My Day 3 infertility testing has not changed much in 5 years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also your estradiol was always too high, so your FSH was probably over 10 at 38 which is bad.

I was incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant several times starting at 38. My AMH was low throughout (all my IVFs failed) but my FSH was always under 10 and my estradiol was in low 20s even at 44.

I thought low estradiol is bad. Can you explain why high estradiol levels are bad? I'm unclear about this.

Also my FSH between age 38-40 ranged from 5-10 on the three times it was measured during those ranges but still no luck in getting pregnant.

only the highest FSH is relevant. high FSH indicates that eggs are not signaling well which they think is related to their quality. if you hit 10 at 38 that would indicate low quality for your age.

as for estradiol, it masks your FSH making it seem lower (i.e. better) than it is. so if you FSH was 8 while your estradiol is 40s that means your "real" FSH is more like 10 or 12.

this is independent on whether high estradiol is good or bad. the point is that it makes FSH (which is more important) look better than it is and needs to be taken into account.

as for estradiol itself... low is not good when combined with other hormones which indicate menopause. however, i think the doctors don't quite understand the levels and how they relate to infertility. my own hunch is that estradiol needs to be low (e.g. low 20s) but also climb very sharply before ovulation.

OP here. Okay, so if an FSH of 10 at age 38 implies low quality eggs for my age, how did I get pregnant on the first try at 36? I have no idea what my hormones were at 36 when I got pregnant because I didn't have an infertility problem then. Is it possible to have normal fertility for my age at 36 and then two years later be completely infertile? This is what I don't really understand, how the decline could happen so sharply. My AMH at 38 was .60 which is already low. At 36 could it really have been that much higher?

it’s obviously possible - I mean you said you were trying all these years with no success. to me it looks like you didn’t have a lot of eggs and also they were low quality. during those two years both things got worse. so maybe you used to have 3 good eggs per year at 36 and then 1 good egg per year at 38 and fewer after that. so maybe you only had 2-3 good eggs to work with since 38.

OP here. Yes, but it just seems to be to be very unusual to get pregnant on the first try at 36, and then be completely infertile at 38 when my baby was only 1 year old.

From 38-42 we did IUIs, IVFs and tried on our own every single month. How can it be that zero eggs resulted in a pregnancy when it was so easy at 36? Especially given the fact that my AMH did not change much from 38 to 42, as I listed in the first post.

The RE said that in general AMH declines at .2 per year, but if that is the case then at 36 my AMH would still be under 1, so how did I get pregnant right away then?

It just makes no sense to me that in 2 years things could decline that dramatically when my numbers have been relatively steady since. Something doesn't add up, but infertility testing, surgery, etc. did not uncover any abnormalities. I was diagnosed as mild DOR, no male factor.

[Anonymous]

Jesus just ask your dr. You don’t want to listen to anyone. How did you get pregnant at 36? Sometimes it’s just luck. Ever heard of those couple that do IVF for like 5 years with no luck and then conceive naturally? You can’t predict everything in fertility. A lot of it is just pure dumb luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus just ask your dr. You don’t want to listen to anyone. How did you get pregnant at 36? Sometimes it’s just luck. Ever heard of those couple that do IVF for like 5 years with no luck and then conceive naturally? You can’t predict everything in fertility. A lot of it is just pure dumb luck.

the doctor doesn't know.

[Anonymous]

Does it really matter? Why do you need to know what the numbers mean?

You either do IVF or you don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also your estradiol was always too high, so your FSH was probably over 10 at 38 which is bad.

I was incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant several times starting at 38. My AMH was low throughout (all my IVFs failed) but my FSH was always under 10 and my estradiol was in low 20s even at 44.

I thought low estradiol is bad. Can you explain why high estradiol levels are bad? I'm unclear about this.

Also my FSH between age 38-40 ranged from 5-10 on the three times it was measured during those ranges but still no luck in getting pregnant.

only the highest FSH is relevant. high FSH indicates that eggs are not signaling well which they think is related to their quality. if you hit 10 at 38 that would indicate low quality for your age.

as for estradiol, it masks your FSH making it seem lower (i.e. better) than it is. so if you FSH was 8 while your estradiol is 40s that means your "real" FSH is more like 10 or 12.

this is independent on whether high estradiol is good or bad. the point is that it makes FSH (which is more important) look better than it is and needs to be taken into account.

as for estradiol itself... low is not good when combined with other hormones which indicate menopause. however, i think the doctors don't quite understand the levels and how they relate to infertility. my own hunch is that estradiol needs to be low (e.g. low 20s) but also climb very sharply before ovulation.

