5th failed iui

[rosylouise]

Hello,

Ive just got a negative on my 5th iui trying for our 2nd child. I conceived my 1st on my 5th iui five years ago. I’m feeling very deflated today and unsure as what to do next? I’m worrying about age gaps and how long to keep going for. I know I should probably consider IVF but it just seems such a big step when I’ve conceived before. Sorry for the poor me rant.
Does anyone have a similar story?
We are using a donor due to male factor infertility and would love to connect to more parents in a similar situation.

You are absolutely allowed a poor me rant. The negative test is a really heart sinking moment.

I switched to IVF with ICSI after my fourth failed IUI. I had two fresh and two frozen transfers, and the last attempt worked. It was certainly a tough road, but it worked for me.

I have friends who went through 19 rounds of IUI before conceiving their son!

Wishing you all the best for your journey.

Hi OP. Was the same as you this time last year, only I'd had 9 rounds. Same thing - donor IUI, male factor. We'd previously tired 2 rounds of ICSI with my partner which failed.

Honestly, IUI has such a low chance of success. It's about 10% each time, if that, depending on your age. It's really not that different to having sex one time a month and expecting to get pregnant - people try for 2 years that way before it happens!

We had a single round of IVF with donor sperm. ONE. And it worked, first time.

I so wish that I had not put myself through all that heartache of that many IUI procedures.

It doesn't matter that you've conceived before - you can be a young, healthy, fertile female, and IUI can still take forever to work, just like natural conception can.

IVF is much more likely to have success.

Thank you @Latenightreader I’m feeling better now and keeping busy.

Thats a journey, congratulations on your wee one. Do you have remaining embryos?
I am leaning towards IVF but also slightly dreading the process! 19 rounds, wow! Was that with donor sperm?

@PregnantAtLast Thank you for the advice and sharing your story (9 iui procedures is a lot, well done) and congratulations! It’s nice to hear from someone in the same situation, I only have friends where the fertility issue lies with the female. How’s your partner coped?

I am leaning towards IVF now (something I thought I’d never want to do) although dreading it at the same time, I think this round has hurt a lot more as I conceived my first on the 5th round while we were waiting for IVF consultations.

@rosylouise I think you just have to remember that not getting pregnant after 5 rounds of IUI is not any kind of failure on your part. At all.

I say that because I got so much 'advice' from people when I didn't conceive after 9 rounds of IUI.

I was fertile and in my early 30's, with no issues - no less likely to conceive than anyone else. The issue was that my partner had an extremely low sperm count, and the sperm he did have were not normal.

It made me feel shit to be honest because people just seem so reluctant to acknowledge that a fertility issue can be with only a man (not that I blamed my husband either, I just did not like all of their suggestions on how to make myself somehow magically more fertile. The truth was that IUI procedure simply had a very low chance of working each time, no matter how fertile I was).

I would really recommend donor conception network and some of the whatsapp groups/ meetups to discus things, they've really helped us both and they have male factor specific groups for hetero couples as well.

I know it's easy for me to say from the other side, but try not to be scared about the IVF, it can be hard but you'll be OK, and it has such a higher chance of working. It will all be so worth it if it does. Everything crossed for you.

Hi Op. Sorry you’re going through this, I did 2 rounds of IUI & then moved across to IVF which worked first time, I found it psychologically much better as we had more info. IUI felt like a stab in the dark for me so to speak. No fertility issues for me, donor sperm. My clinic said after 3 goes maybe switch to IVF but after 2 I felt like our money was better spent on IVF. We are fortunate to have stored embryos if we would like more too, so this is a route I would recommend if it’s within your means. Good luck!

Thank you, I think it’s good to hear it straight up and I agree. Did you decide on 9 iuis or your clinic and were you using a donor by then?
Thank you, I’ll look into the groups. I’ve done a lot of counselling on that side before and during my first pregnancy.

I am going to phone the clinic and get the ball rolling.
Can I ask how long your ivf process took before first transfer? Sorry for all the questions!

Thank you very much @Btowngirl
I totally agree! Any IVF tips advice? I’d take all of it!

Yes donor sperm for my IVF, and for my friends too. My daughter was my final embryo and I'm so glad I don't need to make the decision about what to do with any remaining ones (I only ever wanted one child).

No problem!

Honestly from a self care point of view I would say that I felt very similar to the IUI in terms of the medications. The egg retrieval was fine due to the sedation, I wouldn’t do it without which I have heard some clinics do. If you can afford it, take the 5 days post transfer off and really spend the time chilling (easier said than done). Be kind to yourself, all the usual things.

We used embryo glu. I’ll never know but I do feel that it contributed to first time success so I would also recommend looking into that. Check if your clinic would do ICSI - some do standard IVF then convert to ICSI if necessary. Personally if finances are available I would only go for ICSI for (hopefully) increased success. Think about what you would do with any other embryos, we do want another child but have 6 in the freezer. It’s piece of mind to have them but I am always thinking about what we will do with any we still have when we know we don’t want more children!

Feel free to message if you have any other questions!

