Women aged 38 to 40 retrieve an average of about 11 eggs per IVF cycle. That number sits right in the middle of a wide range, though. Some women at 40 retrieve 4 or 5 eggs, others retrieve 15 or more, and the outcome depends heavily on your individual ovarian reserve rather than age alone.
What the Average Actually Looks Like
Data from large fertility clinic databases puts the average retrieval for the 38-to-40 age group at 10.9 eggs. That’s notably lower than the mid-teens averages seen in women under 35, but it’s still enough to work with in most cases. The key word here is “average,” because the spread around that number is enormous. Your personal result will be shaped by your ovarian reserve, which two simple tests can estimate before you ever start a cycle.
Two Tests That Predict Your Number
The two best predictors of how many eggs you’ll retrieve are your AMH level (a blood test measuring a hormone produced by your remaining egg supply) and your antral follicle count, or AFC (the number of small resting follicles visible on ultrasound early in your cycle). Together, these give your fertility team a much clearer picture than age alone.
For a 40-year-old, the median AMH is about 0.5 ng/mL. A quarter of women that age have levels above 1.3 ng/mL, while another quarter fall below 0.2 ng/mL. About 73% of 40-year-old women meet the clinical threshold for diminished ovarian reserve, defined as an AMH below 1.2 ng/mL. That sounds alarming, but it’s a population-level statistic. A low AMH tells you something about the quantity of eggs you’re likely to produce, not about whether those eggs can lead to a pregnancy.
Antral follicle counts tell a similar story. The median AFC at age 40 is around 8 in fertile women and around 6 in women being evaluated for infertility. If your count falls below the 10th percentile for your age (roughly 3.5 or lower for fertile women, 2 or lower for infertile women), that’s considered poor ovarian reserve. But AFC and AMH should never be used as standalone reasons to pursue or abandon treatment. They’re planning tools: they help your clinic choose the right medication protocol and set realistic expectations for how many eggs to aim for.
From Retrieved Eggs to Usable Embryos
Not every egg retrieved will become an embryo you can transfer. Understanding the typical drop-off helps you interpret your retrieval number in context.
Of the eggs retrieved, only the mature ones can be fertilized. Roughly 70 to 80% of retrieved eggs are typically mature. After fertilization, nearly all of those (96 to 100%) will begin dividing normally. The bigger bottleneck comes next: getting those dividing embryos to the blastocyst stage, the five-day-old embryo that’s ready for transfer or freezing.
For women aged 38 to 40 who have at least four fertilized eggs, about 63% of those embryos will reach the blastocyst stage. So if you start with 11 retrieved eggs, a realistic scenario might look like this: 8 or 9 mature eggs, 7 or 8 fertilized, and 4 or 5 blastocysts. That’s a reasonable outcome at 40, though every cycle varies.
The math gets harder when fewer eggs are retrieved. Among women over 40 who had fewer than four fertilized eggs, the blastocyst conversion rate dropped to around 52%, and the chance of having no transferable embryo at all climbed to nearly 100%. This is one reason clinics sometimes recommend banking embryos across multiple cycles at this age, especially if you plan to do genetic testing.
What Retrieval Numbers Mean for Live Birth
The most recent national data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (2023) reports a live birth rate of 26.2% per intended egg retrieval for women aged 38 to 40. That includes all embryo transfers from a single retrieval, meaning frozen transfers from the same batch of eggs count toward that number. For just the first transfer attempt, the rate is 21.3%.
These percentages reflect the reality that egg quality, not just quantity, declines with age. A 40-year-old who retrieves 12 eggs doesn’t have the same odds per egg as a 32-year-old who also retrieves 12. The chromosomal abnormality rate in embryos rises sharply through the late 30s and into the 40s, which is why genetic testing of embryos (PGT-A) is commonly offered at this age. If you do test, expect that a meaningful fraction of your blastocysts won’t pass, but the ones that do have a significantly better chance of implanting and leading to a healthy pregnancy.
How Clinics Try to Maximize Your Yield
At 40, fertility clinics typically use more aggressive stimulation protocols than they would for younger patients, with higher doses of the hormones that encourage multiple follicles to grow. Several different protocol designs exist, and research comparing them in women aged 40 to 44 has found no significant difference in the number or quality of eggs retrieved across protocols. Pregnancy rates were also statistically similar. What this means practically is that the protocol your clinic chooses matters less than your underlying ovarian reserve. If your first cycle yields fewer eggs than expected, your doctor may adjust the approach, but there’s no single “best” protocol that dramatically changes outcomes at this age.
When Fewer Eggs Are Retrieved
If you retrieve fewer than expected, say 3 or 4 eggs instead of 10, it doesn’t necessarily mean the cycle has failed. Some women at 40 consistently produce small batches of eggs and still achieve pregnancy, particularly if those eggs are of good quality. Clinics sometimes use a “mini IVF” approach in these cases, using lower medication doses and accepting a smaller yield in exchange for reduced physical strain and cost per cycle.
The critical threshold to keep in mind is that having at least four fertilized eggs meaningfully improves your chances of ending up with a transferable embryo. Below that number, attrition becomes a much bigger problem. If your AMH and AFC suggest you’re likely to retrieve only a few eggs per cycle, your clinic may recommend completing two or three retrievals before attempting any transfers, pooling embryos to give you a better starting number.