IVF or IUI?

[Anonymous]

Age, desperate for a third, 10 months of trying -----------> IVF no question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% IVF. So easy. It’s basically the same thing as iui except for the retrieval. Iui is a complete waste of money, time and energy. I would never recommend it.

This is really not true. IUI is the easy one - a quick injection to bring on stimulated ovulation, a quick insemination, see what happens. Worked for me on the first try (admittedly at 36, not 39). I also had an easy time getting pregnant, just not staying pregnant - so once I was pregnant I had to take a bunch of meds to stay that way, but thankfully it worked.

IVF, unless it's natural cycle, is far more invasive.

If it were me, I'd give it 2 or 3 cycles of IUI because that is literally 2 or 3 months. Whereas each IVF session is several months. Of course, you do take the risk that you cannot test the embryo, so if you are very worried about age-related issues, IVG with testing would make more sense. At 36 I was not that worried. At 39 or 40, might be different.

OP, I am sorry you've gotten such nasty responses. It wasn't like this until a few months ago. There are some nasty trolls on all the boards who love to just be mean. Good luck with whatever choice you make. Hope it works out for your family.

I posted after I was essentially raped by my RE three years ago, asking if people have had ultrasound contradictions; he induced a high-risk pregnancy on a very thin C-sec scar without my consent. I got the nastiest comments you can imagine. I got terrible care for the scar (my providers were trying to run out the clock without it being scanned) I ended up pitching a temper tantrum in a biophysical profile clinic. It was so thin it was not safe for me to wait for the booked 40 week C-sec. If it had ruptured out of the hospital my baby would have died. There are some really dried up miserable c--ts on the forum, really the worst people you can imagine. They're probably all hotshot scumbag lawyers, politicians, feds, really goes very far to explain why the world is so f---cked up, these people move among us pretending to be human beings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IVF. 85% of my day 5 embryos were abnormal at 38.

That should tell you that you were too old.

I've been losing pregancies for over 3 years because my doctors were incompetent and over confident. Simple blood clotting disorder and untreated PCOS (which they all also refused to treat).

Women become subhuman garbage on their 35th birthday, didn't you know?

[Anonymous]

OP, what did you decide?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m 39. We have two children conceived naturally, both under age 5, though one took a long time to conceive. We desperately want one more child. Have been trying for 10 months. One miscarriage, nothing else. Numbers look good - AMH 3.05.

We have two options:

1) Up to three rounds of IUI, then if it doesn't work, moving on to IVF.
2) Going straight to IVF.

Per the doc, in my situation, chance of live birth after three rounds of IUI is about 30%. Chance of live birth in the first round of IVF is about 54%. After three rounds of IVF, it's about 88%. IUI rounds each just take a month, IVF takes about 3 months each round (including testing the embryos). All options are basically off the table in 14 months when I turn 41 and age out of Shady Grove Shared Risk.

The money: Each round of IUI is about $2k. For IVF, we would buy into shared risk, cost is $35k up front, plus $5k per round in medication. That gets us up to six rounds (though I’d age out before we could finish all of them) included in that $35k. And of course if we don’t end up with a baby they refund the $35k. We can easily pay the $6k for three rounds of IUI. For IVF, we'd probably end up asking the grandparents for the money (they’ve got plenty of it but I feel crappy asking).

Couple other factors - IVF is more physically demanding/overwhelming. Risk of twins is dramatically higher with IUI (10-15% of successful pregnancies will be twins, that number for IVF is super small, less than 1%). While we would deal, we don't want twins. There are some risks to IVF but they're pretty small. The other thing is, with IVF, part of how the numbers are so high is that they test the embryos to make sure they're chromosomally normal, so your chances of something like Downs is vanishingly small, whereas at my age, that's a real risk of chromosomal abnormalities via IUI (the same as there would be just from getting pregnant naturally). Also, while it's factored into those 30% and 54% numbers, the risk of miscarriage is higher with IUI.

Honestly, I'm SO TIRED of the try, hope, test, disappointment cycle. I've spent almost two years of my life on that cycle and it's emotionally exhausting. Throw in a miscarriage with a night bleeding in the ER by myself, recovery from that, fertility testing... I'm kinda ready for just the most likely option, so I'm leaning IVF. One round, better than even chance of a baby. The money gives me GREAT pause though.

My husband, on the other hand, is leaning IUI. He thinks we can get pregnant ourselves, mostly, and we just need a little boost so let's try something small, even just for one month. He mostly seems nervous about the physical/hormonal aspect of IVF (which I know did a number on the wife of his best friend).

FWIW, the doc said with my age it’s unusual they would recommend IUI but with my history, it’s a good shot, so it’s up to us. But when pressed, she said if it were her, she’d do IVF.

Thoughts? What would you do? We desperately want a third child, so we're definitely going to do SOMETHING, but we’re really torn.

it doesn't work like this. even if these numbers are correct in the population (what population?) they don't apply to you.

[Anonymous]

OP here with an update. We ended up deciding to do 1 round of IUI, then move right on to IVF with Shared Risk if that didn’t work. And then stop and make our peace with our family as is if I aged out with no baby.

Well, the IUI was unsuccessful, but I’m currently pregnant from my first round of IVF! Only one healthy embryo and it took. We are thrilled and excited.

Thanks to those who gave helpful advice. For what it’s worth, I was also this poster:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1159052.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here with an update. We ended up deciding to do 1 round of IUI, then move right on to IVF with Shared Risk if that didn’t work. And then stop and make our peace with our family as is if I aged out with no baby.

Well, the IUI was unsuccessful, but I’m currently pregnant from my first round of IVF! Only one healthy embryo and it took. We are thrilled and excited.

Thanks to those who gave helpful advice. For what it’s worth, I was also this poster:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1159052.page

Congratulations! So excited for you! Thank you for the update!

[Anonymous]

At 39, go straight to IVF. You don’t have time.

[Anonymous]

You can't afford it, hard stop.