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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

random internet strangers indeed told OP that she is not going to find out the answer to her question. So they are doing pretty well. There is a lot of value in crowdsourcing, a lot of books on that topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your numbers moved in the right direction. Given that your ovarian reserve was already low at 38, your rapid decline must have happened before age 38.

OP here, I got pregnant on the first try at 36 with my son, easy pregnancy and delivery. So did my rapid decline happen during pregnancy because we started TTC #2 when he was 12 months old? This is the part I don't understand.

There is no "because" when is comes to fertility. You decline did not happen because you did or did not do anything. That was just your programming.

[Anonymous]

I agree with all those that say there sometimes are no answers. i have primary infertility. in my 20s, i had dor. My first ivf cycle worked. After that, my numbers and eggs retrieved went back to normal for my age and numerous ivfs have failed. The best doctors freely admit that they do not know what's going on and at my age, I should have a 50-60% chance of a pregnancy with IVF. Sometimes there are no answers.

[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.

I'm sorry you're going through this but many people experience unexplained secondary infertility...even those who got pregnant on the first try the first time around. Asking 'why' isn't really productive beyond a point because, unfortunately, no one can give you the answers. You either continue infertility treatment or don't. Your tests cannot conclusively tell you whether you can or cannot get pregnant.

[Anonymous]

OP-

I don't think you'll get any definitive answers here although the fact that your numbers have not moved significantly perhaps means that you are not menopausal.
A few thoughts:

1. According to the monograph Aetna published, they don't view AMH as reliable enough yet although they place a lot of stock in FSH. A friend of mine had her AMH improve over two years. There is probably some margin for error in the AMH readings and different labs may come up with different numbers. In other words, I would not place too much stock in the fact that your AMH decreased only slightly. Perhaps it is a good sign but perhaps not.

2. AMH and FSH don't tell you about egg quality.

3. I would have a candid conversation with your doctor about your chances each cycle and after three cycles. Is there anything she hasn't tried yet; a stone left unturned?

best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-

I don't think you'll get any definitive answers here although the fact that your numbers have not moved significantly perhaps means that you are not menopausal.
A few thoughts:

1. According to the monograph Aetna published, they don't view AMH as reliable enough yet although they place a lot of stock in FSH. A friend of mine had her AMH improve over two years. There is probably some margin for error in the AMH readings and different labs may come up with different numbers. In other words, I would not place too much stock in the fact that your AMH decreased only slightly. Perhaps it is a good sign but perhaps not.

2. AMH and FSH don't tell you about egg quality.

3. I would have a candid conversation with your doctor about your chances each cycle and after three cycles. Is there anything she hasn't tried yet; a stone left unturned?

best of luck.

#2. Your eggs are 5 years older. If you're 41 now, that's your answer. Unfortunately nothing is going to make your eggs younger -- no supplement is going to help. sorry to be so blunt. you can keep trying or move to DE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP-

I don't think you'll get any definitive answers here although the fact that your numbers have not moved significantly perhaps means that you are not menopausal.
A few thoughts:

1. According to the monograph Aetna published, they don't view AMH as reliable enough yet although they place a lot of stock in FSH. A friend of mine had her AMH improve over two years. There is probably some margin for error in the AMH readings and different labs may come up with different numbers. In other words, I would not place too much stock in the fact that your AMH decreased only slightly. Perhaps it is a good sign but perhaps not.

2. AMH and FSH don't tell you about egg quality.

3. I would have a candid conversation with your doctor about your chances each cycle and after three cycles. Is there anything she hasn't tried yet; a stone left unturned?

best of luck.

#2. Your eggs are 5 years older. If you're 41 now, that's your answer. Unfortunately nothing is going to make your eggs younger -- no supplement is going to help. sorry to be so blunt. you can keep trying or move to DE.

Sorry -- just read that you're 42. your eggs are 42 years old now. (i did DE at 42, after 2 failed IVFs at 41. )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

this!

if those were your numbers at 38 and 40 ... chances are you had bad numbers at 36 and you were just VERY LUCKY that you got pregnant on that one good egg

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Yes, I'm sorry, OP, but I think this is correct. It's easy to think "I was super fertile at 36 because I got pregnant on the first try," but so much of that is luck. It took me quite awhile to conceive kid #2 at age 35. Sometimes I think that if we'd waited to start TTC until my husband and son's birthday month, I would have gotten pregnant on the "first try," and I would have thought I was still very fertile in my mid-30s. The truth is that I am not and that it took quite awhile to conceive at that age. If you'd started TTC 10 months earlier than you did for kid #1, you might have taken 10 months to get pregnant. You know?

I'm sorry this has been such a struggle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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 got pregnant on my first try at 35. Struggled at 38. Completed my 3 day testing (FSH 15 and Estiradol 53). Got lucky (maybe again) and got pregnant that month (due in Dec). My numbers were clearly not great but I just got lucky.