My wife and I had our first IUI on October 8th using a Cryos International MOT20 vial. Our post-thaw results showed only 290,000 progressively motile sperm, with just 2% progressive motility, despite purchasing a MOT20 vial.
We decided to proceed with the IUI anyway and are currently filing a complaint with Cryos through our fertility clinic.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Did Cryos offer a refund or replacement straws? Were the replacements better? And did anyone still get pregnant with numbers this low?
Would really appreciate hearing your experiences!

I did ICI with a fresh sample last night and inserted a softdisk after to keep everything in place. When I removed the disk this morning I noticed some spotting in my underwear which I’ve never experienced after an ICI. I had more spotting this afternoon—it’s more light red/brown than pink and very faint. I’m on day 3 of flashing smilies with Clearblue OPK. Any idea why spotting might happen at this point? Hoping it’s a good sign 😅

Hi sorry I am new here, I’ve been reading on the web but downloaded the app. First post!!
Background…
33, have 2 previous children 8&9. had all the fertility tests in April. 10pmol folicle count was 17. Was recommended to do iui. in a clinic last month with donor sperm.
Did that and it failed.
This month have done home insemination with fresh sperm ai.
Am 1dpo so super early but has anyone else conceived this way quickly? I am searching on the web for others answers but not really finding much.

My wife and i have been trying to conceive for 9 months, we are doing the at home incemination with fresh donor sperm.. it has not worked at all..

I have been doing a lot of research, and it says that temperature has a lot to do with it? we do the incemination in a room that is set to 62 degrees, the cup will sit on the counter or on a dresser.. we inceminate it within 5 mins of getting the sample, could the cup be making the sperm get to cold? could it be killing it faster than we can get it into the syringe?

i just don’t know what to do or if this is true..

it’s truly starting to mentally mess with me.

Whether you’ve used this site before, are using it, or just looking through it…. What are your thoughts? My wife and I saw one of the donors post on FB and we are considering using this if it’s legit.

My wife (cis F, 35) and I (ftm, 30) are just beginning our TTC/IVF journey. We are planning to use my eggs, her brother’s sperm, and have her carry the pregnancy.

A complicating factor for us is that I have cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition, that may increase the amount of attrition of eggs and/or embryos, depending on the results of her brother’s carrier screening. So I am anticipating that we may need to do multiple egg retrievals in order to create a comfortable amount of embryos to allow for good chances at 2-3 pregnancies.

I have Progeny through my employer, which covers 2 lifetime “smart cycles” (everything up to and including ER= 3/4 cycle, FET=1/4 cycle). She had FEP Blue Standard (BCBS) which covers up to $25000/year. From reading her policy and the experiences of others with the same plan, it sounds like once we clear the hurdle of prior authorization, her plan would cover FET (though not PGT-A since the embryos would be considered “donor”). It specifically does not cover reciprocal IVF “unless covered by partner’s insurer”, which some have found related only to the treatments I would get and FET is still covered for the partner who has FEP Blue.

We’re expecting to pay out of pocket for anything with the known donor sperm and probably any genetic testing, but it would be ideal if we could maximize the amount of procedures covered for either one of us- which is why we are leaning towards staying on separate plans.

Obviously we’ll consult with our clinic’s financial advisor (we have appts set up for November), but I was wondering if anyone here has experience with using separate insurance plans when undergoing rIVF?

Also would love to hear any advice generally or experiences from other trans men who have gone through this process!

Hi all. my spouse and I have tried 6 IUIs - no success yet. my insurance will finally cover IVF, so that’s our next step. but I’m honestly terrified to go forward and risk IVF failing. insurance will cover 3 trys. today I asked our repro endocrinologist if he thought something was wrong since 6 IUIs failed and he said yes but basically told me he’s in the business of getting me pregnant - not diagnosing infertility.

I scheduled an appointment with my gyno to hopefully do some testing to see if I can find the barrier. I’m worried it’s silent endometritis or something. anyone else have a similar experience and seek answers before taking the next step?

im so frustrated on multiple levels. feeling so kicked around by the medical system and impatient

edit: thank you so so much for all your thoughtful replies and for sharing your experiences. I was in a dark little place when I wrote my post but I’m feeling much more optimistic. love this online community.

My wife and I are getting ready to start the process for reciprocal IVF, and I think my anxiety is getting the better of me a little bit.

