Is IUI worth a shot? Or should we go straight to IVF?

[Anonymous]

Seems to depend a lot on sperm count. My DH’s count was so low SGF told us to go straight to IVF. We didn’t bother fixing the varicocele because it would have delayed things 3-6 months and was unlikely to ever bring his numbers high enough for natural conception. I would talk to the Urologist for more details.

[Anonymous]

If DH is at fault, and you’re young enough, IUI makes sense after you have the clinic do a TESE on him.

TESE works well and has many side-advantages: you can do it on him multiple times (just have to wait a few months between rounds).

Plus, they can freeze some of it down, so you don’t have to wait for his next surgery to do your next round of IUI.

[Anonymous]

Echoing what others said. Worked for me on the first try at 36, but my issue wasn’t getting pregnant, it was staying pregnant. Also had some mild weirdness with cycles and mild male factor. So the IUI was quick and controlled and then I took a million drugs to keep the pregnancy and we were lucky.

At your age I’d certainly try it a couple times. It is so much cheaper, quicker, and easier on your body, that if it works you’ll be happy and if not you won’t have wasted much time.

[Anonymous]

Hard to say, but IUI worked for us on our 6th (and last) try, so I'm glad we did it!

[Anonymous]

I think since you're young starting with IUI makes sense. If you get pregnant your DH can still proceed with surgery if needed while you're pregnant if you want more than one child. In any case, there's no time like the present in terms of your fertility, so moving ahead now vs. surgery and waiting makes the most sense...and maybe you'll conceive your second child naturally. FWIW, I know many women with PCOS that needed fertility treatments that conceived naturally afterwards...having a baby seemed to get hormone levels more in balance for future pregnancies.

[Anonymous]

We had to do IUI because of insurance. They required it before paying for IVF. After 3 failed IUI, our options were to do three more medicated cycles or move on to IVF. The doctor seemed pretty certain IUI wouldn't work so we moved on. One failed IVF and one successful one and I had my first baby. Second kid was somehow conceived the old fashioned way. Go figure. Makes me wonder if IUI would have eventually worked if we'd tried the medicated cycles.

[Anonymous]

We were unexplained and ages 33 and 36 at the time. We did 4 rounds, all unsuccessful so for us, not worth it. Moved to ivf and got pregnant first retrieval but 4 transfers. They are pretty similar in terms of medication and monitoring so ivf wasn’t as bad as I thought and it was nice knowing we had some additional embryos for future children although we got lucky, sometimes it takes multiple retrievals to get one embryo (ours were untested). Have you both done genetic testing? If you both carry a recessive gene, ivf is recommended depending on which genes.

[Anonymous]

Have an iui kid but my main issue is lack of ovulation ( likely pcos). First round of iui got pregnant and miscarried, 2nd round didn't ovulate, 3rd round ovulated too soon and canceled cycle, 4th round was my kid.


I tried it again when kid turned one after a spontaneous pregnancy led to miscarraige and ended up needing to switch to ivf at that point but was then 39 and assume most failures and miscarraigea were do to aneupoloidity. Can't hurt to try but my understanding is it's not that different statistically than natural intercourse if you already ovulate consistently

[Anonymous]

If it were me, I would try it twice.
Then go onto IVF.

[Anonymous]

IVF no question. I did three failed iui and the stress is immense. IVF was basically the same except for the egg retrieval which was nbd.

[Anonymous]

No absolutely not. Reason? You need to bank those embryos is you want #2. His issues won't go away and your eggs will be much better now vs at 35. At 35 you may find you can't have kids.

[Anonymous]

As long as you can afford IVF, just do that. It’s more likely to work and the new genetic testing is available that you can use to reduce the risk or health issues for your kids. If you get multiple useable embryos you can reduce the risk of heart disease or another health with polygenic embryo screening. My family has a history of Alzheimer’s, so I used polygenic embryo screening to reduce my kids risk of Alzheimer’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did IUI and had twins, but in our case it was infertility for several years with no clear cause. Everything seemed to look good. This was 17 years ago I know there are newer more accurate tests now.

If you want to try a few rounds, it won't waste too much time.

This was also me, but a singleton pregnancy. No obvious issues, but not even a chemical pregnancy in 14 months of actively trying. Third medicated IUI cycle took. When I have a c-section, the OB commented that I had terrible endometriosis, so that was likely the issue. Suggested trying immediately post-stopping BFing because pregnancy and BFing both treat endo. Was able to have 2nd & 3rd kids quickly (2 months & 1 month of trying) without assistance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as you can afford IVF, just do that. It’s more likely to work and the new genetic testing is available that you can use to reduce the risk or health issues for your kids. If you get multiple useable embryos you can reduce the risk of heart disease or another health with polygenic embryo screening. My family has a history of Alzheimer’s, so I used polygenic embryo screening to reduce my kids risk of Alzheimer’s.

Lol you won't even live to know if your genetic selection prevented Alzheimer's. There is something very wrong with you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as you can afford IVF, just do that. It’s more likely to work and the new genetic testing is available that you can use to reduce the risk or health issues for your kids. If you get multiple useable embryos you can reduce the risk of heart disease or another health with polygenic embryo screening. My family has a history of Alzheimer’s, so I used polygenic embryo screening to reduce my kids risk of Alzheimer’s.

Lol you won't even live to know if your genetic selection prevented Alzheimer's. There is something very wrong with you

There is nothing wrong with me. I carry the APOE4 gene which is the largest genetic risk factor for alzheimers. By preventing my kids from inheriting this gene, their lifetime risk of alzheimers is 1/4th of what it would be otherwise. Nothing is guaranteed, but I felt it was irresponsible not to screen for this gene when I had to do IVF anyway.