New to Board

[Inpatient in NC]

Hi Ladies,

I have been on this TTC journey since 1999. It has been very frustrating. I have been to several different doctors. I like the RE I am seeing now, but I had an appt yesterday and left there feeling really bad. This year I have been doing Clomid or Femara/IUI, in July I did Gonal-F/IUI and all has failed. My RE has told me before that I have better chances with IVF. Well I had the question, should I put my money in any more IUI's or put that money towards IVF. Now that I'm really considering IVF, he tells me I should think about adopiton also. That I have "unexplained infertility" and my chances with IVF is only 30%. He metioned adoption several times. Money is one my problems, thats why we have been doing inevasive (sp?) treatments. But he also told me we could as many IUI's as I wanted. I was upset, and I wished I had asked him my % doing IUI. If IVF is only 30, it looks me like IUI is almost useless now. I am 37 years, that has always been a concern of mine. I saw my RE in June, I asked about my age, his answer was, "it's not as bad as 42 and not as good as 25". I just feel so hopeless right now. I'm not dealing very well right now. My Dh doesn't have the greatest opinions about adopting, but he also has 3 children and I have NONE.

Sorry for the long post, sitting here crying. If anyone would like to email, please do tpellnc@earthlink.net

THANKS,
Terry

[wantsababy2]

Terry, unexplained is the WORST. Cycle after cycle after cycle, nothing but BFN's and no one can help you or tell you why.

I, too, am 37 and unexplained. I also have done Clomid, Femara, and now injectables. I know exactly how it feels. All you can do is hope, but that is the one feeling that eludes us as each cycle goes by.

IUI has a 15-20% success rate overall, but it all depends on your dx. IVF does have the best success rate (I was told 40%). It is also the most $$$$ and the one most at risk for cancellation and OHSS. My RE once told me that the most cost-effective way to approach this is to do 3 "good cycles" of IUI, then put your money into IVF. I've had 5 IUI's, but only 2 "good cycles," so I'll do one more, maybe 2, then its IVF for me. We're not getting any younger here!

[jcc]

Such hard decisions...I check out the unexplained board occasionally since I ended up with an unexplained diagnosis after 5 years of ttc. DH and I tried for about 2 years, but not aggressively. "If it happens it happens" was our motto. After that I spent about 1 year with my OB doing some early tests, clomid cycles, etc. Sought an RE after that and got the full ringer of tests, still to be unexplained. Moved on to IUI with injectible cycles. I did 3 cycles of that with good response to the meds, DH with super high counts, and BFN every single time.

We also wanted to go the less invasive and less expensive route first. What if we got lucky and it worked? We wouldn't have put ourselves through that much financial strain, so our decision and support of RE, went with the IUI's. But with 3 failed cycles with good response and a few follies each time, I just didn't feel like it was going to work for us. RE also agreed that while we could still try for other cycles, being unexplained and already having 3 failed cycles, our chances were slim. IVF was the only next route for us. I'm 30 and DH 33 working with Cleveland Clinic so they had estimated our success rates more in the 50-60% range which felt promising.

But - DH and I really had to think about it. How do I shell out all that money and risk being childless at the end anyway? It is such a disciplined and difficult process, could we handle it? We certainly didn't jump on it right away, but we couldn't give up the opportunity wondering "what if?" If we didn't try, would we regret that we hadn't? That's what led us into attempting a cycle. I've heard great advice is to cap how far you're willing to go (ie. cost, number of cycles, etc.) but honestly DH and I didn't do that. I just felt like I at least needed to try once. We are certainly open to the adoption route but we still wanted to attempt for biological children initially.

We did proceed with IVF and had amazing results. We still keep the unexplained diagnosis because they said my eggs were good....we implanted two embryos and I'm currently 22 wks. pg. with B/G twins with 9 frozen emryos.

So - for me jumping into IVF, for at least one cycle, turned out to be the best decision. But I know it doesn't work that way for all so you have some very difficult decisions ahead of you.

Terry - I do feel for you that your DH may not share the same passion for treatment that you do since he already has kids of his own. I pray that you two are able to talk and agree on your next course of treatment.

I'd also encourage you to visit the IVF board and you could ask some questions there. There are so many great women there, and they might have some additional advice for you on their decision process, age, etc. Best of luck with wherever your journey takes you.