At 38 years, it is quite remarkable to have collected 35 eggs, 26 of which fertilized. However, a lot of patients mistake the number of eggs to be a deciding factor for success in IVF.
Some young women with a robust egg reserve, or women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), who have many egg-containing follicles, can have more than 40 eggs retrieved at one time! There is plenty of variation within this 2-40 range, mostly due to the woman's age having the egg retrieval.
They will also look at antral follicle count, which is done via an invasive ultrasound that looks at the follicles in the ovary containing an egg (pro tip: you can BYOL—bring your own lube—for the ultrasound probe). An average of ten to 20 eggs are usually retrieved for IVF, but the number can be higher or lower.
An average of 10 – 20 eggs are usually retrieved for IVF. However, not all of them are viable to use as on average only about two-thirds have the appropriate maturity.
Both the total number of eggs retrieved and percent of those eggs that are mature depend on age to varying extents. According to one study: People who were 35 years old or younger had about 14 mature eggs retrieved in one cycle on average. 40-year-olds had about eight mature eggs retrieved on average.
Women lose 90 per cent of the eggs in their ovaries before the age of 30, new research has shown. The mathematical model shows that the average woman has only 12 per cent of her eggs left by the age of 30 and only three per cent by the age of 40.
The study published by the University of St. Andrews and Edinburgh University in Scotland found that women have lost 90 percent of their eggs by the time they are 30 years old, and only have about 3 percent remaining by the time they are 40.
A patient's chance of success with IVF still depends in part on whether they decide to do a fresh or frozen embryo transfer. For fresh embryo transfer, the ideal range of eggs retrieved was between 11-30 eggs.
As a general rule of thumb, at RMA New Jersey, which has one of the best embryology labs in the country (as evidenced by the clinic's high success rates), about 80 percent of eggs will fertilize (day 1 success), and of those, about 30-50 percent will make it to the blastocyst stage (day 5 or 6).
The syndrome, which affects about 10 percent of women undergoing IVF, can lead to significant weight gain, severe pain in the abdomen and bloating, according to the National Institutes of Health. Retrieving 20 or more eggs is associated with an increased risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, Coomarasamy said.
The stimulation must result in a minimum of 3 mature (or close to mature) follicles (we consider follicles to be mature if they are 16-20mm in average diameter on the day of HCG). Alternatively, if there are 2 follicles 16-20mm and at least 2 more that are 13-15mm, we can proceed to the egg retrieval.
If your ERS is six to 10, you have a reduced egg supply. If your ERS is 11 to 15, you have a good egg supply. If your ERS is 16 to 20, you have an excellent egg supply.
The ideal follicle size for IVF trigger shots is when two to three follicles have reached about 17 to 18 millimeters in diameter. An ideal IVF follicle size for egg retrieval is typically around 15 to 22 millimeters in size, which falls right in line with the ideal size for an IVF trigger shot.
Irregular period cycle and difficulty conceiving
If you are facing issues conceiving and have not been able to conceive for a while now, it could be one of the signs of bad egg quality.
Anywhere from 60-80% of all fertilized eggs make it to Day 3, which is when they are about 8-10 cells in size.
Eggs versus embryos
Typically, no. Usually out of the eggs retrieved, we expect 60 to 80% to be mature eggs, and from those, 60 to 80% will fertilize to produce early embryos.
Day 7 blastocyst accounts for ~ 5–8% of total blastocysts [6]. Although most human IVF laboratories culture human embryos to Day 6, an extended Day 7 culture is necessary for some patients, especially if patients have limited number of oocytes [6,7,8].
Under natural conditions, embryo loss is approximately 10-40% before implantation, and total loss from fertilisation to birth is 40-60% (Jarvis, 2016).
How many is too many eggs? There is no specific number of eggs that a person should eat as part of a healthy diet. There may be some health benefits to eating a certain number of eggs, but more research into how many eggs a person should eat per day is necessary.
If you're 35 or older, you can still freeze your eggs! It just means that you may need to consider doing a second round of egg freezing if you don't meet your goal from the first cycle. If you're 38, you should plan for about 2 cycles of egg freezing to give yourself the best chances of having a child from these eggs.
Many women are surprised to learn that they end up with fewer eggs retrieved than the number of follicles that were growing. That's because only about 75% of large follicles produce a “mature” egg.
By the time a woman reaches 37, her egg count is down to 25,000 and at 51, which is the average age of menopause in the U.S., she has at most a thousand eggs left in her ovaries. “It's part of aging—as we get older, we get wrinkles and our metabolism slows down, and we continue to lose eggs,” says R.
The American Heart Association recommends up to one egg a day for most people, fewer for people with high blood cholesterol, especially those with diabetes or who are at risk for heart failure, and up to two eggs a day for older people with normal cholesterol levels and who eat a healthy diet.