IUI or IVF

[TinaSetz]

Hi there!  New to the forum.  My details: 37 years old, Husband: 49 years.  We've been trying to conceive for about 18 mos.  We were pregant once and misscarried at week 8 (blighted ovum).  I have minor issue with tube opening as my doctor said there may have been some past infection. My eggs are good and my cycles are regular.  Husband has normal, good sperm quality.  Had a discussion with our fertility doctor this morning about our options.  Although we can do IUI or IVF, she threw out the idea of us going straight to IVF simply for the fact that we'd like to have at least 2 children and doing IVF allows us to harvest my 37 year old eggs for our next go around. (which we assume would be when I'm about 39 or 40 years old).  

Expense associated would be $2,000/cycle for IUI and $12,000/cycle for IVF.  Part of me wants to try IUI first with meds to see what happens naturally in my body but part of me is attracted to the possibility of having eggs ready for the second try.  I think my husband is leaning towards IUI because he is scared of defects and just the fact that it is so clinical...."conception in a lab dish"  Its so helpful to read and hear about all of your experiences.  Did anyone grapple with a similar issue??  Any insight would help.  thanks!!

[daisygirl1]

I was also in this situation where my fertility doctor recommended that I go straight to IVF because of my age (36 at the time) and desire for at least two children (although if you ask my husband he will cynically tell you that their IVF recommendation was to capitalize on my great insurance that covered up to $10k of fertility services/year).  We had also been trying on our own for 18 months and learned that he had low motility sperm.

We did IVF and got pregnant but miscarried at 9 weeks.  IVF was a very time intensive (MANY doctors appts) and invasive process (harvesting eggs, some of the injections are not bad but progesterone is rough).  I never actually felt pregnant which probably should've been an indicator that it wasn't going to stick.  Two months later (with insurance $$ run out) we started IUI cycles along with clomid.  On the second cycle, we got pregnant and had DD this past September.  I immediately felt pregnant and was so grateful that I wouldn't have to do progesterone all over again.  Just like anyone who has had a miscarriage, we were nervous throughout the pregnancy but everything turned out fine.

I am thankful in someways that I have the IVF eggs 'on ice' as a fall back if we can't get pregnant with #2 on our own or with IUI.  However, if I had to do it again, I would've gone straight to IUI.  
Good luck!