IUI / IVF Process

One of those topics that no one seems to like to openly discuss.. I wanted to open a forum for people involved with presently or in the past with IUI / IVF / fertility treatments.

I'm an open book on the matter, my wife and I have lost two babies in the past year and have met with major specialists here in Boston searching for an explanation, without much of one. We are going to try one more naturally and if unsuccessful begin treatments. We have met with IVF specialists and gone through their rigorous testing protocols and signed all waivers. Thankfully MA has wonderful insurance and there is very little out of pocket expense.

There is no reason to stay in the shadows anymore, these things happen to many more people than we imagine... it's time to talk about it and support each other.

If you want to talk, hit me up.

We have gone through 3 cycles (retrievals). Numerous implants, with one taking, but tragically we lost it. At that point, it was no longer safe for us to continue "harvesting".

We took some time, explored adoption, but in the end decided to go another route.

We went the donor route. Initially the plan was egg donor only (dealing with a company in California), and when push came to shove we went with egg and sperm donor. Ended up with 5 embryos I believe. First implant from that took, and now we have a 15 month little terror/bundle of joy.

It is a hard journey, but one that we are immensely glad we took, since it provided the family we desperately wanted. We are about to start another implant cycle soon, to hopefully give a child a sibling.

Talking about it, I feel, makes it less stressful. By all means, and without hesitation, if anyone wants to talk, let me know.

My wife and I were also in this boat, 3 miscarriages in 2 years. Finally went the IUI/IVF route (after playing games with insurance) and now have a little spit fire 2 year old girl (also have an 8 year old girl who was born without any IVF treatments). I am more than open to discuss our process and share my wife's crazy journey with the shots..... you think it's hard getting a shot, try having to give them to someone. Plus I was adopted by my parents at 2 weeks old so I know quite a bit about that process also.

Amazing how within 10 minutes two beautiful and real stories emerge... it's more than just wedge and driver reviews.

we did iui a couple times and got pregnant with our first before ivf came into play. we lost one after our first came long. number 2 happened without help.

we felt so alone, like everyone around us was having kids they didn’t even want. then we stepped foot in the fertility clinic and saw just how common it really is.

my sister in law cannot have children, and infertility runs in my wife’s family. never explained.

i have one comment and i hope it comes across as lovingly as i mean it. the resolution my wife and i came to before we had our first is this: we were a family regardless of whether children were a part of our script.


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My Sister-in-Law (Wife's Sister) and Brother-in-Law had to go this same route after some of the same issues.
Finally on their 5th and final try, got pregnant and we just celebrated her 2nd birthday on Sunday.
I personally didn't go thru this, but I did with them. I've never been so happy as I was for them.
I wish You and your Wife the best of Luck!! And I pray it works out for you both.

I posted this story in another thread a while back. I was married for 14 years to my first wife. She had a 6 month old baby when I met her. I later on adopted him and made him my son. We tried and tried to have a baby. It never happened. After 2-3 years, we both went to the doctor. She was fine...like we already knew. I, on the other hand, was not. The doctor said it was almost impossible for me to father kids. He said even with medicine, hormones, etc. I have >5% chance of fathering children. So, this bothered me for a long time and eventually I came to terms with it! After 14 years, we get divorced. I'm in a bad place..depressed, etc. Around a year later, I start dating again. I'm seeing my girlfriend(now wife) for less than 2 months. We live 200 miles apart. See each other every 2nd/3rd weekend and holidays. Well, one day she told me she was a day late and she is never late. She asks me to pickup a pregnancy test at the drug store. So, I do! She takes it and it's positive! She then starts fussing at me because it has to be wrong because I bought the generic CVS test. Well, she goes to her doctor the next day and sure enough she was pregnant. That was 3 years ago! And, I just found out 2 weeks ago...she is pregnant again with our 2nd child. I am living proof that even when you lose all hope...it still can happen! I tell everybody you might not get it when you want it...but, you'll get it when you need it the most! Always keep the faith! Life has a funny way of working out!

dduarte85 said:

Amazing how within 10 minutes two beautiful and real stories emerge... it's more than just wedge and driver reviews.

