I wish I had written this a long, long time ago but it took a friend cycling to make me realize how important the following information will be for those of you going through IVF, IUI…. Do not ever let your follicles get too big. My former RE likes to trigger when the cohort (most of the eggs) are measuring 17. The simple fact is that eggs (especially older eggs) often will not have great outcomes if they get much larger than 22. Heck, even 20. If you are doing an IVF cycle and you notice that most of your eggs are in the 18 or 19 range then you should have triggered…plain and simple. Do the research and see what happens when your follicles get too big…
When in doubt you need to question. Try a low dose cycle for the heck of it (you can always convert to an IUI). I find it interesting that I produced the same amount of eggs on 300 menopur/300 follistim as I did with a 150 menopur/150 follistim – sometimes more isn’t better…in fact, sometimes more is not good at all. Just a little PSA.
Let me know if any of you have had bad results with large follicles (or the reverse and don’t forget your age!). Good luck to everyone trying….
WAY too much information. Come on, it won't kill you.... 
Love your blog! Thank you for sharing your stories with fellow AMA IVFers! Sounds like we are both going down similar paths and we are both 45 years old….I have been TTC for only a few years…for various reasons (waited to get married, did not have the desire to have a child until I actually got pregnant at age 42 naturally and miscarried at 7 weeks). After the miscarriage, I believed I could get pregnant again with IUIs…5 IUIs later….still no pregnancy…went straight to Dr. Davis at Cornell after doing a ton of research and at the suggestion of 5 different women from different parts of the country..all friends of friends whom I had no idea were going through the same thing as me…Dr. Davis’ name kept popping up…I figured, why waste time with my local IVF clinics (plus, I was over 40). So, at age 44, I did 2 IVFs with Davis..had an ok first cycle with 9 eggs retrieved and 7 fertilized…5 made it to day three transfer…the second cycle- Davis was more aggressive and we upped my stims…had 18 eggs, 16 retrieved, 13 fertilized and 8 embryos were transferred. Yes, 8…I was officially “octomom” for two weeks…the other five embryos did not make it to five day blasts…my last cycle with Cornell was in April..I had been reading about Schoolcraft and CCRM and decided it was time to move on from Cornell…I am seriously running out of time as you can relate with our age factors…so, had my phone consult with Schoolcraft in August and in September, I went to Dr. Sami David as I was convinced I had immune issues…Schoolcraft told me to RUN not Walk from guys like David who try to tell us we have Natural Killer Cells attacking embryos…but, I was going to NYC for a few days and figured why not see what he has to say….Sami David wants me to do IUIs with the intralipid infusions…I just came back from Denver/CCRM on Tuesday this week and my RN called me with my One Day Work Up results today…I have all normal test results…my resting follicle count was 21 on CD8 and my AMH is 2.1…I still need to get bloodwork done on CD3…can’t believe after age 45, they want us to get CXR, EKG and a stress test done…oh, and the prices increase in 2014..not to mention, most of our one day work up test results are good for only 6 months…I am using donor sperm and they still want my husband to get tested for communicable diseases (he is going to love that when I tell him) and all bloodwork has to be frozen and shipped to them…they could not get it through their heads that I was coming alone for my one day work up and I was the only one in the class last week without my spouse…but, at Cornell, that was the norm..Dr. Davis has never even met my husband..So, CCRM does things differently than Cornell..but, I really liked it there…I also did a donor egg work up while I was there as a back up..( another tough decision..one that I have not officially agreed to, but I am warming up to now!). I actually thought it would be easier to make the decision to go the donor route if they told me I flunked all of their tests…I’m so new to this (Just started the IVF process exactly a year ago)…..so, that is my long two year story in a nutshell…I love that you and I have traveled different paths (you give us all inspiration and I am so sorry your road has been such a long one, but somehow we have managed to end up at CCRM…gives me great comfort in knowing I am making the right decisions so far…I stayed at the Everness Hotel as well! I have no children yet….my husband is older and he has no children…he wants me to get off the rocky road of IVF and cut to the chase -take the smooth road with donor egg since the success rates are so much higher….and he does not want to spend another $100,000 (I told him I will start selling my clothes, shoes and handbags on eBay if he lets me try with my own eggs one more time!) for something that only has a 5-10% success rate…I do not blame him…so, I will wait to see what the rest of my test results are…thank you again for your blog…it is so nice to know we are not all alone out here! Hope my comment was not too too long! 🙂
I hope you are doing well – it has been awhile since i visited my own site! I’m glad you liked my blog and I do hope that I can help others with my story….All the very best to you!
Hi website owner, do you allow guest posting ??? Please let me know, i am interested 🙂
Yes. i’d be happy to have a guest poster! Sorry, I am trying to be better about blogging. I have plenty to say – never enough time to say it.