# 6 failed IUI's, nearly 38 and don't know where to turn next.



## Brazil

Hi all

It has been a while since I have been on this lovely board, I have been buried in work and IUI treatments! I have now completed 3 natural and 3 stimulated IUI's with no success.  
I really thought it would happen as everything has always ran very smoothly, I respond well to the drugs and all cycles looked as though I had the best chance. I always said I would never do IVF as it seems very scary and very time consuming, I just don't know how I would fit it all around work but I am 38 next month and not having a baby scares me even more, I don't want to leave it too late. Has anyone gone from IUI to IVF and had success? Any experiences would be great. I hear the success rate is about 18.3% per go, that seems very low? We would do it at Guys with donor sperm from the states. Any advice would be very much appreciated, I just don't know if going through IVF would really increase my chances.


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## MandMtb

Hi Brazil,

This is just a quick post, as I am on my lunch break at work, but didnt want to read and run.

Firstly I'm so sorry to hear about your failed IUI's  

Me and DW have had 4 failed IUI's and like you initially went into it very positive and as each one failed became more worried. We went for a consultation after our last failed attempt to discuss moving onto IVF. We weighed up the costs/success rates etc of more IUI's and IVF and decided to move onto IVF. For me personally the Dr gave a 11% chance success with IUI and about 34% with IVF, on clinic figures, my age, AMH etc so I see IVF as at least 3 x more likely to suceed than IUI - although I still know this is low, it certainly seems to up the odds which swayed me to go that way. 

Like you I never considered or really wanted to go through IVF, and am very scared - just waiting for AF to arrive (which is now overdue) for our first IVF but hopefully it will be worth it. I wouldnt want to advice you, as you need to do what you feel is right for you, but personally I have moved onto IVF - and will be able to let you know how I get on in a month! 

This didnt end up so short sorry LOL!

S x


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## Brazil

Hi bubbles60

Thanks so much for your response and best of luck with your IVF treatment, fingers crossed! I think I will arrange a consultation to ask what my success rate would be and then decide so this has really helped, thank you. Let me know how you get on.


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## TwoBumps

Brazil, it's really hard to know what to do next isn't it We are similar ages (I'm 37 this week) & over the last 3 years I have had 3 x natural IUI's, 1 x medicated IUI's & then 3 x IVF's. I fell pregnant on the 3rd IVF but miscarried very early into the pregnancy. We then began ttc at home with a known donor & using no more than OPK's & a syringe... and I fell pregnant on the 2nd attempt! I suppose what I'm trying to say is, you never know when it is going to be 'your month'. Taking all my previous treatment into account, I _NEVER_ expected to become pregnant so quickly (if at all!) with the home-insems. We spent many hours deliberating over IUI vs IVF, comparing clinics, weighing up our chances etc & the route that actually worked for us was the one with the lowest (statistical) success rate!
The other thing I would say is that I personally didn't find IVF as bad as I thought I would. Sure, it's not exactly pleasant, but it's not as bad as I was expecting!
Good luck with whatever you decide!
L x


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## Brazil

Hi twobumps

Wow, what a journey you have been on, congratulations on your home insem, isn't life ironic, you must have spent alot of money on your treatments and then you get pregnant naturally, well pretty much! How did you find your donor? We have put an ad in a magazine but haven't had any luck with responses yet. To be honest I would love to do it this way but we don't know anyone who would do it, I imagine it's so much nicer being at home with your partner as oppose to having a load of doctors around you! When are you due? x


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## Pepstar

Brazil - sorry to hear about your failed IUIs  

We too are at Guys and are on our third medicated IUI cycle.  We had originally thought we would do 6 IUIs and then consider IVF but the more we go down this path, the more we think the next step for us will be IVF.  We have got to the point that if this cycle doesn't work then we don't know what else we can throw at IUI and the success rate for IVF is higher.  Good luck


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## Allijab

Hi Hun

Your story sounds identical to mine. I was 38 when I started my first lot of treatment, I had 6 IUI's all medicated with clomid, all looked really good, no reason to believe that it wouldn't work   

I too was terrified of IVF but we started Dec 08 and to be honest it was really straight forward, much better than being on the clomid and it all went really smoothly.

As you can see from my signature Daisy May was the result of that 1st IVF and she is happily playing on the floor eating her elephant    We also have 3 frozen embryos so will be going to do FET later this year. 

All I can say from personal experience is that if I was given the choice and the money I would do IVF again.

If you want any further info let me know and good luck whatever you decide.

Jules


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## Brazil

Hi Jules, thanks so much for your response, it has made me feel much better. I guess I am just worried about the drugs affecting me, are they different ones to IUI? From my understanding the only difference is the down reg stuff? I was on Clomid and Gonal F and then the trigger for IUI. Did you have to go under a general for the egg collection or was it just light sedation, does this really knock you out? I think it is the egg collection that is worrying me the most, it seems so invasive. Where did you have yours done? xx


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## duff

Hi Brazil,

I hope you don't mind me chipping in about egg collection.  I had it done four times in all and didn't really find it much of a problem.  It's surprising because I hate needles but really it always seemed like quite an adventure to me. Rather than a general anesthetic, they used a mix of sedative, muscle relaxant and rhohypnol so you don't remember a thing about it! My partner was watching the whole thing and said I occasionally twitched a bit or grunted but mostly just slept.  Afterwards it's quite funny because it takes the rest of the day for your memory to work properly again.  I remember trying to watch a film on tv but not being able to follow the plot at all.  

