35 years old with DOR-- Donor egg time?

[Anonymous]

I'm 35 and have bad DOR (0.3 amh, 11 fsh, 2-5 afc). Did IVF when I was 31 and was successful, despite being a terrible responder (only 3 eggs retrieved).

But now I am 35 and my doctor has given me the donor egg speech.

Would love to hear from anyone else about their experiences. Is it time to move on to DE?

[Anonymous]

I was shocked to go back to my RE and hear the donor egg/adoption speech when I was 37. It took me 2 years to get pregnant with my first at 34, but I eventually got pregnant naturally (after 3 failed IUIs and awaiting IVF) after 26+ BFNs.

So I was not at all expecting the donor egg speech at 37 even though I'd been trying naturally for a year. He'd never mentioned that I was DOR before, and I'd never asked.
After that, I went back and looked at my #s. My AMH was .3 when it was tested before my IUIs, and I was 34. When it was retested at 37, it was <.01 (undetectable).

I did get pregnant naturally with your same AMH, but the second time, I asked if they would just try NC IVF since I had gotten pregnant naturally. He agreed, and we did one round which worked.

In my case, I think that the problem was probably that the sperm couldn't penetrate the egg shell which was why I never had BFPs. So, with the NC IVF (DOR is usually poor responder for medicated IVF) I did ICSI and assisted hatching which I think made all the difference. The theory with NC IVF is that you naturally ovulate your best eggs first. With medicated, they just push a bunch of eggs through, and a lot of them end up being genetically abnormal.

I would go to a place like Dominion (not Shady Grove) and tell them your situation. I would not move on to DE until I gave NC IVF (which is super easy, like an IUI) at least 2 shots. Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was shocked to go back to my RE and hear the donor egg/adoption speech when I was 37. It took me 2 years to get pregnant with my first at 34, but I eventually got pregnant naturally (after 3 failed IUIs and awaiting IVF) after 26+ BFNs.

So I was not at all expecting the donor egg speech at 37 even though I'd been trying naturally for a year. He'd never mentioned that I was DOR before, and I'd never asked.
After that, I went back and looked at my #s. My AMH was .3 when it was tested before my IUIs, and I was 34. When it was retested at 37, it was <.01 (undetectable).

I did get pregnant naturally with your same AMH, but the second time, I asked if they would just try NC IVF since I had gotten pregnant naturally. He agreed, and we did one round which worked.

In my case, I think that the problem was probably that the sperm couldn't penetrate the egg shell which was why I never had BFPs. So, with the NC IVF (DOR is usually poor responder for medicated IVF) I did ICSI and assisted hatching which I think made all the difference. The theory with NC IVF is that you naturally ovulate your best eggs first. With medicated, they just push a bunch of eggs through, and a lot of them end up being genetically abnormal.

I would go to a place like Dominion (not Shady Grove) and tell them your situation. I would not move on to DE until I gave NC IVF (which is super easy, like an IUI) at least 2 shots. Good luck to you!

Thanks-- so you got lucky on your first try with NCIVF at Shady Grove?

[Anonymous]

I'm 34 with AMH of 0.4 and FSH of 15, currently pregnant from IUI at SGF. Will be my first child. My AFC on day 3 my IUI cycles was 5-10.

Dr. Jeanne O'Brien was our RE at SGF. I was expecting a donor egg speech, but she did not mention DE at all, and seemed fairly confident I'd be able to conceive with my own eggs. I was skeptical, but she was right. She even said even if we didn't freeze embryos, if we wanted a second child as long as we didn't wait too long to try after having our first, we'd be okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 34 with AMH of 0.4 and FSH of 15, currently pregnant from IUI at SGF. Will be my first child. My AFC on day 3 my IUI cycles was 5-10.

Dr. Jeanne O'Brien was our RE at SGF. I was expecting a donor egg speech, but she did not mention DE at all, and seemed fairly confident I'd be able to conceive with my own eggs. I was skeptical, but she was right. She even said even if we didn't freeze embryos, if we wanted a second child as long as we didn't wait too long to try after having our first, we'd be okay.

