Natural Pregnancy with just MFI

hoping+praying · January 2015

Hi all! I am wondering if you or someone you know has gotten pregnant naturally with MFI? My husband's count and motility have been normal and also have been pretty low, they seem to fluctuate a lot. His morphology is 2%, we thought that was our only problem, but with the fluctuations we pretty much don't what to expect. It makes me hesitant to try IUIs because we have to pay out of pocket. He did have a bilateral microsurgical varicocelectomy, so maybe this will help. I am just wondering if we have a chance and should stick with the natural route and give it some patience. Thanks for your feedback!

JBDamonM · January 2015

Actually I have a childhood friend who is currently about 6 months pregnant naturally with an MFI DX. They also had Varicocele surgery, not sure on all of the details around it - but tried several IUI's afterwards and they all failed. Her script for IVF meds was all set to go, but she was dragging her feet on it and got pregnant on her own..... Can't give you advice on your situation - but there are success stories out there. Good luck.

hoping+praying · January 2015

That is awesome @JBDamonM ... it is frustrating not knowing what to do, getting pregnant naturally would be a dream come true :-)

JBDamonM · January 2015

Trust me - I felt the same way.

jesselayne8 · January 2015

With a normal count and motility it sounds totally possible. I think it's a matter of how long you are willing to try on your own. With MH's MFI (low motility and 1% morph) the RE said we would probably get pregnant on our own within 5 years if we had well timed sex every cycle. 5 years of trying can be exhausting so we choose to do the IUIs to increase our chances each cycle from about 2% to 15-20%. My first child is from IUI#3 with injects. However my 2nd child and my current pregnancy were conceived without assistance.

hoping+praying · January 2015

@jesselayne8 that is great you got pregnant without assistance and with IUI ... My DH gets frustrated sometimes and I always tell him that it's not his fault and his numbers not being perfect just makes it harder, not impossible. My heart goes out to everyone dealing with infertility, there is so much that goes into everyone's struggles. I am hoping we see some improvement from the surgery. All of this sure does take a lot of patience. Thanks for the feedback!

hoping+praying · January 2015

@MrsLee04 stories like that make me so happy and hopeful! That's wonderful. I also have a friend that was told they had 1% chance and now they have 4 children, all without assistance. Thanks for sharing!

itsmevkb · January 2015

My husband has borderline count and motility and 0% morph and then I have a few issues myself, namely my age and being a horrible responder to meds but here is our conception history:

1st - no assistance (this was prior to finding out his issues)
2nd - IVF after many failed cycles trying on our own, trying with me on clomid and two failed IUIs
3rd - no assistance but ended in a miscarriage
4th - I was on clomid but this too ended in a miscarriage
5th - IUI
6th - no assistance
7th - a FET using our frozen embryo from our IVF

So, I've pretty much covered all the different ways to get pregnant and have had a total of three unassisted pregnancies despite our being told we had about a 2-3% chance of conceiving on our own.

hoping+praying · January 2015

Wow @itsmevkb you have covered all the different ways to get pregnant! So sorry for your losses but very happy for your successful pregnancies! You have had quite the journey. Thanks for sharing your story!

MrsBeqari · January 2015

We had MFI and were given <1% chance on coneiving on our own. We tried for almost 5 years before having twins through IVF, then we had a surprise baby #3 three years later. I thought he was our 1%. but ow I am pregnant again 2.5 years later.

hoping+praying · January 2015

@MrsBeqari that is WONDERFUL! Congrats to you! I have heard of so many people that were given 1-3% chance getting pregnant without any assistance recently. It makes me so hopeful to hear these stories. Makes me realize that maybe I need to embrace patience for a bit. Thanks for sharing!

TwinMom916 · January 2015

We were diagnosed with unexplained Severe MFI in December 2012 and told we had a less that 1% chance of ever conceiving naturally. IVF was our only option. In February 2013 we had our first IVF. I had only 2 embryos and by the grace of God got pregnant And with twins!! My B/G twins are 16 months old.
DH and I decided we didn't want to do IVF again and were beyond happy and blessed with our twins.
Last month I wasn't feeling well and thought I had the flu bc both of my nieces had the flu. I was very wrong and so were the drs who said we would never conceive naturally!! I'm 11 weeks with baby #3 the old fashion way!

Gregermis · January 2015

I had a BFP once from an IUI where DH only had a million after they washed them. It was a c/p though

CarrieB. · January 2015

My DH was dx MFI, but with acupuncture, vitamins, herbal TCM and eating more organic/healthier he was able to improve all his counts to borderline. However, then I found out I had DOR and we had to do IVF and FET anyway.

