IUI - after 5 rounds of ICSI to try natural insemination - are we crazy?

[Luckystarfour]

Hi there - out next steps do not seem typical and because of this we are really struggling to know what to do!

In a nutshell we hae had 5 failed rounds of ICSI - the last a split round using donor sperm and my hubbies sperm on the same cycle. That round we were lucky enough to time having the new embryoscopy. We had always been led to believe that my hubby's sperm was the issue, he went through TESSA for sperm collection since his sperm had less than 1% normal morphology.

In this last round however it turned out all of the donor sperm fertilised eggs were genetically affected,indicating that my eggs had to be a factor on that round.

We are therefore left in the position of thinking is this enough evidence to indicate my eggs are faulty? The last round I was stimulated more and it was my fifth round in two years - I had 19 eggs collected - were my eggs affected, we will never know!

We now need to make the choice about whether to have a double donor round next - egg and sperm.

On the one hand we feel we have never had a natural chance of me having good quality sperm in the right place at the right time without the influences of drugs. This makes us question whether IUI but without drugs (wed just use an HCG trigger shot) is worth a shot. It feels alot to give up on my natural chance to be a biological mother based on one round and unconfirmed information.

Are we crazy though to consider IUI (without drugs) at this stage? The chances of success is 33% over three rounds.

Or should we be going ahead with the double donor round now. We are 35 and so we feel we have time and the IUI without drugs will only delay us for 3 months.

So confused!!

[freelancescientist]

For a minute I thought you were suggesting unstimulated IUI with hubby's TESE sperm and that would be crazy.
It is worth a try with donor sperm though. Sometimes the ovarian stimulation CAN be a problem.
Bear in mind that the 33% chance over 3 rounds is most likely not drawn from a patient population made up of couples who have had multiple failed ICSI cycles though, but from a group of women who have (or the majority have) no infertility issues themselves.