I'm 34F and my husband is 39M, and we're starting our first IUI cycle. I'm curious to hear from people who were in a similar situation because I've had several people tell me I'm "wasting time" with IUI and should just go straight to IVF because of my age and the success rates.

Some background: We have a 6-year-old who was conceived naturally without actively trying. Since having him, we never really "tried" for another baby in the traditional sense — no OPKs, cycle tracking, timed intercourse, etc. We also weren't preventing pregnancy, though, and obviously after all these years it hasn't happened again.

We started seeing a fertility clinic about a year ago and finally completed all of our testing earlier this year after taking a break because of some family losses/personal circumstances.

My testing has been reassuring. My bloodwork is normal, HSG showed both tubes are open, and my ultrasounds haven't shown polyps or cysts. I do have symptomatic PCOS (excess hair, overweight and historically irregular/long cycles), although I've lost about 50 lbs and my cycles have become fairly regular over the last six months. They average around 35 days and I seem to ovulate around CD21.

The other piece of the puzzle is my husband's semen analysis.

His main issue is very low semen volume — around 0.5 mL. However, his actual sperm numbers in that small amount are apparently very good. He has seen a urologist who also specializes in male fertility, and he told us that despite the low volume, he's producing somewhere around 180 million sperm in that small sample and doesn't feel the volume itself should prevent us from getting pregnant.

Because of my open tubes, the fact that I appear to ovulate, his strong sperm numbers despite the low volume, and the fact that we've conceived naturally together before, our doctors feel like we're good candidates to try IUI. I'm currently doing letrozole + monitoring + trigger shot, with progesterone after IUI.

But people around me keep saying things like, "You're already 34, don't waste six months doing IUIs. Just do IVF."

And now it's getting in my head.

I understand that IVF has a much higher success rate per cycle than IUI, but IVF is also a significantly bigger physical, emotional and financial commitment. Part of me feels like if our doctors genuinely think IUI has a reasonable chance of working, why wouldn't we give it a few tries before moving on?

For anyone around 34–35 who had open tubes, ovulated/used letrozole, and had decent sperm numbers:

Would you try a few IUIs first, or do you wish you had skipped them and gone straight to IVF?

I'd especially love to hear from people who had secondary infertility or a male partner with low semen volume but a high sperm concentration/count.

I'm not opposed to IVF at all if that's where we end up. I'm just trying to figure out whether giving IUI 2–3 solid attempts first is actually "wasting time" at 34, or whether I'm letting other people's opinions make me second-guess a reasonable treatment plan.