IVF or reversal after vasectomy- advice needed

[eggoff]

DH had a vasectomy 3 years ago. We thought we were done and youngest DD was an emergency CS and we were both unwell afterwards but completely recovered thankfully. Over the past 6 months I have had the most intense broody feelings. I have literally questioned my sanity at times as I have hoped against hope that somehow I might still get pregnant as everyone seems to know someone this has happened to. On a rational level of course I know this will not happen and our two options are reversal and IVF using ICSI.

I just wondered if anyone has any experience of this kind of dilemma and if you could offer any advice? I am 39 so the clock is ticking, which makes me lean more towards IVF. On the other hand, with IVF you only have two or three cycles in which it has got to work whereas with a successful reversal, you can in theory try for more cycles naturally and hope for the best.

Sorry one other thing to add is that DH has, understandably, quite a lot of reservations about a reversal, having gone through the vasectomy in the first place. The option of IVF for him involves a much more minor procedure to basically get some sperm out, but is a more invasive process for me.

It's a difficult one. We chose to do IVF as DH had a vasectomy quite a few years ago so less chance of reversal working. Also I have endometriosis so there was a fair chance of me having problems conceiving anyway. And I'm crap with hormonal contraceptives so having a vasectomy is pretty useful. Be warned though, I'm not sure DH would agree it's a minor procedure. They couldn't get enough sperm from the epididymis so he had to have his bollocks kebabed multiple times with a very large hollow needle to take cores of tissue. He had major swelling for weeks. Happily our one cycle worked and we now have an 8 month old.

Thanks welsh for sharing and I'm so happy for you that it worked!

I guess the IVF option would be less intense than a whole reversal surgery with stitches etc for DH. I think if it came to the crunch he possibly would not go through with it having had the vasectomy in the first place. We actually had no fertility issues or problems conceiving before so its hard to accept that we basically destroyed our fertility in this way (we really did think we were sure about the vasectomy but I deeply regret it now).

IVF is so much more expensive though and I am worried about spending thousands and having nothing to show at the end of it.

But IVF is way more invasive for you! And the money has to be a factor. Having a reversal is relatively cheap, we paid 10k for one cycle of IVF (having sperm retrieval and ISCI bumps the costs up hugely).

Wow its a huge amount of money. I had no idea one cycle could be so much, I thought we might get two cycles for that. I know the IVF would be more invasive for me but I'm the one driving this if I'm honest, DH would be happy enough to leave it. So while we are still trying to make a decision overall, I think he is more likely to agree to getting some sperm taken out than to have another surgery. I mean women regularly have surgery to give birth but its a different concept for men.