Follicle follies

I don't have much time so this will be a short post, but just wanted to give a quick update.

We had our first post-stim ultrasound on Tuesday morning and there were (drumroll, please)..........4 follicles.

Ugh.

Honestly, this wasn't a big surprise to me since I only had 4 antrals when they did my baseline, but I have to admit I was harboring some fantasies about a different outcome.

"We don't know how it happened Mrs. IL, but you have 20 follicles!!  I guess we were wrong--you're not a poor responder after all!  Congratulations!!!"

Yeah right.

What sucks is this month was the lowest AFC I've ever had.  Just two months ago, the doctor found 7 on one side and 5 on the other, which was a record high for me.  Wtf??

How do you go from 12 follicles to only 4 in 2 months?  I'll never understand why AFCs vary so much from one cycle to the next.  The nurse said not to worry--more would probably pop up--but so far we're still sitting at four.

In all honesty, I'm really not that upset.  I'm 40 years old, with high FSH and I've got anti-ovarian antibodies.  Four is pretty close to what I was expecting at this point.  I guess I was just hoping I'd be wrong.

I think I'd be happy if we had two good ones to send for testing.  That's realistic, right?  Anything more than two would be a bonus.  Anything less than two and I think we'd need to have a serious conversation about the donor option (heck, maybe we should be having that conversation either way--4 isn't exactly a great outcome). 

So the four she measured on Tuesday were at 13, 11, 10 and 7.  That's after 5 days of Femara and 3 of Gonal-F.  Is it just me, or does it seem like things should be moving more quickly than this?  I thought I'd be a fast stimmer since I ovulate really early, but I guess that was wrong. Originally the doctor said he wanted us in NY by this Thursday, but now we won't be leaving till at least Saturday.

I'm starting to get very worried that I won't be done by Thursday the 13th, when my little brother is flying in for a visit.  Obviously if I'm in New York I won't be here to meet him at the airport, which would be very bad since my brother is mentally disabled and can't just get himself to our house to wait.  He's also really, really excited about the trip and I'd feel horrible if I had to cancel or postpone it.  Not to mention, I have no idea what excuse I'd offer up to my parents, who are putting him on the plane at the other end.  As I mentioned earlier, they have no idea we're doing IVF.

If follicles grow about 1.5 mm a day, that should have us in trigger range by Monday, right?  Or am I being overly optimistic?   

What would you do?