Click to expand...

always has been.....and always will be my friend. I too am an open book on this subject but never started a thread about it. Many on here know the struggles my wife and I have had. We've lost one after it taking 16+ months to conceive and starting consultations......we conceived naturally. Due to the kind of miscarriage it was, my wife was forced to wait a full 10-11 months prior to starting up again. When that time hit.....we werent ready emotionally. After a few months we decided to startup again naturally and once again, not conceiving. It has been another year, 3 different round of IUI and still nothing.

Yes, IVF is an op[tion. Yes its a real option but you my friend are one of a very few lucky ones that will have "very little out of pocket" costs associated with IVF. I work for an insurance company and our coverage is phenomenal. Yet, it covers nothing for IVF. With that being said it covers unlimited IUI's at very little cost to us out of pocket. We have consulted with the top doctors in Ohio on the matter and they have started to recommend us thinking about IVF. I have a minor issuer with this from the mere fact that there is nothing factual or theoretical they can pinpoint that is indicating an actual problem.
-ive had all my tests and numbers are through the roof.
-shes had every test under the sun and again.....nothing to point to at all.
-everytime we go in for an IUI treatment....."everything looks perfect for you and your wife. Follicles are great!! Count is great! Size is great! Etc etc etc

My issue lies in the overall cost. A non guaranteed IVF treatment to work only helps the percentages by 15% more.....15%!!?!?!? $16,000 for 15% more isnt enough for me to spend the $16k right now when my IUIs are unlimited and very little cost out of pocket. I understand everyone is different and i am thrilled that you have that great of coverage! I wish we did.....but i will never let money get in the way of me having a family at somepoint.

Unfortunately im a very very very pragmatic black and white thinker. The %s of an IUI vs IVF working are only 15% difference. I cant wrap my head around $16k for a 35% chance of getting pregnant via IVF knowing multiple people who have done 2-3 rounds of IVF and been unsuccessful. I also know a few who have done it, and the very first time it worked wonderfully.

None the less.....we have taken two months off from IUI treatments recently and went back to natural conception methods. Theres nothing more boring and monotonous than "scheduling" that personal part of your life. Sometimes you just need to take a step back....breathe....and think about the fact that the natural method, timed the right way is just about as effective. Best of luck my friend and know im here for ya if you ever ever ever need anything.

Up here in Canada, there is a pretty decent tax credit available should you go forward with IVF. I believe it was 60% is refunded (we paid all of it out of pocket). Health insurance covered a ton of the meds (which is most of the cost of the programs here).

Since we did IVF and welcomed our son, one of the wife's best friends also went through it and welcomed their first child here a month or so ago.

We have middle of the road insurance and we are covered for 4 rounds of IVF per live birth, the only out of pocket expense is if we go down the IVF with generic selection which increases success rate from miscarriage.

It’s a double edge sword, we haven’t had an issue conceiving naturally but we lost both babies around the 10 week mark.

Blood tests, chromosomal testing, counts etc all came back normally. It’s been quite the journey, essentially my wife is pretty beaten down. Two D&C’s followed by a 3rd (for “remaining product” - oh that’s nice) because they messed up lead to a diagnosis of Ashermans Syndrome. Luckily Boston has one of the best specialists in the world, Dr Isaacson who specializes in Ashermans... we waited 2 months for an appointment. He conducted a hystercopy and determined she was actually DID NOT have Ashermans and scarring was minimal at less than 10%.

So here we are, a year later... trying again.

A lot of pain in the heart and guilt... guilt because I told my mom the first time and didn’t wait until the 2nd trimester. I kind of robbed her of that initial reaction of joy. Now pregnancy is a hold your breath and hope it sticks thing.