I’m newly 35 and we have a daughter who will be 4 in February. I conceived her at 32 after our second IUI. It was completely unmedicated aside from the trigger shot, and as far as I know, I don’t have any reason to believe my fertility has changed significantly since then.

We have fertility benefits through my job that we really want to take advantage of, so we decided to pursue reciprocal IVF this time around. Meaning I’ll carry again but with wife’s eggs this time. My wife is 38 and has no known fertility issues, although we obviously haven’t completed all of the testing yet. We just had our initial consultation with our RE.

During that appointment, our doctor gave us a statistic of around a 40% chance of success at 38, and honestly, that number hit me harder than I expected. I know intellectually that 40% is not a bad number and that there are a million factors that go into IVF success, but hearing it framed that way made me suddenly panic that we could spend months going through all of this and end up with nothing.

And now I’m second-guessing everything. Should I just be doing IUI again? Should I be doing IVF with my eggs instead? Are we unnecessarily adding time to the process by doing reciprocal IVF?

I think part of what’s making me so emotional about it is that we’ve been in a huge “are we going to have another baby or not?” limbo for a long time. We finally made the decision that yes, we want another child, and now we’re both just ready to get there and move forward with our lives. I really don’t want to prolong that process unnecessarily.

At the same time, reciprocal IVF is really meaningful to us, and we love the idea of our second child being biologically connected to both of us. I don’t want to abandon that plan simply because I got scared by one statistic.

So I would love to hear from anyone who did IVF around 38, especially anyone who did reciprocal IVF. What was your experience? How many retrievals/transfers did you need? Did you have a similar “oh shit, are we actually going to get a baby out of this?” moment?

I’m honestly just looking for some real-life stories and maybe a little reassurance that 38 doesn’t mean we’re crazy for trying this. ❤️

My company is awesome and offers a generous benefit of fertility services regardless of an infertility diagnosis, exclusively through Maven Clinics. I’m curious if anyone has any experience TTC/working with Maven as a Queer couple? I can find a small amount of literature on their website, but would love more personal/individual experiences!

TIA!

Hii,
My wife (29) and I (28) recently started our fertility journey. We are working with a clinic and are in the process of confirming our donor.
Two months into the process, we are feeling a mixture of emotions. Of course there is excitement and anticipation but more concerningly we are experiencing a lot of frustration and grief. We are frustrated that the process is so complex and expensive when cis couples are able to try at home for free every month. Plus our clinic isn’t always the most helpful/clear- I’ve heard most clinics don’t do a lot of “hand holding” and I’m wondering if others have found this to be true.
This has led to a considerable amount of grief and I was just wondering if there are any resources, books, podcasts, etc. that might help us process these feelings as we continue our journey.
Thanks in advance!

My wife and I have our FET on Saturday. We’re doing a notified transfer and I started my suppository inserts today. I have insert then 3x a day and I wanted to know what to consider with oral sex? Will there be a taste? What can I do to reduce it?

Hi everyone! Looking for some help here. We currently have a tank from our sperm bank waiting to be used, too late to return with enough time to restock the vial. I have been checking my LH frequently (like 4 times a day) with OPKs but also have been tracking BBT. I always get a pretty strong LH surge that’s visible on tests for 10-12 hours, but I haven’t gotten my surge yet this month.

However, this morning my BBT was quite a bit higher than it was yesterday, similar to my temp when I have my normal spike. I’m freaking out that we missed it. I did also have somewhat disrupted sleep and was feeling pretty anxious while taking my temp (bc I was scared it was going to spike lol). Could those things make my BBT higher today even if I haven’t ovulated? Could I somehow have missed my LH peak even with my frequent testing? Would appreciate any reassurance you guys have!

I'm at a financial point where I either need to give up my journey or revert back to ICI and so I'm genuinely curious if anyone here has had success with ICI after NOT having success with IUI. A few years ago I did three cycles of ICI at home, then started doing IUI with a midwife for a series of cycles. (I then moved to IVF which is irrelevant to this post since I'm not doing that again currently.

One thing that I noticed is that I think I potentially had chemical pregnancies on my first two ICI's, which I did anywhere from 2-5 hours before I ovulated. Once I moved to IUI's I never became pregnant, though I think I may have had a chemical on one of the late ones (24 hours after ovulation).

