IUI + Injectables - What medication worked for you? How many follicles & cycles did it take?

[Anonymous]

I'm 33, no major health problems other than a slightly low AMH level (.7) and an FSH of 9. I'm going to be doing my first IUI + injectables (we have severe male factor with severe DNA fragmentation so we're using donor sperm). I ovulate regularly on my own so my RE recommended we skip the clomid and go straight for the injectables due to the fact that I might be a poor responder to begin with and clomid won't be much help to me.

I'm new to this and wanted to know what injectable medication (Bravelle, Gonal-F etc) did you use? How many follicles did you have at the time of insemination with your successful cycle and how many cycles did it take for you to get your BFP?

My husband and I agreed to try at least 2 cycles of IUI before moving onto IVF. We only have health insurance coverage for 6 IUIs so we thought it was worth a shot to at least try an IUI before spending $22k on IVF.

Thank you so much in advance for your posts!

[Anonymous]

I was successful 1st time at age 40. I had a history of recurrent m/c so no real problems getting preg. (ONly reason I did IUI was because insurance required it as a precursor to IVF+PGD which I'd assumed I'd need). FSH was 8ish? Used follistim, don't recall exact dosage, but not too heavy. Follicles looked good just before trigger, sorry I don't remember details, just that the RE said it all looked good. Ultimately ended up with healthy twins.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

OP - I think you're smart to try 1 or 2 IUIs to see what your response is to the injectables. It won't correspond exactly with how you'll do on an IVF, but it might give you some idea. However, I'm a poor responder and always got better results using clomid plus FSH than without the clomid (even in IVF cycles), so that is something to keep in mind if you don't respond well to just the injectables.

[Anonymous]

I did two IUI cycles with clomid and then did a third IUI cycle with Bravelle. The third cycle worked and I'm due in 6 weeks with a singleton. I don't know how many follicles I had...same thing as PP, the doc just said everything looked good. My husband and I were unexplained infertility.

[Anonymous]

OP here...Awesome responses, thank you all so much!
Poster 8:51, you make a really good point about the clomid...ultimately it might be something I have to add/try, didn't think of it that way before (still trying to understand all this stuff!). Posters 9:49 and 15:01, thank you so much for sharing your protocols. I'm hoping I'll have equal success.

[Anonymous]

In my first IUI cycle of Clomid+injectibles (150 IUs of Bravelle + Ovidrel trigger injection) with SGF, I produced three mature eggs but it was unsuccessful. On my second IUI cycle with the same medications, I prodcued six mature eggs and the RE cancelled my cycle due to the risk of high-order multiples. We are relatively young (early 30s) and our issue is male factor. I think the IUIs didn't work because our post-wash count was lower than what they like to see for IUI - it was about 4 million and they like to see at least 5-10 million post-wash. I have since moved to IVF.