DDuarte85- First of all, great job making this public. That took a lot of courage. This is a sensitive topic and too many couples suffer silently. I know first hand because my wife and i did for years. We tried for 14 years, had 8 miscarriages, including twins at 30+ weeks. We did multiple rounds of IVF after we lost our twins, we basically gave up. It was the lowest time in our lives. Fast forward a few years and we decided to use a surrogate with left over embryos from previous failed IVF rounds. Our experience was amazing and our little boy was born March of 2016. A few weeks later we found out my wife was pregnant naturally and my little girl was born Jan. of 2017. Both of my kids are miracles and blessings that I could have never imagined while we were going thru our struggles. If you ever need to talk with someone who has been there, please call me (DM me for contact info). Or if your wife wants to chat with mine, she is always open and willing to help and give advice and support. In fact, we have been working on a non-profit for couples suffering with infertility. Seriously, it will get better and you have so many options now-a-days. Hang in there and please reach out if you're comfortable with it.

When you get married at 40, as we did, you kind of know that you'll be fighting long odds. We tried the natural way, but didn't waste much time moving into the fertility process. As someone else mentioned, until you get into the game you don't realize how common it is. We went through IUI and through two IVF cycles with a wonderful local doctor, but never got very far. We were very fortunate never to have the buildup and heartbreak of a miscarriage. My heart goes out to those who did. After the second IVF failed, we were really at a crossroads and went through some counseling. Our doctor had shared the extremely low success rates for a third try at our age, and I was ready to quit throwing good money and emotional stress after bad. But my wife decided that she couldn't go through the rest of her life without having given it every possible chance, and I could understand that.

Our doctor told us that he would be happy to try again, but that it wasn't likely that there would be any different result from the same procedure. He recommended a different doctor in Denver who had the highest success rates in the country with older mothers. There was a lot that happened after that, but the end result was that we hit the jackpot and got a healthy baby girl when we were both around our 43rd birthday. This fall, she will be headed off to high school.

Our insurance only covered two tries at IVF, but we went for it anyway and it turned out that we got reimbursement for most of the drugs on the third try, which is a major part of it.

In the 14 years since, I expect that fertility medicine has continued to advance, but I also expect that insurance coverage may have gone the other way. But I wouldn't let that stand in the way - if you are committed to paying for a child for 18 years, the upfront cost will get lost. And if you are committed to being a parent, the costs don't matter anyway.

When the wife and I got married, we both knew we wanted kids. We tried, and tried, and tired. Three years … nothing. Went to the fertility doctor and he gave us a 3% chance of conceiving naturally. Told us he could "double our chances". Then told us to talk to his finance people so we could figure out a payment plan for fertility treatments. Wife was desperate, I was shocked … hell, if I had known this medical field was primarily cash only with no serious expectations of success, I'd have gone to medical school.

At any rate, we talk ourselves off of the ledge and say we'll consider IUI. Months of hormone injections, early morning runs to the hospital, yada yada yada … no luck. And whomever thought HGH was a good idea for weight loss … f**k you. It doesn't work, and it's jacked up the prices for its use as a fertility drug. The road is already expensive, you don't need to make it worse for us because you want to shed a few pounds without diet and exercise. But anyways … I digress.

After about 6 rounds of this, I ask the wife to consider adoption. We were stressing out, not really in an emotional state to get pregnant anyways. So we dove into adoption, or rather … the foster care system. We took all the training, got the home visits, and had the paperwork all ready to go. We also had feelers out with friends who worked at the local hospitals … if someone came in and said they were pregnant, didn't want an abortion, but didn't want the child … we'd take it. We had a couple of potential leads but nothing. Along the same time, we know a couple who had as bad a chance of conceiving naturally as us. They're both in the medical profession, and he started doing some research about how they handle things elsewhere. He came across an OTC called DHEA. Supposedly it has lots of promise as a fertility drug. So the wife buys a bottle and starts taking it, and we're proceeding with the foster care to adopt route. Literally two days before we hand in our paperwork, wife misses her period. Takes a test and … pregnant. Whether it was because we shifted our focus or the DHEA did the trick, I don't know. We have two healthy boys now, 5 and 2.