Congrats! I guess it depends on the RE. How many IUIs did you do before success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was shocked to go back to my RE and hear the donor egg/adoption speech when I was 37. It took me 2 years to get pregnant with my first at 34, but I eventually got pregnant naturally (after 3 failed IUIs and awaiting IVF) after 26+ BFNs.

So I was not at all expecting the donor egg speech at 37 even though I'd been trying naturally for a year. He'd never mentioned that I was DOR before, and I'd never asked.
After that, I went back and looked at my #s. My AMH was .3 when it was tested before my IUIs, and I was 34. When it was retested at 37, it was <.01 (undetectable).

I did get pregnant naturally with your same AMH, but the second time, I asked if they would just try NC IVF since I had gotten pregnant naturally. He agreed, and we did one round which worked.

In my case, I think that the problem was probably that the sperm couldn't penetrate the egg shell which was why I never had BFPs. So, with the NC IVF (DOR is usually poor responder for medicated IVF) I did ICSI and assisted hatching which I think made all the difference. The theory with NC IVF is that you naturally ovulate your best eggs first. With medicated, they just push a bunch of eggs through, and a lot of them end up being genetically abnormal.

I would go to a place like Dominion (not Shady Grove) and tell them your situation. I would not move on to DE until I gave NC IVF (which is super easy, like an IUI) at least 2 shots. Good luck to you!

How did you know the sperm had difficulty penetrating the egg?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 34 with AMH of 0.4 and FSH of 15, currently pregnant from IUI at SGF. Will be my first child. My AFC on day 3 my IUI cycles was 5-10.

Dr. Jeanne O'Brien was our RE at SGF. I was expecting a donor egg speech, but she did not mention DE at all, and seemed fairly confident I'd be able to conceive with my own eggs. I was skeptical, but she was right. She even said even if we didn't freeze embryos, if we wanted a second child as long as we didn't wait too long to try after having our first, we'd be okay.

Congrats! I guess it depends on the RE. How many IUIs did you do before success?

Thank you! We only had one unsuccessful IUI before the successful one. The first cycle was with Clomid, which thinned my lining and only resulted in one mature follicle (the goal was two). The second IUI (which was successful) was with Femara and Gonal-F (plus prometrium and estrace suppositories post IUI) and I think I had two mature follicles, might have been three (I am having a singleton). Yeah I'd definitely recommend at least consulting with Dr. O'Brien. She told us stories of women around 40 years old with extremely low AMH conceiving. She will be able to put your stats into their database and give you success rates for IVF (I think for us it was around 30%). If we had done IVF, my understanding from speaking with her is that she'd do low-stim, basically saying she would not expect me to have a good response to typical IVF stimulation, but she anticipated retrieving 4-5 eggs from a low stim cycle. We started with IUIs due to insurance requirements.

[Anonymous]

You likely have good quality eggs because of your age, which is often more important than large numbers. That said, your chances statistically aren't as high as someone your age without DOR, so you should consider things overall, and your doc is doing the right thing by letting you know about options. Your doc should be able to give you some realistic insight into how likely they think success is and then you can weigh the potential costs (money, time, stress) and make a decision. Whether you want 1 or two more may also factor into things.

DE is a great option, but it does take some prep time if you haven't already gotten familiar with all the ins and outs of it. If you would consider it, you can try on your own while you look at DE. That's what I did. I did end up doing DE for my second - no DOR, but older, so poor quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You likely have good quality eggs because of your age, which is often more important than large numbers. That said, your chances statistically aren't as high as someone your age without DOR, so you should consider things overall, and your doc is doing the right thing by letting you know about options. Your doc should be able to give you some realistic insight into how likely they think success is and then you can weigh the potential costs (money, time, stress) and make a decision. Whether you want 1 or two more may also factor into things.

DE is a great option, but it does take some prep time if you haven't already gotten familiar with all the ins and outs of it. If you would consider it, you can try on your own while you look at DE. That's what I did. I did end up doing DE for my second - no DOR, but older, so poor quality.

Thanks for this great point. I think my visceral reaction to DE is no, not for me, but then I watched Private Life on Netflix and I warmed up to the idea. How was your experience and are you glad you did it? How did you think through your first being OE and second being DE?
The biggest thing for me is DE seems to have just way higher success potential.

