question about egg retrieval

I have not TTC yet, but will soon. I am a little older (40) so have been looking at this board for info....at my age I might be here.

Anyway. I want to understand a few things.

Egg retrieval
1. follicles.....I'm a little confused as to why its important. The folicle releases the egg right? So the more folicles you have the better??? Dont we have hundreds of follicles????

2. Mature??? An egg has to be "mature"? what does that mean actually? We are born with eggs. They arent "ready to go" so to speak??

3. My girlfriend had 11 eggs retrieved. 2 were "mature". I dont understand how all the eggs arent ready. (basically it is the same question)

4. If we are born with a certain amount of eggs, and some are retreived (in my friends case, 11) does that mean she will start menopause a year earlier than she might have? If you have 36 eggs retrieved over the course of IVF, does that mena you would start menopause 3 years earlier than you would "naturally"?

Not trying to give dumb questions, but when I thought about TTC I THOUGHT I knew things. Turns out I knew nothing.

Thank you for your time ladies.

Re: question about egg retrieval

first you really dont need to worry about this stuff unless you are doing IVF. if you are naturally TTC none of this stuff matters too much. just have sex around ovulation and call it a day. that being said, here goes.

1. follicles release eggs. the eggs grow in the follicles. the eggs only mature during the process of ovulation. any given natural cycle you may have lots of small follicles, but ultimately only one or two will grow and mature and release a fertilizable egg. if you are going through infertility treatment the number of follicles is an indicator of how many eggs you may have. for an IUI you want somewhere between 1 and no more than 5 or so at max (and depending on the issue). for IVF you will make a lot more and the trick is getting them to mature at the same time. if one matures too quickly the rest are at risk of dying off, and if you ovulate one earlier than the rest the cycle is usually ruined.

2. as described above, no they are not ready to go. we are born with as many eggs as we will ever have, millions, but most of them go unused and degenerate before we are ever close to ovulation. more than half are gone before we even hit puberty. during the natural stages leading up to ovulation the hormones and estrogen are released and several eggs grow until the lead follicle or two take over. then the rest die off and the one or two that remain mature and are released with a surge of lutenizing hormone at ovulation.

3. not sure what kind of cycle that was, im guessing IVF, but it doesnt sound like it was managed properly. she may have had some follicles that grew too large and maybe they did not give her an antagonist early enough (a med to prevent premature ovulation) so she was left with only 2 mature out of 11. if medicated properly most of the eggs will mature at the same or similar rate. for example, my IVF 18 were retrieved and all were mature and all fertilized. generally speaking a majority of the eggs retrieved are mature. this of course also depends heavily on what the fertility issue is so it does vary widely per person and per meds protocol.

4. because we have so many eggs that generally do not mature per natural cycle, in a medicated cycle we are forcibly maturing these eggs. so it does not take away from the ovarian reserve of total eggs. it is just recruiting and using eggs that would otherwise die off in the natural ovulation process. it has not been show to cause menopause to occur any earlier but there is no standard way to predict precisely how early menopause would occur anyway so technically i suppose this is something where specific research has not been done. however being that a vast majority of eggs are wasted anyway, i dont think a few egg retrievals would cause premature menopause by any measurable amount.

PS - i am not a doctor or a nurse, just a research dork so there may be different answers to these questions from someone in the medical profession. good luck!

Re: question about egg retrieval

This was a good read! Flowerwife plays a dr on the Internet

Re: question about egg retrieval

Well said...

Re: question about egg retrieval

Thank you VERY much for all that info. I just needed the "laymans" information in a non "medical" way, and you nailed it!

My friend did get IVF, but I dont know much more about it than "she is doing an IVF cyle thismonth" or was.

REALLY REALLY informative.

And yes, I am NOT doing IVF, but at my age I am reading up so when we decided to have kids (if we do) I am armed with information.