I think we'll still do the foster parent thing … maybe not to adopt now like we had planned … but definitely to help kids in need. Once our boys get a bit older so they can properly communicate with us if they see something out of the ordinary, I think we'll open our home up.

Definitely one of those topics that in the moment you feel alone and like you all are the only ones going through it, and when you ask the question or bring up your own story, then you realize that there is nothing further from the truth.

After two years of trying and a miscarriage, we went the IUI route (3-4 cycles) with no success thinking we weren't willing to go the IVF route. About that time we moved within the same company and realized that the insurance at the new location was much better (at least covered some costs), we established at a new office and did decide that we would do one or two IVF cycles. Our first produced just two embryos, but did give us our now almost 11 year old son.

Similar to some other stories, two years later we decided we weren't willing to go to those lengths attempting for a sibling, but within three months were pregnant with my now almost 9 year old.

Sadly, we are one of the many that gave up hope. My wife and I tried for 12 years. In that time, we had a total of 6 miscarriages, with one being lost at 22 weeks. By the time I hit 40, were were to a point where we just didn't want to go through the heartbreak anymore. We went through all the fertility tests numerous times and the only info we got was we're part of the 15% that is "unexplained." We had done quite a few inseminations during that time frame, but never did IVF.

We're happy though. We have nieces we take care of part of the year, and plenty of friends with kids. And... we get to be those annoying friends that buy your kids the most loud, obnoxious toys we can find.

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We had our one daughter on our 4th IUI. Next step was IVF, so we got lucky. We tried for a second child again via IUI but it didn’t work. We considered IVF, but were a bit nervous about all involved. We are VERY grateful for our little lassie, now 5yrs old.
Best wishes to those out there that go through this, it’s unbelievably stressful.

I want to leave with a hopeful post: i have a friend who went through every conceivable option out there, literally dozens of times over with his wife. After over ten years of trying, they finally had a daughter. So I think even when hope os thin or perhaps lost, there may still be a chance. I started crying when they told me they were pregnant, knowing what they went through over the years....


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Looks like starting tomorrow we are back on the program again, gearing up for another implantation!

braddman19 said:

Looks like starting tomorrow we are back on the program again, gearing up for another implantation!

Click to expand...

Good luck man! We have an ovulation cycle coming and we're going to give this one last shot naturally.

Today was the day, embryo implanted..... now we wait until June 7th I believe for the wife's next test to see if we are expecting.

Fingers Crossed.

braddman19 said:

Today was the day, embryo implanted..... now we wait until June 7th I believe for the wife's next test to see if we are expecting.

Fingers Crossed.

Click to expand...

Good luck! Happy thoughts, prayers and good karma coming your way.


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braddman19 said:

Today was the day, embryo implanted..... now we wait until June 7th I believe for the wife's next test to see if we are expecting.

Fingers Crossed.

Click to expand...

Good luck!

braddman19 said:

Today was the day, embryo implanted..... now we wait until June 7th I believe for the wife's next test to see if we are expecting.

Fingers Crossed.

Click to expand...

Good luck!

braddman19 said:

Today was the day, embryo implanted..... now we wait until June 7th I believe for the wife's next test to see if we are expecting.

Fingers Crossed.

Click to expand...

Good luck. The two week wait is the worst.

We are going to be ramping up for another cycle after we get back from Europe in July. We are lucky to have our 10 month old who is an IVF baby. Just know that you arent alone going through all of this mess. Let me know if you ever want to chat/vent about it.

We are fortunate, that we already have our 16 month old, from our last IVF cycle.

The 2 weeks wait is terrible, the worst for me though was the wait between the pregnancy test and to hear a heartbeat. I was all sorts of nervous then.

Our IVF Clinic closes for a month in the summer, and luckily we got in right before they leave for their vacation.

Today was test day, and unfortunately not the result we were looking for.

Wife is very let down, she was convinced she had all the same signs when we had our son.

Not a good start to an already awkward weekend.