Marie: UD Questions on Fertility - Please Help (pg & m/c ment)

[Guest guest]

Hi Marie,

I had a complete SU, which has a much worse pregnancy outcome than UD (UD is

pretty rosy, actually). Had it partially resected. My husband is sterile,

too, so our fertility problem was solved with donor sperm. I also tried

meds but found them to be unnecessary in my case. No endo here.

<<1.) Has anyone out there struggled with fertility problems, gone

through treatment, and then lost the baby due to the MA issues? I

would like to hear your input.>>

I had trouble with an incompetent cervix. If we had known about the MA we

might have saved that baby.

<<2.) Has anyone out there struggled with fertility problems, gone

through treatment, and had a successful pregnancy? I would like to

hear your story.>>

After 18 IUIs and numerous pregnancies (including one from pre-marriage

days), we had our baby a year ago. My story is plastered all over the

archives :-)

<<4.) Has anyone out there done fertility injections and then chose to

not do the IUI and did you acheive a pg?>>

As someone with a UD, you probably could pull off having twins better than I

could, with a partially resected, perforated SU. I chose to quit doing

Pergonal and Clomid because not only were they not helping me conceive more

quickly, but I did not want multiples of any sort.

If you do have too many follicles and choose not to do the IUI, you'll also

skip the hCG trigger, so your follicles may just involute or luteinize

without rupturing. There is still a risk of pregnancy, though, so you

should not have unprotected sex if you are too scared to go ahead with an

IUI in a risky situation.

<<5.) Can anyone tell me any first-hand stories of being in a

situation where you were told you needed to do a selective reduction

and what did you do?>>

This is second-hand and sadly incredible: a woman I knew with a normal

uterus conceived triplets, reduced by one, and lost the remaining two. Then

she tried again and conceived 6, reduced to one (nearly unheard of, but this

woman was stubborn) and lost the one, also. Then she conceived triplets,

left it all to nature, and lost all three. She and her doctor were horribly

irresponsible to have gone ahead with IUIs, given her history.

A friend of mine with a normal uterus conceived four and reduced to one.

Then she went into PTL and lost the remaining girl at 26 weeks. They feel

it had something to do with reducing by so many. She says the " reduced "

babies do persist and may irritate the uterus, cause infection, etc.

But plenty of people have no trouble with SR. I think it is far less risky

to the pregnancy if just one or two are reduced.

Such an impossible, heart-breaking choice to have to make. This is a big

reason why I stopped using stims.

<<6.) Am I right to think that b/c of my MA and my Endo that we should

not be wasting time and we should jump right into the treatments or

do I have time to wait and save money and stuff?>>

I would say that the endo puts you under some time pressure, or could,

anyhow. Doesn't seem to affect *all* people's fertility, my mother's

included. If it is ovarian, you may have a little bit harder time of it.

I am very sorry that your insurance doesn't cover infertility. This is more

common than not, unfortunately. My insurance didn't cover much,

either--just testing and corrective surgery for the septum.

You need to talk to your RE and see if doing IUIs is worth the time, money

and risk of multiples. You may need several cycles, and there is a hidden

cost of time taken off work to do monitoring, the IUI itself, with your

husband included. It's not as stressful as doing IVF, but it does compare.

And IUI does not provide the incidental diagnostics of

fertilization/hatching problems; IVF does. Furthermore, IUI gives you a

4-18% success rate in a given cycle, and the 18% rate would be for a

youngish patient, probably not with endo. Male factor couples have

approximately an 8% per cycle success rate. IVF, on the other hand, gives

about a 45% success rate per cycle. It can be a lot more expensive than

IUI, but then again, it can save money and time. In your shoes I would not

give IUI too many trials, probably no more than three or four. My husband

and I did donor IUI 18 times, but we had several pregnancies to show for it,

so we kept on going.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Beth

SU, resected x 2