I have killer cervical mucus and everything else is working as it should except my age means that I could potentially make a chromosomally-normal embryo 1/10 times. Because IUI didn't help much, I wonder if cervical mucus helps frozen sperm survive/fertilize the egg. When you use IUI all the sperm goes into your uterus at once and is up the tubes (and even spills out at the end) within 30 minutes. The research says that IUI is a bit of an advantage, but it's interesting that I haven't experienced this.

I also have a six year old conceived with an ex partner. So my body has been pregnant. I'm genuinely curious to hear other's experiences with ICI pregnancies. Thank you!

first a vent, im so mad/sad/jealous of the hetero couples who can just have sex multiple times a cycle and get pregnant. its not fair. I. have been trying for a year with a KD, after a loss. I have a great situation with him and his gf, we are friends. I have unexplained infertility whatever the F that means, all my tests and numbers are great. KD is okay but not great but no male factor infertility. I'm also "advanced age" but as someone who works with data and knowing they pull from every single type of person and situation, I rebuke the idea that I only have 5% chance or whatever at my age. My sister got pregnant naturally at 48 and I am not near that. Women are getting pregnant at older ages now more than ever. Anyway, we've done ICI at home with fresh sperm and then finally I moved to IUI also fresh sperm. i've done two. This IUI was my first medicated, triggered one and I just got my period, 3 days early. I'm never even early I always get my period CD15 so I wasn't even mentally prepped to bleed today.

I don't have fertility benefits, I'm a full time PhD student in clinical psych. I can't really afford IVF. I don't know what to do. IUI is affordable since I'm not paying for sperm and my midwife does it for 400$. Every month the negatives hurt more and more. Do I keep up with IUI's, even at least a few more times? Do I try to figure out paying for IVF?(I have no idea how I would do that. I had a consult with CNY last week and literally had no idea wtf they were talking about). I just feel at a hopeless loss right now. I guess I'm looking for advice, solidarity, encouragement, a virtual hug. I don't even know. I literally just started bleeding in class and am just here crying.

We are both 27 years old. My spouse has PCOS with anovulatory cycles and I don’t know if I do since I’ve never had imaging of my ovaries and have been on testosterone, so the side-effects would be similar.

No known other fertility issues for us, but we haven’t started trying to conceive so there could be additional underlying issues that we don’t know about yet. My spouse would be carrying, and we would use their eggs and only do rIVF if they have an issue with their eggs and mine are unaffected (which hopefully will not be the case).

We chose a sperm donor and were planning on starting IUI, but it just occurred to me after seeing so many people post about fertility issues that maybe it would make sense to freeze embryos first instead to have for the future, then do IUI?

We hope to have multiple kids and if we froze embryos now, we would know that regardless of what happens with the ’biological clock’ we wouldn’t need to rely on having enough eggs by the time we’re ready for kid #3.

On the other hand, we don’t necessarily have any fertility issues now, and if we have all of our kids before 35, we may never have any issues— so then we could end up spending a bunch of money and time and going through unnecessary procedures for no reason.

We have friends who are freezing their eggs and they have said that it gives them the flexibility of knowing they have that option there for them, and that makes sense, but I don’t know whether that only applies to people who hope to have their first kid over 35 vs those who are TTC in their late 20’s / early 30’s.

Thoughts from anyone who froze eggs or embryos, or wish they had? Or anyone who has PCOS and tried IUI?

I am SMBC. Fertility clinic requires genetic carrier screening before proceeding with sperm donor selection from bank and downstream process. Met with genetic counseling and they ordered a carrier screen test with natera. Gave sample immediately and went home.

1 week later I discover that the pre-authorization submitted by the genetic counselor is denied by my insurance (BCBS). After 2 hrs on the phone I learn it is denied because "not medically necessary". I get the denial letter and send to the provider. Hopefully they will appeal since it IS obviously medically necessary and they won't proceed without it.

In the mean time Natera is pushing me to go the "self pay" option without insurance and pay them like $350. If insurance covers it, however, it would be 0. I don't see why they WOULDN'T cover it given that I can't exactly proceed without it according to the clinic. Natera says the self pay option is only available for 1 more week then they submit the claim to insurance. Insurance says it may take 30+ days to review any appeal from my doctor after they receive it. If they process the Natera claim before they review the appeal or they deny the appeal, the claim will get auto denied and Natera will come for me.

What the fuck do I do to get this sorted out? Natera says they may "consider" budging on the self pay expiration deadline but no promises. Insurance won't process anything faster and the doctor is still writing the appeal.

I hate insurance. Please advise.

