A whole lotta "meh"

I had my baseline bloods and ultrasound today, and it looks like we're going ahead with this IVF cycle.  But that didn't stop my body from taking yet another opportunity to fuck with me.

The way my clinic works for an IVF cycle is this: first thing in the morning, I get my blood drawn and then have my ultrasound.  Then I meet with a nurse who reviews my ultrasound results and writes a prescription for my drugs for the next few days.  Then I wait for a phone message in the afternoon with the results of my bloodwork and the final instructions for my drug protocol and my next monitoring appointment.

This morning after my ultrasound, the nurse informed me that I had 13 antral follicles, 9 on my left and 4 on my right.  This matches the lowest number I've ever had, and while it's still not terrible it's significantly less than the 23 I had going into my last IVF cycle.  I guess maybe all that CoQ10 and Royal Jelly I've been taking hasn't been having the effect I'd hoped.  But worse than my AFC was the fact that, while most of the follicles were tiny, I had two lead follicles at 11mm and 9mm on the left.  My last IVF was cancelled because a dominant follicle sucked up all my drugs and the others didn't grow...so I figured that this would mean another cancellation or at least a delay until next cycle.  However, the nurse didn't seem overly concerned and said they'd still go ahead with an 11mm follicle already in place as long as my bloodwork came back OK.

Of course I was on pins and needles until about 1pm, when I called our clinic's message line to retrieve my bloodwork results.  Surprisingly, the message said that everything was ok and I was to go ahead and start taking my stims as planned tonight.  At first I wasn't even sure they were going to give me the actual results, but the end of the message went something like this:

"And your bloodwork results are E2 77 (US 21), LH 7, Progesterone 5 and FSH 13.  So go ahead with your Gonal F and Menopur tonight..."

Hold up.  

Rewind.

"...FSH 13..."

What the WHAT?  

Up to now, I've only ever had high E2 on my day 3 labs, never high FSH.  Even when my E2 was within normal range, my FSH didn't seem to be artificially suppressed since it never went above 6.  Now all of a sudden it's 13???  According to Dr. Google, some clinics wouldn't even let me cycle with an FSH this high.  Apparently mine will.  But it still doesn't take the sting out of the fact that my body has now graced me with the full trifecta of DOR shittiness: low AFC, low AMH and high FSH.

Thanks for that.  You shouldn't have.  No, you really shouldn't have.

So now I have a whole host of new questions.  Are those two lead follicles really follicles, or are they just cysts since they clearly aren't producing any estrogen?  Should I even be going ahead with this IVF cycle given my lab results?  I mean, obviously my RE is charging ahead but it's not her money.  Then again, last IVF cycle everything looked perfect at baseline (high AFC, low E2, low FSH) and it turned out terribly, so maybe it really doesn't matter how things start out.

Either way, my enthusiasm for this cycle has just diminished considerably.  It feels like the odds are even more stacked against us than they were before.