OP here. Okay, so if an FSH of 10 at age 38 implies low quality eggs for my age, how did I get pregnant on the first try at 36? I have no idea what my hormones were at 36 when I got pregnant because I didn't have an infertility problem then. Is it possible to have normal fertility for my age at 36 and then two years later be completely infertile? This is what I don't really understand, how the decline could happen so sharply. My AMH at 38 was .60 which is already low. At 36 could it really have been that much higher?

it’s obviously possible - I mean you said you were trying all these years with no success. to me it looks like you didn’t have a lot of eggs and also they were low quality. during those two years both things got worse. so maybe you used to have 3 good eggs per year at 36 and then 1 good egg per year at 38 and fewer after that. so maybe you only had 2-3 good eggs to work with since 38.

OP here. Yes, but it just seems to be to be very unusual to get pregnant on the first try at 36, and then be completely infertile at 38 when my baby was only 1 year old.

From 38-42 we did IUIs, IVFs and tried on our own every single month. How can it be that zero eggs resulted in a pregnancy when it was so easy at 36? Especially given the fact that my AMH did not change much from 38 to 42, as I listed in the first post.

The RE said that in general AMH declines at .2 per year, but if that is the case then at 36 my AMH would still be under 1, so how did I get pregnant right away then?

It just makes no sense to me that in 2 years things could decline that dramatically when my numbers have been relatively steady since. Something doesn't add up, but infertility testing, surgery, etc. did not uncover any abnormalities. I was diagnosed as mild DOR, no male factor.

i am not sure what you are looking for here?

here is one scenario consistent with your numbers. you had 3 good eggs when you were 38 and you hit one of those quickly. you would only need 3-4 months for that.

at 38, you have 1 egg in 18 months. you don't get pregnant, go to IVF, then your suppression coincides with the good egg. then you are 40 and have one good egg in 24 months. you miss one cycle. etc.

the point is, if you only have 3 good eggs available in 4-5 years it's easy to screw up, especially if you are using a lot of treatments which might mess up whatever good eggs you might have.

also - AMH is not a great measure. the measurements vary wildly and IT IS NOT better measure than FSH. FSH has a much longer stronger record and and is the the best indicators of fertility that the doctors have though far from perfect. and your has been poor during your attempts and is now in the category where most clinics won't treat you.

[Anonymous]

Fertility sharply declines at 40 according to my dr. I got pregnant right away at 36, delivered at 37. Started trying at 40 and miscarriages started and then nothing. My numbers looked good. I think I just have to assume egg quality. I had to make a decision donor egg, adoption, etc.

[Anonymous]

Your numbers were probably consistent at 36, you had 1 egg and a very small chance of conceiving, and then you got lucky. Your problem is that you are assuming that because you got pregnant at 36 that it was because you were normally fertile and it was 'easy'. In reality, you probably had almost no chance, but were lucky. There wasn't a rapid decline, there was just one lucky pregnancy.

Either move into getting assistance, or come to terms with only having one unless you GET LUCKY again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also your estradiol was always too high, so your FSH was probably over 10 at 38 which is bad.

I was incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant several times starting at 38. My AMH was low throughout (all my IVFs failed) but my FSH was always under 10 and my estradiol was in low 20s even at 44.

I thought low estradiol is bad. Can you explain why high estradiol levels are bad? I'm unclear about this.

Also my FSH between age 38-40 ranged from 5-10 on the three times it was measured during those ranges but still no luck in getting pregnant.

only the highest FSH is relevant. high FSH indicates that eggs are not signaling well which they think is related to their quality. if you hit 10 at 38 that would indicate low quality for your age.

as for estradiol, it masks your FSH making it seem lower (i.e. better) than it is. so if you FSH was 8 while your estradiol is 40s that means your "real" FSH is more like 10 or 12.

this is independent on whether high estradiol is good or bad. the point is that it makes FSH (which is more important) look better than it is and needs to be taken into account.

as for estradiol itself... low is not good when combined with other hormones which indicate menopause. however, i think the doctors don't quite understand the levels and how they relate to infertility. my own hunch is that estradiol needs to be low (e.g. low 20s) but also climb very sharply before ovulation.

