To date I have been through 5 retrievals and 7 transfers (2 were FETs). All of my IVF cycles were a long-lupron follistim/menopur protocol. I have a somewhat rare problem in that I make a lot of follicles, a lot of eggs, but most of them are immature for some reason, leaving only a couple each cycle that actually fertilize. My doctors and I have tried different ideas to try to get more of my eggs to mature, with varying degrees of success.

IVF #1 – April/May 2007

75iu Menopur. Started on dose of 150iu Follistim, dropped to 125iu, 1 day of coasting. On trigger day E2 was over 5000. Retrieved 24 eggs, 2 mature, 2 fertilized, 2 transferred. Not pregnant.

What a huge shocker this was – I still remember where I was when I got the call with the fertilization results, and how I cried.

IVF #2 – June/July 2007

75iu Menopur. Started on dose of 125iu Follistim, dropped to 100iu. E2 2500 at trigger. Retrieved 13 eggs, 1 mature, 1 fertilized, 1 transferred. Pregnant! (Devin)

First time we used ICSI – thought that would solve the fertilization problem. Devastated when it didn’t, and was totally shocked when I got pregnant.

IVF #3 – Nov/Dec 2008

75iu Menopur. Started on dose of 125iu Follistim, dropped to 75iu. E2 6000 at trigger. Retrieved 13 eggs, 1 mature, 1 fertilized, 1 transferred. Not pregnant.

Exact same dose as IVF #2, very different result. Learned that there is just sometimes no predicting the body’s response.

IVF #4 – Jan/Feb 2009

225iu Menopur. No Follistim. E2 4700 at trigger. Retrieved 25 eggs, 8 mature, 6 fertilized, 1 transferred, 2 frozen. Not pregnant.

This was the first time we started experimenting with using Menopur rather than Follistim, as I had read some articles about the extra LH helping egg maturation in cases like mine. The results were astounding! I didn’t get pregnant, but for the first time we had frozen embryos.

After this we did FET #1 and FET #2, transferring the frozen embryos one at a time. The first FET ended in an ectopic pregnancy. The second didn’t get me pregnant at all.

IVF #5 – Aug/Sept 2009

225iu Menopur. No Follistim. E2 2400 at trigger. Retrieved 12 eggs, 6 mature, 4 fertilized, 2 transferred, 1 frozen. Pregnant!

Same dosage as last stims cycle, again very different result. My lowest number of eggs to date, which really worried me until I got the fertilization result. 50% mature! That was absolutely astounding! I got pregnant with a healthy pregnancy and have 1 still frozen.