[Anonymous]

I was given the DE speech at 30 after an FSH of 21. Got pregnant 4 times after that, on my own, miscarried 2, had 2 babies.
Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was shocked to go back to my RE and hear the donor egg/adoption speech when I was 37. It took me 2 years to get pregnant with my first at 34, but I eventually got pregnant naturally (after 3 failed IUIs and awaiting IVF) after 26+ BFNs.

So I was not at all expecting the donor egg speech at 37 even though I'd been trying naturally for a year. He'd never mentioned that I was DOR before, and I'd never asked.
After that, I went back and looked at my #s. My AMH was .3 when it was tested before my IUIs, and I was 34. When it was retested at 37, it was <.01 (undetectable).

I did get pregnant naturally with your same AMH, but the second time, I asked if they would just try NC IVF since I had gotten pregnant naturally. He agreed, and we did one round which worked.

In my case, I think that the problem was probably that the sperm couldn't penetrate the egg shell which was why I never had BFPs. So, with the NC IVF (DOR is usually poor responder for medicated IVF) I did ICSI and assisted hatching which I think made all the difference. The theory with NC IVF is that you naturally ovulate your best eggs first. With medicated, they just push a bunch of eggs through, and a lot of them end up being genetically abnormal.

I would go to a place like Dominion (not Shady Grove) and tell them your situation. I would not move on to DE until I gave NC IVF (which is super easy, like an IUI) at least 2 shots. Good luck to you!

Thanks-- so you got lucky on your first try with NCIVF at Shady Grove?

Shady Grove isn't known for NCIVF. PP probably went to Dominion.

[Anonymous]

Do your research on NCIVF statistics for your age group. I did a NCIVF through Dominion. Easy peasy experience. But then after the unsuccessful experience, I looked up the stats on SART and discovered NCIVF with Dominion has had no success for my age range. :/

[Anonymous]

Do your research on NCIVF statistics for your age group. I did a NCIVF through Dominion. Easy peasy experience. But then after the unsuccessful experience, I looked up the stats on SART and discovered NCIVF with Dominion has had no success for my age range. :/

now doing DE w/ SGF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You likely have good quality eggs because of your age, which is often more important than large numbers. That said, your chances statistically aren't as high as someone your age without DOR, so you should consider things overall, and your doc is doing the right thing by letting you know about options. Your doc should be able to give you some realistic insight into how likely they think success is and then you can weigh the potential costs (money, time, stress) and make a decision. Whether you want 1 or two more may also factor into things.

DE is a great option, but it does take some prep time if you haven't already gotten familiar with all the ins and outs of it. If you would consider it, you can try on your own while you look at DE. That's what I did. I did end up doing DE for my second - no DOR, but older, so poor quality.

Thanks for this great point. I think my visceral reaction to DE is no, not for me, but then I watched Private Life on Netflix and I warmed up to the idea. How was your experience and are you glad you did it? How did you think through your first being OE and second being DE?
The biggest thing for me is DE seems to have just way higher success potential.

SO HAPPY. I'm pregnant now (first transfer of a normal blast), and very relieved to be done with OE IVF. My daughter is excited to be a sister and knows we used a DE (to the extent a 4yo can understand anyway). I don't feel any less than when I was pregnant with my first. I actually feel more excitement -I didn't think I'd love the baby/young child stage as much as I do, so this time I'm actually more excited. I kinda had the same initial thought about DE, but it was more arrogance, I think - like "I won't need that." So wrong. I did consider the fact that our first isn't a DE, but that was really more of not wanting the DE child to feel bad, but then I realized that there is no good reason to feel bad and we'd just need to be sure that we build a solid base and not act like there is anything wrong with DE. We also talked to a counselor who specializes in DE concerns. Yes, I wish OE would have worked, but mostly b/c it would have been much cheaper and overall, easier. My daughter is so different than I am/was in so many ways, and we picked a donor with many, many similarities, so I wouldn't be all that surprised if our second is more like me than our first!

[Anonymous]

I was given the DE speech at SGF at 36 with low AMH and I would have done it, but I wanted a chance with my OE. I saw Dr. Waud at Dominion and she said my age and regular cycle was more important than AMH, but it would be a long shot. I hit one my first cycle, currently 27 weeks, and I'm so grateful to have had this option.