Thank you @Btowngirl i really appreciate all this advice, I will certainly ask about ICSI now. Can I ask how long the whole process took? I haven’t had my afc or any done for two years so it’s probably declined, but when I had it checked it was of normal range with a high risk of over stimulation so I think I’d be on the antagonist protocol. Can I also ask how many times you had to go in for scans during stimulation? I live very far away from any clinic so it’s going to involve a lot of planning! Thank you so much!

No problem what’s so ever!

I’ve just gone back and looked at my calendar, my day 1 was 21st Jan, egg retrieval 2nd Feb and embryo transfer was 7th Feb so 18 days all in. I had trans vaginal scans on 29th and 31st Jan so it was a fairly quick process to be honest with around 4 face to face appts (not including base line scans/bloods prior, but you may need them or not depending what you’ve already had). Didn’t feel quick at the time though!

I feel you with the clinic distance, ours is 2 hours each way so that part was a drag. I used to treat myself at the services each time 😆

Basically we had 2 rounds of ICSI in 2021 with my partner's sperm which didn't work and I struggled with the treatment (I got OHSS, which was actually the clinic's fault the second time round for not reviewing and changing my meds as they should have... but that's another story!)

Anyway, because I'd had such a difficult time with ICSI and it was so unlikely to work (it was like a 2-4% chance with my partner's sperm), we decided it would be best to just come to terms with using a donor and not put me through that again. So we did all the emotional work etc of coming to terms with that, joined donor conception network, went to all the events, did the research, etc.

My partner also has a health condition (which is the cause of his infertility) - and it may or may not be something that could be passed to a potential child, we don't know. It just seemed better all around to use a donor.

We then started private IUI (because I was fertile so no reason to think it wouldn't work) - we did 9 rounds because I'd found IVF so difficult and really didn't want to go back to it after the OHSS. We knew the chances of IUI working were only about 8-10% each month, but like you I was scared of the IVF, so we just kept doing it.

After trying with that for about a year, we were told we'd now be entitled to another round of IVF on the NHS (the funding had changed from 2 to 3 rounds in our area), so we went onto a waiting list (for a year!) for that.

After waiting a year, we were told that they wouldn't fund it if we used a donor - even though we already had the sperm in storage - because it was 'our choice' to use a donor. There was a 2-4% chance that ICSI would work with my partner's sperm so they wanted us to go through that again. By this point I was in my mid-30's and my partner in his mid-40's.

Honestly - I was so angry at that point, being left on a waiting list for a whole year only to be told no, I just couldn't stand the idea of continuing treatment at that clinic. They'd also made other mistakes and we were both feeling pretty resentful and traumatised by the whole thing.

So we switched to a private clinic in London on the recommendation of a friend, who were absolutely amazing.

I did IVF with donor sperm late last year. I didn't have any bad reactions at all, no OHSS (because they put me on the right medication!), it was very easy and smooth. I got pregnant with the very first embryo transfer.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked still, that I got pregnant so quickly after all this time and pain.

So I would say - yes, go for IVF/ ICSI - it will be fine - but do choose your clinic carefully!

@rosylouise Oh and to answer the question about how long it took... we had our first appointment with the London clinic in June, egg collection in August, transfer in November.

I needed an frozen transfer rather than fresh, which meant I had to wait at least a month after egg collection. They could have done it in October, but I was travelling, which added another month and made it November.

If you do a fresh transfer, it's shortly after the egg collection, so it would have been August/ September.

So it was about 5 months for me, but could have been as little as 3 months, from initial appointment to transfer.

This was with a very good/ efficient clinic and I think that's about as fast as it's possible to do it.

We also didn't have to buy sperm as we already had some in storage from the same donor we'd used for the IUI's, we just got it sent to the new clinic, so that didn't add any time, and I'd had all my baseline blood tests etc already.

I had 6 failed IUI’s with donor sperm at age 37. Even with my older age, because I was single (so had never tried to conceive before) and had no obvious fertility issues I thought it was worth trying first - as like you I assumed IVF would be more invasive.

In hindsight I would have been better to have gone straight to IVF - I didn’t find the injections an issue (on the contrary, I kind of felt like I was more in control of doing something about my fertility iykwim?), even egg collection wasn’t bad with the sedation. The pessaries are a pain but I think you might need them anyway if you are successful when doing a medicated IUI too? In fact the most annoying/painful part of IVF is the embryo insertion imo- but it felt exactly the same with the IUI (speculums are evil!)

Though I do wish they would tell you it typically often takes at least 2 rounds of IVF, if not 3 to be successful (I finally conceived my DS on my 2nd round at 40) because the first can sometimes be a case of figuring out how you respond to the medication and obviously they can make changes to it more easily for the next attempt/s.

Personally I think you are doing the right thing looking at IVF - imo IUI works best for (younger) single women or lesbian couples who can’t try to conceive naturally or heterosexual couples who have a known fertility issue that the IUI bypasses. Because I’m sure I read that for most male/female couples, statistically IUI isn’t much more successful than just trying naturally would be, so I think you got really lucky it worked for DC1❤️ Hopefully you’ll have more luck this time with IVF 🤞