as I was getting awful red spots and my hair was thinning noticeably. I'm hoping 50mg will be enough. Thanks and best of luck xo

[Wombly]

Age - 36

Level of amh - 4.61 - went down from 13.1 in a year!

Number of eggs at ec - 9

Number of treatments - too many!! only one since my amh dropped to low as on all other treatments is was in normal range

Dose of drug and long or short protocol - long protocol with 375 menopur + Gestone for progesterone support
 
I ended up with 7 of them going to blast! but...on day 5 only had 1 blast and 1 morula to put back, they discarded the rest as they were growing too slowly (weren't even at morula stage on day 5) so I count myself as very lucky we had anything to put back! But they told me, and my bfp goes to show, amh only relates to your ovarian reserve and has no representation of quality. Now happily 8+4 pregnant with a singleton (and fingers crossed it stays that way!)
 
good luck! xx

[Hopeful2013]

Hiya

I have only just gone through my 1st IVF cycle and thought I would put my details on here in case it might help others. A nurse unhelpfully told me my AMH level was normal and it wasn't until I went to have my first scan to see how the follicles were growing that we found out :-(

Age:30 DH:32

AMH: 3.2

No of days stimulating: 9

Dose: 225 Gonal F

No of eggs collected: 8

No fertilised: 3

I had 1 2 day 4 cell embryo put back on ET and they kept the other two embryos in the hope they would catch up (they were between 3/4 cells n day 2) they kept them till day 6 and they both made it to blast but unfortunately the quality was not good enough to freeze :-(

I have just tested BFP though so hoping this sticks!!

Good luck to everyone on here!! Wishing you lots of   

[resignedtoit]

Hi all,

I love this post, I spent hours scouring the message boards when I was going through IVF trying to find any glimmer of hope to keep me going, and I hope that my success story will do that for someone else!! First things first, I am currently 19 weeks pregnant

Age - 38, TTC for 3 years

Level of amh - <1.1 pmol/L (basically ridiculously low, what the hospital kindly classified as 'negligible fertility potential' )

Number of afc - 5

2 IVF treatments, one long cycle, one short.

Number of eggs at ec: first time 8, second time 7.

First cycle 5 fertilised and I had 4 grade A 8 cell embryos at day 3. Went to Day 5 and had three Blasts, one emerging blast put back, one emerging blast frozen and one blast left overnight to see if it would begin emerging, it didn't continue to develop.

Second cycle 7 eggs, 4 fertilised, 4 grade A 8 cell embryos at day 3, went to day 5, 3 emerging blasts, two put back and one frozen.

Dose of drug - both times had standard IVF protocol for my age range, 300 gonal F.

My FSH was only slightly elevated for my age, my AFC was low, but no-one expected my AMH to be so completely low. They basically told me I was at the end of my fertility and IVF or anything else was unlikely to work. I was devasted. We started the first IVF cycle, and my ovaries just didn't get going with the stims, they sent me home one Friday and said if the follicles hadn't developed  further by the Monday then we would need to abandon the cycle. Went home, took to my bed and cried the whole weekend. Come Monday morning my ovaries had sprung into action! I never had loads of follicles, but what I had were developing, my ovaries are just sluggish and take a while to 'warm up'! I ended up stimming for an extra week. I got more eggs than they expected and the quality was fantastic, they were delighted at the hospital with my response and one nurse said it just goes to show that no-one knows anything definitively, everyone responds differently. Got a BFN on that cycle, but I had a v. large fibroid that they were in two minds about removing before the treatment, which seemed to be causing problems.

Had an abdominal myomectomy to remove said fibroid, then 12 weeks later started IVF no.2. This time did short protocol which was an absolute dream, no point shutting my ovaries down all together when they take so long to restart. It was so much better for me and all happened really quickly. Once again I had a better than expected response, and my egg quality was good. Two blasts put back, one stuck and although I can hardly believe it, I am halfway through my 1st pregnancy, and it is a dream come true.

My advice is that AMH is a reminder to keep pushing ahead with your treatment as time isn't necessarily your friend, but PLEASE don't feel that you won't conceive. So many women get loads more eggs, but the quality is not great, it only takes one good egg, that's all you need. They couldn't believe it at the hospital when I got 3 blasts first cycle, and to then repeat that 8 months later just showed that it wasn't a fluke, I may not have many eggs left, but what I have seem to be good, and that is the most important thing.

Good luck to all of you!

[Hopeandgrace]

Thanks RTI! Your story has definitely given me hope at a critical moment - found out my amh was 2 3 days ago (down from 4 in Oct and 12 in June). I start downregging on Sun (LP) and am feeling much happier for your story. thanks so much for sharing!!!

Hope xoxox

[resignedtoit]

Hey Hope,

Glad my story helped and good luck for this cycle, fingers crossed you have a bumper crop :-) . I know its easier said than done but just try to relax and have faith in your body. Try to put your AMH level out of your mind because it doesn't mean that this cycle won't go well for you, and focus on being healthy and happy during the treatment. I'll be thinking of you.

RTI xxx

[Hopeandgrace]

Thanks RTI      xoxo

[Isabella3]

Hello everyone

Finally got my BFP and 17 weeks after 5 fresh cycles of IVF and many doctors losing interest, including even one very well known London clinic who actually tried to kick us off a cycle part way through (no doubt for statistics)...

Age: 34
Level of AMH: 2 with enormous FSH (so high on last test I actually asked clinic not to tell me, but put it this way the Dr said to me "I have had ladies with FSH over 35 taking babies home")
No days of stims: 4
Eggs: 6
Stim protocol: Mild/natural 150 Menopur
Previous failed cycles: 4 failed cycles at Lister, ARGC, CRGH & Create. 

My first 4 cycles produced reasonable numbers of eggs, but poor quality embryos, except CRGH where only got one mature egg (and terrible treatment).  I recall the medical director and his coterie of hangers on all clustered around my open legs saying to me "You will never have another IVF cycle at this clinic again".  Other gems at the same establishment included, "You will never get more eggs than this".  It was near enough the lowest point in all my years of IVF.  I was very close to giving up but somehow DF convinced me into a final round of Natural/mild at Create, having already had a conventional round there.  I can't speak highly enough of my experience at Create.  Even with the failed cycle, they were always kind and understanding, something many clinics (bizarrely) lack.  The nurses were always encouraging and they treat any level of AMH - no cherry picking there.  Importantly I was not made to feel like some kind of low AMH outcast. 
Most importantly, my response to low stims was markedly different to anything before.  In the past on high or regular stims I had always got grade 2 or 3 embryos with high levels of fragmentation, never more than 2 (all the others always arrested) and never ever the holy grail of a blastocyst. 
With the low stim protocol I got 3 top quality embryos (one of which is frozen). 
We really had also tried everything else going - acupuncture and chinese herbs for the two of us, enormous vitamin lists, hypnotherapy, DHEA etc and none of these seemed to work for us, so it really seems evident to us that this was a very good protocol for a low reserve. 
Bottom line what I am saying is please consider natural IVF - I wasn't going to bother as to me it sounded ridiculous that it could work, but so far I have no complaints and feel really passionately about all of us low AMH/high FSHers who have been told there is no chance as I was there and I know the feeling.

Good luck everyone

xxx