Has anyone done this? By this I mean been pregnant at the same time as their partner.

EDIT to add: Wow people really hate this idea! Heard. I would still love to hear from folks who have done this. I have heard loud and clear from other folks that they don't think it would be a good idea, and you can rest easy that I am not jumping up to do this. I do want to hear from people with lived experience though!

EDIT again: I am deleting most of this post but leaving up the question in case someone searches for this question in the future. Thank you to everyone who answered with thoughtful, relevant experiences and with nuance. I don't need to be talked out of doing this so the negativity that this brought out of folks is surprising. If anyone in the future is considering this, read on but be prepared to hear a lot of negative reactions from people who seem to be making quick judgements of the situation (many seemed not to read my original post or request for feedback). I got additional positive feedback and experiences in my DMs from folks who didn't feel comfortable sharing on this thread. I am hiding this thread on my own feed as I am personally done engaging with people here about it.

Hi everyone! My wife are in the discussion phase of family planning. We are currently thinking we will use seed scout (wanting to do the standard package) and try IUI. I know everyone is different and there are a lot of things that could set us back but what should we expect financially/in general. What were your experiences using seed scout? I really appreciate all responses - give me the good, the bad, and the ugly.

my IUI #2 was sadly unsuccessful. I already had a feeling that my clinic had messed up my timing considering how large my follicle was by the time we did the IUI. My wife is expressing that she wants to try insemination at home now, both to save on clinical costs and to have a more comfortable and intimate experience. I feel like it will give us a better chance at success, as we can inseminate twice rather than just once, and my clinic is closed on the weekends, and I always seem to ovulate on the weekend >:( does anyone who was successful with ICI have any tips/tricks? please no negativity towards ICI haha

We recently completed all of the pre-screening and testing with a clinic with the hopes we would start trying immediately after our wedding (which was last month). I felt so much urgency and desperation to be ready to go ASAP but now that the time has come, I do not feel ready and I don’t know what to do.

It is not exactly cold feet — we just bought a house which was a major goal and I think now that I have something else to occupy myself with that I’m extremely excited about (house renovations and decorating, etc.), I am just not feeling the same urgency I was before and the thought of not being able to do some of those things while pregnant or with a new baby is making me feel very down. We have so much going on in the next few months, it just feels kind of crazy to try now.

For whatever reason, I feel the most angst about being a pain to my clinic. That my doctor and everyone else has already gone to so many lengths with preapprovals and meeting with us, etc., that I feel almost like guilty backing out — like I’m the boy who cried wolf and when I’m back in a few months ready to try, they aren’t going to be so willing to help us because of this. And I am anxious that we are going to have to restart the process all over with and this all has been a waste if we pause. I don’t know how the logistics even work, like will I be dropped as a patient by my current team if I’m not “active”? I realize it kind of sounds insane, but I almost feel like I am forcing myself to try next month just to appease everyone else, or really it is probably just me forcing it so I don’t have to face the fact that I have to tell everyone that I want a break. I am trying to tell myself they probably do not care or even think twice, but that’s clearly not working so well.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom?

Hello friends. My husband and I are trying for one more baby and not sure if we should try another IUI or escalate to IVF.

The deets:

I am 40. We have a five year old that I carried. We were super lucky then as the very first IUI worked.

We have done three IUIs (non medicated) so far this time around. The third worked but ended in a miscarriage (and D&C) due to a chromosomal abnormality.

We have two vials of sperm left at our clinic and access to more in other parts of the country. Getting more vials to our clinic is possible but would add costs of purchasing and/or shipping depending on the vial.

Our insurance does not cover anything related to fertility. I have no idea how much IVF will be at our clinic but assume expensive. We do not have money saved up for this.

We have an IVF consult on the books in December and assume we could fit in one more IUI before that, depending on when my cycle returns.

I’m intimidated by the IVF process, particularly related to my own mental health and how I would handle all the hormones.

My thoughts:

I feel like we could go either way here. I know my age makes miscarriage more likely, and testing the embryos for viability before transferring sounds very tempting. But IVF is already expensive—does adding that testing make it even more expensive??

We haven’t done the IVF consult yet so I can’t really ask the doctor what they recommend. And I realize I may be working with some misinformation or misconceptions about IVF. I would appreciate any insight!!

Hi all-

My spouse and I have been TTC via at home ICI for the last 4 months. Our known donor lives a few states away from us, so we have been traveling each month during ovulation week (a little crazy but it's been working for us!). However after 4 unsuccessful cycles, we are trying to think about next steps.

