IUI vs. IVF at what point do doctors say IUI won't work?

Don't Hassle the Hoff

My husband has had 2 SAs. First one everything was good, except for morph - 2%. Second one count and volume went down (but still in good range) motility went up, morphology was 0%.

Is there some sort of threshold where REs suggest IVF over IUI? I think I've heard that 3 SAs with morph all below 2% usually prompts going straight to IVF, but I want to hear your experiences. I think I am in the camp where I would

 FTR, we haven't met with an RE yet. We have consults at 2 different places on the 15th and 27th of Feb.

amd1982

While I'm not sure about the morph below 2%, i know my DH had an SA where his morph was 3%. RE didn't mention anything about us not being candidates for IUI. My RE's suggestion was one IUI with Clomid + TI (I'm anovulatory) and see how we respond. If I don't respond to Clomid, her advice was to try a round of injectables before moving to IVF. I'm still waiting to see if the first IUI worked, but again she didn't mention anything about morph being the reason to move on to IVF. I think if you have insurance coverage (we are 100% OOP) or even partial coverage, I can't imagine any RE wouldn't at least try one or two IUI's before moving on to IVF. But I could be wrong on that. GL at your consults!!

Don't Hassle the Hoff

Thanks, Amd.

I started writing more in the second paragraph, but hit enter too early. What I was going to say is that we are completely OOP. If we weren't I would be all for trying a few IUI cycles then moving on to IVF if those didn't work. But because we're OOP and (in my mind) with morph that low I don't think IUI has a high chance of working, I would rather not risk throwing money out the window with IUI and move right to IVF.

dimples128

My husband has 2% morph and our RE suggested we move into IUIs, not IVF.  He said we were great candidates for IUIs and it should work within 3 to 4 cycles of them.  You should bring that up in your consults though.  Some REs are more aggressive than others and it also depends on your sense of urgency with it.

maggie2324

We have had 3 SAs, 0%, 0.5%, and 1% strict morphology. Our RE says we can go straight to IVF with at least a 50% chance or do up to 3 Clomid IUIs with a 4-8% chance each time.

She said in her experience, most women in this situation end up going to IVF after trying IUIs. But quite a few get pregnant with IUIs too. She said it was about 60/40. 

jessican08

My H's initial S/A had a count of 6mil motile sperm with a morph of 1%. My RE started us out with IUIs and DH's counts ranged anywhere from 20mil motile back down to 6mil motile for our IUIs (we did 6).

My RE pushed us towards IVF after my 4th failed IUI but we had coverage for 6 so that's what we did.

meganfauer

In my experience I wish I would of known more. We were told my husbands sperm was catastrophic. 0% morpology, low count and so on. So the re told us IVF'S was our only option. So that's what we did. 2 IVF 's. I wish he would of had more sperm analysis. Men reproduce sperm every 90 days and as mentioned before 3 tests are what is recommended. Well that being said we had two failed IVF's and have switched RE's. have started from square one had my DH tested 3 times and he is totally different in his test. His count is way up ( still lower but so much better). And his morphology went up to 5%, we were told that was "impossible". So my advice is to make sure your DH gets multiple tests. I will say im not sure if it helped but my DH is on multiple vitamins and taking some super foods, has it helped who knows. But I do know his count, content, motility and morphology has AMAZINGLY changed.