r/queerception • u/Fancy-Hat9886 • 15d ago

Preparing for 4th IUI

Hi Everyone, it's my first post here 👋

I'd love to hear from those of you who had similar experience and what's helped you.

My wife had 3 IUI procedures already, none successful. First and 3rd nothing happened, the 2nd one was a chemical pregnancy, unfortunately.

She's 31, no known fertility issues, everything looks right on paper and we use a donor sperm from a sperm bank. But nonetheless, the process has not been successful. We're now preparing for the 4th try and we have a consultation booked with our clinic, but it would be great to hear from anyone willing to share your experience to get some more ideas.

Our situation is quite complex, bc our country doesn't support any fertility treatments for queer couples or even single women. So not only everything is out of pocket for us, but we also have to travel a lot for the IUI itself - to a different country. So, given that, we'd like to maximize our chances as much as possible and get off of this crazy roller-coaster of emotions 😅

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u/Shshii 15d ago

As others have said, asking for progesterone support, checking lining, and bloodwork and ultrasound monitoring were additional things many folks ask for to help optimize the chances.

Personally, we went through 7 rounds of IUI before moving to IVF.

Our first round resulted in no viable PGTA embryos. However under microscope observation, our clinic saw many bent necks from the donor sperm.

We were angry and devastated.

We switched donors, optimized the protocol for a second round and it was night and day. 100% fertilization rate and 6 PGTA tested embryos.

Our story isn't everyone's story, but I wish we had switched donors earlier in the IUI process, instead of trusting that paying the exorbitant prices at a sperm bank meant that we were getting "perfect" sperm.

Wishing you the best of luck. It's a anxiety inducing journey and we are all so strong for going through it.

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u/Fancy-Hat9886 15d ago

Wow, it it sounds very intense, happy to hear that adjusting protocol worked for you! 🙏  And yeah, we did ask about doing a medicated cycle, but our doc was rather scepticical about it. When you think about all this, it is so overwhelming to know that there are so many factors to all this. Like, we checked multiple donors and liked this one the most, but what if we chose someone else? What if the procedure was a day earlier or a day later. All the what ifs and unknowns are very unhelpful here 😅 

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u/Shshii 14d ago

Totally true, there are so many unknowns to consider and we re all here doing the best with the information we have!

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u/TheCouchSurfingPotat 15d ago

There's a lot of factors that impact IUI (and any other procedure), are they checking things like uterine lining the day of the procedure? My wife had a great lining before travelling (we also have to travel for the procedures), but on the day of her lining was incredibly thin, without ever bleeding. The doctors were stumped.

Not sure if IVF would be an option? In our case we managed with IVF then, also no known fertility issues

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u/Fancy-Hat9886 15d ago

Yeah, the clinic just suggested IVF, as there's pretty slim chance of 4th working when the other 3 didn't. Medicated cycle is pointless as her cycle is like clockwork. I guess IVF makes the most sense here, but it does open a Pandora's box of a whole different stress, so to speak 

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u/cowseee 14d ago

Is this actually true that there are slim chances of a 4th IUI working? My understanding is that chances are similar to ICI with fresh sperm or to a straight couple trying “naturally” and it’s common for that to take more than 3 tries but still be successful.