IUI with no MFI *TW

carterh33 · March 2017

After three failed femara attempts (good follicle sizes and good lining) RE wants us to move to IUI. However, we have no MFI that we know of. I've read in some places that doing IUI with no male factor issues does not increase chances of conception by that much (maybe 3%?) but my RE says is "significantly" increases our chances.
*TW
However, I've been able to get pregnant twice in one year (both mc) with out any medical help. End TW

I have a hard time paying the extra money for IUI when it possibly won't increase our chances by much. What have you all heard about IUI with no male factor issues?

funkykey · March 2017

Hi @carterh33 - we have no MFI, and our 2 IUIs with clomid have not worked for us. We do plan to do one more though. (Apologies if I'm revisiting anything I posted in a previous thread - I think you asked a similar question not too long ago, re: TI vs. IUI).

We're unexplained, so some of the statistics don't apply to us - ie, I've heard that IUIs with clomid give you about a 20% chance of conceiving, but I think that 20% is of all people who do the IUIs with clomid, not specifically the unexplained couples. For us, anovulation wasn't an issue either - I think if you have anovulation or MFI, clomid + IUI is more likely to be successful for you. If your issue is something else - like say there's something off with my eggs - I don't think it'll go.

For us, the clomid + IUI is giving us a taste of the numbers game - really, the advantage for us is just getting as many eggs and as many sperm into my uterus as possible, in the hopes that at least one sticks. With unexplained, so much of the time, that's the treatment plan - just throwing stuff at a wall and hoping something sticks. If and when we move on to IVF, we'd be doing more-or-less the same thing, except paying more money for it - trying to get as many eggs and blastocysts as possible, in the hopes that at least one takes.

I'm in a slightly different position than you, of course. I've never been pregnant, and I can't tell if any of my eggs have ever fertilized. So whatever is happening with us, it's either that my eggs aren't even fertilizing, or when they do, the embies are not managing to get to a point where I get a BFP. For you, it looks like your eggs are fertilizing ok, so it might be something else... Have you thought of having karotype testing done?

I hope you get a sticky bean soon! FX and good luck with your decision!

KLake42 · March 2017

I've seen a lot of different statistics. I know one place listed something like 8% (at my age) with TI, and 16% with IUI, so that doubles your chances, but they're still pretty low.

I wish I hadn't spent a ton of money on IUIs before moving on to IVF. But it was the right decision at the time.

artemis618 · March 2017

Unfortunately, I can't help, but I'm following as I suspect that we don't have MFI either as we *TW* got pregnant the month after we got married last year (our second month trying, first month temping) - but mc 2 days shy of 12 weeks (and she was deceptively NIPT-normal). We went straight to IVF because of my age (39) and to try to screen in effort to avoid going through that again (since that loss effectively cost us 4 months including the mc cycle), but my insurance only covers two IVF cycles and the first one last month went somewhat disastrously (obviously I didn't die from OHSS or anything like that, but we ended up with zero blasts).

So as @funkykey said, if because of my egg quality it's going to be a numbers game thing (and especially if this next IVF cycle goes anything like the last), we're thinking of maybe going "backwards" to IUIs since our embryos appear not to like IVF (and my lifetime cap of two cycles of IVF is my only infertility insurance coverage limitation).

Sorry that was a long way of saying "following." Best of luck to you!

Want a personalized experience?

IUI with no MFI *TW

Re: IUI with no MFI *TW

Choose Another Board

Search Boards