Anonymous wrote:How old are you and why are you freezing your eggs?

I have been through the infertility wringer and I ended up using donor eggs. If I could give my younger self some advice it would be to save my money and go right to donor eggs.

I have three amazing kids. One round of donor egg retrieval. Second and third kid from frozen embryos. Donor was 21 and her eggs were fantastic. I am so thankful for her.

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP, there was a poster on this thread who did local monitoring at Annandale OBGYN while at CNY: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/1172648.page

I'm not the same poster but also did NYC/outside monitoring; after a lot of research, I went to Annandale OBGYN (they hvae multiple offices) because a lot of CNY patients go there, and they became so popular and well-versed in how to do the outside monitoring that they hired more technicians just to support this. It means early appts (like 7AM), but they can draw your blood on-site and send to Labcorp quickly to get the same-day results your clinic will require. Then closer to the retrieval, you'll go up to NYC for daily monitoring.

Also FWIW, I was 37 with bad DOR when I started for 2nd kid. Low AMH, high FSH (think it was 16 when I got tested at 37? eventually got it down to 12 but they say it's as good as your highest #), never conceived in 4 years of unprotected sex (our 1st kid was IUI baby), and did 5 IVF retrievals at 3 different clinics without success. Ended up conceiving naturally at 39 - so, I fully acknowledge these stories are rare and i personally hated hearing them bc realistically it doesn't happen for everyone and gives false hope. I guess my point is, unfortunately none of us hvae control over the final outcome - just know your limits and be open to anything and everything. I had pretty much given up and was trying to help my husband process the reality of having "only" one (which is a huge blessing in itself, I know), and originally said no to the wham-bam before I had to rush out of town lol. It was my husband who pressed, I ran out the door to catch my train, walked 30K steps in NYC the next 3 days and ate like total shit (was amaaaze) and that was my son.

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP - I did one cycle of egg retrieval at Shady Grove last summer - can’t comment on cost as my work benefits / insurance picked up most of the bill. But I will say there shouldn’t really be a huge surprise in the number of eggs they’re able to retrieve, from my experience. Each monitoring appt included a transvaginal US where they count and measure the follicles to see which ones are getting to the right size, and then they trigger you once as many of those follicles get into ideal size range. So I knew going into retrieval an expected range of eggs we’d get - in fact we ended up getting more than expected, which I think helps with expectations. Did your clinic not do this?

I'm not the same poster but also did NYC/outside monitoring; after a lot of research, I went to Annandale OBGYN (they hvae multiple offices) because a lot of CNY patients go there, and they became so popular and well-versed in how to do the outside monitoring that they hired more technicians just to support this. It means early appts (like 7AM), but they can draw your blood on-site and send to Labcorp quickly to get the same-day results your clinic will require. Then closer to the retrieval, you'll go up to NYC for daily monitoring.

Also FWIW, I was 37 with bad DOR when I started for 2nd kid. Low AMH, high FSH (think it was 16 when I got tested at 37? eventually got it down to 12 but they say it's as good as your highest #), never conceived in 4 years of unprotected sex (our 1st kid was IUI baby), and did 5 IVF retrievals at 3 different clinics without success. Ended up conceiving naturally at 39 - so, I fully acknowledge these stories are rare and i personally hated hearing them bc realistically it doesn't happen for everyone and gives false hope. I guess my point is, unfortunately none of us hvae control over the final outcome - just know your limits and be open to anything and everything. I had pretty much given up and was trying to help my husband process the reality of having "only" one (which is a huge blessing in itself, I know), and originally said no to the wham-bam before I had to rush out of town lol. It was my husband who pressed, I ran out the door to catch my train, walked 30K steps in NYC the next 3 days and ate like total shit (was amaaaze) and that was my son.