But I'm glad we did it all because I'm sure it helped our chances.

Good luck!

tarala · January 2015

Just our story... DH has an okay count but low motility and 2% morph. After 14 timed cycles with OPKs and temping, we moved to 2 cycles of medicated IUIs. Only got 1 mil sperm after wash. We pushed for IVF as we wanted to be more aggressive. We ended up having 15 eggs fertilized, but by day 5, only one had made it. (Used both ICSI and traditional IVF) That one 5 day blast is our little girl who is 10 days old!

Before we go through this all again, we are going to consult with a urologist who specializes in MFI as my husband also has a large variocele. I know that reports vary on outcome, but we are trying anything before moving to IVF for round 2, since we had none to freeze.

Would love a surprise baby and I am also happy to hear all the ladies posting about this!

hoping+praying · January 2015

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories! It helps so much to hear from all of you!

@tarala I would definitely talk to a urologist that specializes in MFI. I have heard a lot of success stories of numbers improving after surgery, but sometimes it takes some time to see the improvement. It was worth a shot to me

KDR1979 · February 2015

Our only diagnosis was abnormal sperm morphology as well. DH has ~60 million + (normal was 20 million +) sperm, motility is 40-50% (normal is 50%+) and morphology was always 0-1% normal-all head defects. We haven't used birth control since 2008 & have never conceived w/o IVF with ICSI. DH saw the male infertility urologist, he said all was normal..nothing to fix. DH takes vitamins, eats healthy, etc, etc. The morphology never got better for us. Our history is in my siggy.

hoping+praying · February 2015

@KDR1979 thanks for sharing! How was the IVF process for you? I am going to be honest, it stresses me out thinking about it sometimes. I guess I mostly just want a healthy baby and don't understand the whole process, seems overwhelming...I wish it was easier. My husband is very healthy. Sometimes I just wish we didn't have to go thru all this.

kistra · February 2015

@hoping+praying My husband also has had widely varying count and motility but always low morphology. We were initially told that IUI with ICSI was our only realistic option. But DH changed his diet and lost some weight and his count and motility started staying higher but we still had low morphology so we went with IUI and had success on the second round. Insurance covered the meds but we paid out of pocket for the procedure and I'm really happy we did it, but we tried on our own for 4 years first so I felt that we have given that a good try.

The RE did tell us that we should use birth control in the future as it is possible for us to get pregnant on our own, just not very likely.

I don't know if this helps at all.

KDR1979 · February 2015

@ hoping+praying IVF is very stressful. We were 100% OOP. We spent so much money. Somewhere around ~55K...BUT most people don't have as many failed cycles as us either. A friend of mine had a similar diagnosis-got pregnant on her 1st IVF, went back when her daughter was ~2, did 1 more cycle and got twins. So for her, 2 fresh IVF cycles= 3 babies.

For us, we've had 6 embryo transfers and got our twins on the 5th transfer.. We also had a few losses which were AWFUL. Miscarriages are even worse I think when you pay thousands of dollars for it and go through invasive procedures to get pregnant in the 1st place.

I will never ever forget how painful it was for us to go through 3 years of infertility. After my last miscarriage, a lot of the feelings came back and I was struggling with pregnancy announcements again.

Now, I would spend the money and go through all of it all over again if I had to choose between not doing it and not having kids or going through it to get my kids.

I definitely recommend doing a guaranteed IVF program if your RE offers that. We paid OOP for our 1st fresh cycle and then the 1st FET. Since we had 2 losses from those cycles, my RE approved us for the guaranteed program b/c he said, "In my eyes, you've had 2 IVF"s and 2 pregnancies...so I think we'll get you pregnant right away." So, we bought a package that gave us 3 fresh cycles and up to 3 frozen cycles for the price of 1.5 fresh cycles. We ended up going through 3 more fresh IVF cycles before getting the twins! We would have spent SO much more money if we hadn't done that!!

Good luck!

hoping+praying · February 2015

@KDR1979 Thank you so much for sharing! I am so sorry you went thru all that, but SO HAPPY you had success and didn't give up! Infertility is so stressful and saddening. I had a family member make a comment to me about how nice it must be to have a clean house (he has a newborn at home) and I wanted to scream, but just walked away. I would take the messiest house EVER to not go thru this. lol...

We have thankfully handled it well as a couple. I know it can take it's toll on some couples, understandably. It's painful, but we have each others support and decided from the beginning to do our best to always be that way.

Thanks again for sharing sweetie

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