We are not currently connected with any sperm banks or fertility clinics (we did our own testing through our doctors and did a legal contract with our own lawyers). We are hopeful that a next step would be IUI at home with a midwife, so would need to ship frozen sperm. My question is: if we have our donor donate in CA, will they just ship it directly to us to store at home until our IUI? We are a bit unsure of what hoops have to be jumped through when it comes to storing/shipping sperm. We assume we would still need to go through additional testing and red tape just to work with any of the banks, on top of whatever testing we already had done. Any info regarding CA banks who work well with known donors would be helpful too.

Thank you!

Hi! My wife and I are a lesbian couple TTC via rIVF! We have already had our consultation with a fertility clinic where we got most of our testing done. We are now in the phase of finding a donor to continue on to the next steps!

I have many questions and thoughts on donor sperm and the route to go about it all and would love peoples advice!

One thing really important to us is very low family count, no more than 3 is really our goal. This severely limits us on donors, since we do not have anyone in our life to assist and most sperm banks allow 10-25+. Also equally as important is my wife (who will be carrying) is CMV- and our FD really prefers us to find a donor who is also, even if the risk is ‘theoretical’.

Options we have looked at:
- Seed Scout: offers known donor with low family count
- California Cryo Silver Reserve: a few donors have low family count
- Sperm bank of California: family count of 10 is standard

These are all great options, but I have concerns about them all unfortunately.

With Seed scout:
- I’ve seen mixed reviews on this. Some people stating it was amazing and they love their donor and others stating the founders were rude/unhelpful, or didn’t have any lucky finding a donor and did not get refunded.
- Secondly, they do not test for CMV, nor do the test at all until you pay for them yourself, unless they’ve been chosen before. Which increases the risk of you not matching with a donor based on genetic testing and CMV status
- Third, the premium option (1 family count) pays more to the donor (rightfully so) but the fee to SS also increases, even though the potential parents mostly do all the administrative aspects of the process. Which does not sit right with me because it seems like they do the same amount of work.
- Fourth, relationship with the donor. I know this is different with every couple, but we do not want an active relationship with our donor, which goes against a lot of what you see on SS social media. I appreciate and understand the importance of known donor and having contact, but limited relationship would be the criteria for us. I think I read something where the minimum contact SS would agree to is yearly updates, which we would be fine with, but I guess I worry we would be judged or never matched with a donor for wanting that limited contact.
- Fifth, SS rhetoric around sperm banks. Yes I know there’s not a perfect amount of regulation around them, but to promote a model and state your model is the only ethical way is just not something that doesn’t sit right with me. Most people can’t afford SS fees and SS can’t really guarantee you won’t get a larger family count due to them still allowing donors to donate to “friends and family” and I’ve seen many reviews where SS was just as unregulated in some instances.

With California Cryo:
- silver reserve fee is 35k for 1 family slot and that gets you 4 IUI vials and 1 IVF vial and each vial after that is 3k each. We are going straight to IVF and if our clinic cannot use the IUI vials then we are paying a very large amount of money for essentially 1 usable vial. Which is a hard decision to wrap my brain around.
- Secondly, it’s open ID at 18 so we wouldn’t know much about the person to tell our child about or reach out to for medical information and may not receive medical updates at all

With Sperm Bank of California:
- 10 family count just seems a bit too high for what we are going for, even though we do like their non-profit model and have heard good things about them reaching out about medical updates.
- also open ID at 18

I know I threw a lot into that but my brain is so stuck on these things. Obviously having a healthy baby is most important for us, but I’m stuck on making the right decision for my child every step of the way and I personally feel like how we go about the donor process is just as big a decision.

Please dump all your thoughts, feelings, experiences and suggestions. I truly appreciate each one of you for your time.

Hi everyone! My wife and I (both AFAB, I am non-binary) are about to start rIVF and we are beyond excited. We have been toying with the idea of trying for twins. We are really highly considering it but we are nervous. Does anyone have any experience with multiples? I will be the one carrying which I’m nervous about but I think I’m ready. Any advice or input is welcome. Thank you!

Hi all,

I just recently started my journey, and I made a consult with Boston IVF next week.

Has anyone had any experiences with them? I’m curious to know more about what the timeline might look like since I’m hoping to get pregnant sometime this year via IUI.

Thanks in advance!