OP here. Okay, so if an FSH of 10 at age 38 implies low quality eggs for my age, how did I get pregnant on the first try at 36? I have no idea what my hormones were at 36 when I got pregnant because I didn't have an infertility problem then. Is it possible to have normal fertility for my age at 36 and then two years later be completely infertile? This is what I don't really understand, how the decline could happen so sharply. My AMH at 38 was .60 which is already low. At 36 could it really have been that much higher?

it’s obviously possible - I mean you said you were trying all these years with no success. to me it looks like you didn’t have a lot of eggs and also they were low quality. during those two years both things got worse. so maybe you used to have 3 good eggs per year at 36 and then 1 good egg per year at 38 and fewer after that. so maybe you only had 2-3 good eggs to work with since 38.

OP here. Yes, but it just seems to be to be very unusual to get pregnant on the first try at 36, and then be completely infertile at 38 when my baby was only 1 year old.

From 38-42 we did IUIs, IVFs and tried on our own every single month. How can it be that zero eggs resulted in a pregnancy when it was so easy at 36? Especially given the fact that my AMH did not change much from 38 to 42, as I listed in the first post.

The RE said that in general AMH declines at .2 per year, but if that is the case then at 36 my AMH would still be under 1, so how did I get pregnant right away then?

It just makes no sense to me that in 2 years things could decline that dramatically when my numbers have been relatively steady since. Something doesn't add up, but infertility testing, surgery, etc. did not uncover any abnormalities. I was diagnosed as mild DOR, no male factor.

Op, it's a crapshoot.

My little anecdote is we tried 3 iui and 2 ivf when I was 28/29. No good embryos. Got pregnant with my son randomly 2 months later. Totally got lucky, finally caught a good egg My labs were horrible for a 29 yo- highest fsh was 7 with low estradiol, amh was 1. Fast forward to age 33, I redid my labs just to see how bad it now was, fsh was 5 but estadiol was 70 (so my actual adjusted fsh was probably closer to 10?) And amh 0.36. Got pregnant the next month after those labs which was the fourth month of trying naturally. I got super lucky. It's a total crapshoot.

[Anonymous]

2 years doesn't seem like a long time, but I think it is once you're past 35. There's a reason why the IVF statistical tables lump everything under 35 together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 years doesn't seem like a long time, but I think it is once you're past 35. There's a reason why the IVF statistical tables lump everything under 35 together.

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also your estradiol was always too high, so your FSH was probably over 10 at 38 which is bad.

I was incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant several times starting at 38. My AMH was low throughout (all my IVFs failed) but my FSH was always under 10 and my estradiol was in low 20s even at 44.

I thought low estradiol is bad. Can you explain why high estradiol levels are bad? I'm unclear about this.

Also my FSH between age 38-40 ranged from 5-10 on the three times it was measured during those ranges but still no luck in getting pregnant.

only the highest FSH is relevant. high FSH indicates that eggs are not signaling well which they think is related to their quality. if you hit 10 at 38 that would indicate low quality for your age.

as for estradiol, it masks your FSH making it seem lower (i.e. better) than it is. so if you FSH was 8 while your estradiol is 40s that means your "real" FSH is more like 10 or 12.

this is independent on whether high estradiol is good or bad. the point is that it makes FSH (which is more important) look better than it is and needs to be taken into account.

as for estradiol itself... low is not good when combined with other hormones which indicate menopause. however, i think the doctors don't quite understand the levels and how they relate to infertility. my own hunch is that estradiol needs to be low (e.g. low 20s) but also climb very sharply before ovulation.

OP here. Okay, so if an FSH of 10 at age 38 implies low quality eggs for my age, how did I get pregnant on the first try at 36? I have no idea what my hormones were at 36 when I got pregnant because I didn't have an infertility problem then. Is it possible to have normal fertility for my age at 36 and then two years later be completely infertile? This is what I don't really understand, how the decline could happen so sharply. My AMH at 38 was .60 which is already low. At 36 could it really have been that much higher?

it’s obviously possible - I mean you said you were trying all these years with no success. to me it looks like you didn’t have a lot of eggs and also they were low quality. during those two years both things got worse. so maybe you used to have 3 good eggs per year at 36 and then 1 good egg per year at 38 and fewer after that. so maybe you only had 2-3 good eggs to work with since 38.

