Donor sperm - iui or ivf?

[MrsDarcy4092]

Hello

What's generally recommended for a couple with good female fertility using donor due to severe male infertility? Would we still be looking at ivf?

Thanks!

It's something to talk through with your clinic, really. Will you be having NHS treatment, or private?

IUI is basically a lot cheaper, and more straightforward (less drugs, fewer procedures) but has significantly lower odds of success than IVF. IVF is more expensive, more drugs, and involves egg retrieval which is surgery under sedation, but has better chances of working.

It's quite common for people to go for a few IUIs to begin with, and then switch to IVF after, say, three rounds, if they haven't had success.

We're private patients and I fit the criteria just need to lose a bit more weight which I plan to do anyway.

I read that iui stats and was shocked at how low they are!

I know, you sort of assume that because of Science! it should be way higher odds, and then it totally isn't.

For me (single, so using donor sperm) I actually chose to go straight for IVF, but largely because I was, I think 38 at the time, so the clock was ticking somewhat on my eggs, and the indications were that they might not be great (as indeed they proved not to be). But if I were younger, I'd probably have tried a few IUIs first just to go in at the less full-on level of treatment.

I'm glad I did iui. Iui is really simple so it didn't matter to me that it was likely to take more attempts. With ivf or medicated iui you have a high risk of ovarian cancer for a few years so that is worth taking into account some of the clinics will follow you up with scans I think to manage the risk.

That's interesting. I actually read it's the infertility that increased the risk of ovarian cancer not the drugs so a woman undergoing ivf due to male infertility had no increased risk. It was a study by ucl in 2015.

So much to consider.