Best of luck!


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## rosypie

nismat had 6 iuis then went on to have a succesful ivf. i'm sure she'll pop up sooner or later 

i was convinced when i started that i'd never need anything more than iui. we conceived first time round on a second natural iui so this only went to further convince me. it was a leap when trying for number two to even consider ivf (we did it after 3 iuis and countless other delays). it didn't feel right, i thought it was a huge thing to take on, and it wasn't in my plans at all. but we did it, and and as it turned out it wasn't that hugely different to the medicated iuis if you ask me. you're already used to taking drugs (and the injections were fine for me), you're already used to going for a shedload of scans etc. the only different bits were the collection and transfer. collection went fine for me, like duff said under heavy sedation i don't remember anything. transfer was only a little bit worse than having iui, just a case of having your legs spread for longer, the speculum in you for longer, and it all happens in a theatre with people in scrubs to add to the drama 

as for chances, if you have no underlying fertility issues then i've heard 30% is closer to it for ivf, even higher maybe. if you think about it, they make sure sperm meets egg, make sure egg fertilises well, and make sure resulting embryo is of appropriate quality to transfer back. they're taking a lot of the hit and miss out of the process. after doing fertility treatment i sometimes wonder how people get pregnant the conventional way at all, considering all the things that need to happen...


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## Allijab

Egg Collection was absolutely fine. Just had a sedative and can't remember a thing from the time the stuff went in to being woken up with a cup of tea. The rest of the day just took paracetomol and just mild aches like AF pains. I too was really scared but absolutely no problems and certainly wouldn't put me off doing it again.

We are at Bristol so very lucky as they are really nice there and tell you what they are going to be doing so you are aware of it all.

I found that clomid gave me really bad mood swings and I was a bit of a "grumpy old woman    " with the IVF drugs I had no moods and once you have done an injection it is plain sailing. I had no trigger shot or Gonal F on IUI so can't speak about those. The down regging stuff esp if you sniff makes your nose a bit sore but other than that didn't really notice any side effects.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Jules


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## nismat

Hi there, as Rosypie said, I had 6 IUIs (with increasing degrees of medication) before switching to IVF, and we got lucky first time with the IVF (I was 36 then, 37 just after I had Toby).
I'd had no particular reason to expect that the IUIs wouldn't be a relatively straightforward way for me to get pregnant. I started at age 35, had regular cycles, decent FSH level, no indication of fertility problems etc. It did turn out that I didn't respond particularly well to the FSH injections though - never more than one follicle on the IUIs, and "just" 5 eggs on IVF (now that I've been diagnosed with dimished ovarian reserve, this was probably an early indication that my ovaries were already a bit past it). 

For me, switching to IVF was a really positive move. When we started TTC, I didn't even contemplate IVF - it seemed scary, overly invasive, and quite frankly unnecessary. But the further we got down the IUI route, and the more that I felt that the problem was with egg and sperm probably never even meeting due to timing issues, the more attractive IVF became - at last, we would know for sure that eggs and sperm were getting it together! It was a somewhat nerve-wracking process - there's even more riding on it emotionally when so much money is involved. But I really found that it helped to know what was happening at each stage. And egg collection was a breeze. At that first IVF, the sedation I had knocked me out to the extent that I don't remember a thing about the procedure. At my more recent IVF (different clinic), it was much lighter sedation and I was conscious throughout (but didn't feel a thing). It was great hearing them finding each egg! 

So overall, I found IVF an easier process than IUIs, which did my head in with the "not-knowing".

Hope all that helps


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## Allijab

I agree totally with nismat it was the not knowing that was driving me crazy

Jules


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## little green

Hello - agree with everything above. We had two IUIs with clomid which didn't work. We decided to go for IVF because we found the emotional strain/uncertainty of the IUI method too much. IVF sounds scary but actually it was really straightforward. We were at Guys and they talked us through all the steps. We found that the nurses and the scanner people are great! It worked first time for us, but obviously doesn't always.

One warning though, Guys do ICSI as standard when they are using imported sperm (we got our from ESB but they are used to working with the US one as well). But the consultant we saw initially didn't explain this, and in fact we didn't find out until I asked the embryologist whilst T was having the fertilised egg put back in!!

Best of luck with whatever you decide.


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## Brazil

Hi girls

Thanks so much for all your replies, still deciding on what to do but the more I read your posts I think IVF may be the way forward. The only other thing we are considering is trying to find a donor but we don't know anyone, has anybody gone this route before with a home insem and if so was the donor a friend? We are thinking about looking for a sperm donor website. xx


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## lucky2010

We found our donor on free sperm donors wordwide website. Good luck x


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