PP, I had an empty sac on one cycle ttc baby#2. I was so disappointed bc for baby#1 we hit the first round of natural cycle IVF so my expectations were high for round 2. My husband is catholic so he refused to risk having excess embryos.

I did not realize that sometimes there isn’t an actual egg in the follicle. Everything looked great for my first NCIVF round but there was no egg in the sac.

In NCIVF you have less injections and less side effect from storms and retrieval. Imagine retrieve 10 eggs vs one egg, each with a stab to your ovary.

The overall success is lower because stim IVF can sort and rank embryos and pick the best ones, while NCIVF has to go with whatever one embryo they got.

The price alone is a huge differentiator.

PP here. All my cycles were natural cycle IVF.

I had tubal factor infertility and it took me 3 tries to get pregnant with baby #1, and 1 try each for babies #2 and #3. I was 30, 32, and 35 at the time, FWIW.

If you're a poor responder or DOR, you may not get many more eggs with full stims than natural cycle. If you have qualms about making extra embryos, natural cycle only gets you 1, maybe 2, eggs per cycle. If cost is an issue, natural cycle is much cheaper.

But for most people that are normal responders, it makes sense to do stims and get as many eggs as possible. What is your diagnosis and why are you considering natural cycle?

anyone have thoughts on natural cycle IVF versus stimulated IVF?