OP here. Yes, but it just seems to be to be very unusual to get pregnant on the first try at 36, and then be completely infertile at 38 when my baby was only 1 year old.

From 38-42 we did IUIs, IVFs and tried on our own every single month. How can it be that zero eggs resulted in a pregnancy when it was so easy at 36? Especially given the fact that my AMH did not change much from 38 to 42, as I listed in the first post.

The RE said that in general AMH declines at .2 per year, but if that is the case then at 36 my AMH would still be under 1, so how did I get pregnant right away then?

It just makes no sense to me that in 2 years things could decline that dramatically when my numbers have been relatively steady since. Something doesn't add up, but infertility testing, surgery, etc. did not uncover any abnormalities. I was diagnosed as mild DOR, no male factor.

Op, it's a crapshoot.

My little anecdote is we tried 3 iui and 2 ivf when I was 28/29. No good embryos. Got pregnant with my son randomly 2 months later. Totally got lucky, finally caught a good egg My labs were horrible for a 29 yo- highest fsh was 7 with low estradiol, amh was 1. Fast forward to age 33, I redid my labs just to see how bad it now was, fsh was 5 but estadiol was 70 (so my actual adjusted fsh was probably closer to 10?) And amh 0.36. Got pregnant the next month after those labs which was the fourth month of trying naturally. I got super lucky. It's a total crapshoot.

I have another anecdote, this time a friend. She got pregnant first try at 29. She's my age 33, and has been ttc #2 for over a year. Probably almost 2, not sure exactly when they started. Anyway they ran her labs- fsh 12 and amh 0.2. Clearly she had issues all along but had no idea since the first one happened immediately. Had she waited another month to ttc her first, it could have taken a year or whatever, who knows. She just got lucky and happened to be trying during a month she had a good egg.

[Anonymous]

OP, totally get your frustration and confusion about how this happened after getting pregnant easily once. I had primary infertility at 28, completely unexplained - all my numbers were fantastic - and I had had a spontaneous pregnancy once before that (lost to miscarriage). One of the things that was hardest about that was that I really wanted to know the ANSWER - I do honestly think that understanding what was or wasn't happening and why would have been so, so helpful to me. The fact that I had a spontaneous pregnancy prior indicated that it should be able to happen again! But it didn't. Ultimately, what sucks is you probably won't ever understand why this is happening. (Fertility is just not that well understood yet!) It makes everything harder: emotionally, decision-makingwise, etc.

My understanding, though, is that AMH and FSH are numbers that are very helpful in finding out how likely it is that IUI/IVF will work for you. They may be less helpful in determining whether or not you will get pregnant naturally (check that out here: https://www.fertilityiq.com/topics/egg-freezing/why-you-shouldnt-use-fertility-tests-to-predict-your-ability-to-get) -- which might explain your relative ease at a natural pregnancy at 36 and the challenges you have encountered later (if you have been using fertility treatments).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus just ask your dr. You don’t want to listen to anyone. How did you get pregnant at 36? Sometimes it’s just luck. Ever heard of those couple that do IVF for like 5 years with no luck and then conceive naturally? You can’t predict everything in fertility. A lot of it is just pure dumb luck.

the doctor doesn't know.

Then try another one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus just ask your dr. You don’t want to listen to anyone. How did you get pregnant at 36? Sometimes it’s just luck. Ever heard of those couple that do IVF for like 5 years with no luck and then conceive naturally? You can’t predict everything in fertility. A lot of it is just pure dumb luck.

the doctor doesn't know.

Then try another one.

that was not OP. no doctor knows this. people here vastly overestimate the state of medical knowledge in this area. doctors are largely guessing. I mean how many cases are “unexplained”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus just ask your dr. You don’t want to listen to anyone. How did you get pregnant at 36? Sometimes it’s just luck. Ever heard of those couple that do IVF for like 5 years with no luck and then conceive naturally? You can’t predict everything in fertility. A lot of it is just pure dumb luck.

the doctor doesn't know.

Then try another one.

that was not OP. no doctor knows this. people here vastly overestimate the state of medical knowledge in this area. doctors are largely guessing. I mean how many cases are “unexplained”?

So then random internet strangers know better? Ok then.