The Case of the Disappearing Follicles

This cycle has just raced by. Given the megadoses of stims that I have taken, my follicles have grown very quickly. Unfortunately, they have not grown at a uniform pace. At yesterday's monitoring appointment (Day 8 of stims), I had eight follicles between 12.3 mm and 25.2 mm. Unfortunately, only three are in the 17.1-17.8 range. THREE! The rest are under 16 or over 23mm. I am really worried that all but three follicles will yield overly mature or immature eggs. And even though we are ICSI'ing those little eggies, we don't seem to have much room for error.

I am also concerned that a couple of follicles have seemed to have vanished for no particular reason.

• On Wednesday, we had ten follicles between 9.5 and 19.7 mm.
• On Thursday, I had nine follicles between 10.9 and 22.9 mm.
• By Friday, we were down to just eight follicles.

My questions are - WHERE ARE THE FOLLICLES GOING? WHY DO THEY SEEM TO BE HIDING???

I have had the same technician perform all of my u/s and when I asked both the technician and Dr. L what could account for my diminishing follicle count, I was told that often the smaller ones reabsorb. Also, I was told that the smaller ones aren't measured every day. However, the ones that have vanished weren't small, I had an 18 mm vanish between Thursday morning and Friday morning. Why is this happening???? With such a small output, I don't have the luxury of losing any mature follicles.

I can only assume that one of the following is happening - they are measuring endometrioma and mistakenly, assuming they are follicles. Perhaps, as they get larger, it is easier to determine that they aren't follicles. This isn't a good theory, b/c if they are mistaking endometrioma for follicles, I might have even fewer good follicles than we think. My other theory is that perhaps given the position of my ovaries and the endometrioma, it is not always apparent where the follicles are, so that one or two may be more difficult to find from one day to the next. If this is the case, we may be pleasantly surprised by an extra egg or two tomorrow. I hope really hope the latter is the case.

At 7pm yesterday, David triggered me without incident. This morning David, Jerry (9 yo stepson) and I ran some errands. Since returning home, David has been downstairs cooking up a storm and has banished me to the bedroom to nap. I am really tired today. I am not sure why I am so tired, but I can only assume that it is b/c my ovaries are in overdrive! This evening, David will drop Jerry off with his mom. (Obviously, no kids allowed tomorrow.)

Tomorrow morning at 6am, we are scheduled to arrive at Ginormous for my first egg retrieval scheduled for 7am. Dr. L informed me that he will not be doing my ER but assured me that all of his colleagues are extremely experienced and that I have nothing to worry about. OKAY! I'm not worried. (Yeah, right.)

So wish us luck. We are hoping for some good news.