Broken and confused.. help appreciated!

Nimi85

My husband and i have been trying to concieve for nearly 2 years. I'm 32 and he is 35. Our infertility is unexplained. We live in Dublin.

i have been attending the rot.unda private clinic for almost a year in which time i have had HSG, hysteroscopy, D&C, biopsy, treatment of cervical ectropion, blood tests every month, monitoring scans, 3 months of just progesterone to try to shorten long periods, and then 6 rounds of clomid and progesterone. I respond well to clomid (My day 21 progesterone was over 100 last month) but for whatever reason its just not happening.

We are now at the point where we are being passed on to a fertility clinic. Our consultant reckons we should try IUI first. The problem is we are finding it really difficult to do any research on the different centres as there is just so much conflicting information online. I'm finding that people are biased based on the outcome they gained at a clinic.
So frustrated and needing help with direction as to where go next.
Really appreciate any personal experiences, guidance and advice. We feel completely lost.
Thanks guys

Neyite

When you are unexplained its pretty tough because something is causing the infertility, just nobody can get to the bottom of what is causing it. If a couple have a diagnosis, they either usually have a tried and tested pathway of treatment and outcome stats to consider.

I'm finding that people are biased based on the outcome they gained at a clinic.

That's really it in a nutshell. I'm a fan of clomid, but that's because it worked on me on the third month I took it. Others found it useless, or worse than useless in that it not only didn't work for them but gave them some unpleasant side effects to boot.


It's worth initially starting with the cheaper treatment - mainly because we all respond differently to the medications so it's very much a cheaper way to see what works best.

tHE vAGGABOND

Before we had our first [after 2 years of trying and one bad IVF cycle - so don't give up hope!]

..We did serious investigation of some "out there" options - such as both egg and sperm donation - as both of ours were on the low side of normal [but still normal] - but clearly, there was some issue.

..we also looked at moving to the UK, and maybe doing adoption and/or fostering [as once settled there, a mate of ours who works with HSE said its much easier over there and again we were told the number of available kids here is very low]. No idea if that is crap or true, we did not get past looking at it as an idea...

So we did not have to do either - but worth thinking about those as options at least. Having a chat with your other half [as many people would hate both and get *very* upset at the very idea of either or both of them].

So depends how yourself and your other half feel - and how far you want to go...

LegacyUser

We were also a case of unexplained 'infertility', no obvious indications as to why it wouldn't be happening for us after all the standard tests & analysis. By the time we reached conception, we had been TTC for about ~22 months, I was about 31/32 and my wife 33/34 when we started trying....

We attended SIMS in Clonskeagh and found them quite good to deal with. After a number of unsuccessful TSI cycles/attempts with my wife on Clomid, we went the IUI route. We luckily hit the jackpot first time on IUI and all went well with the pregnancy, culminating in the arrival of our daughter in Aug 2016!

I think it's equally tough in a case where it's unexplained compared to if there is a diagnosis - at least with a diagnosis there can be targeted treatment, but still for us there were steps to take and that got us there.

And now I'm going to share something a bit 'off the wall'..... we were a number of months trying for no.2 and were almost at the stage of going back for analysis/treatment.... we figured, since we were an unexplained case, maybe the 'swimmers' just weren't reaching their destination for some reason... IUI would have delivered them straight to where they needed to be (and sure enough 1 of them did it's job there first time around).... Can you 'DIY' IUI at home?.... no, but maybe you could give the swimmers a bit of a head start - so here's what we tried.... seriously, this is no joke!

You know those tube type syringes that come with Calpol & the likes, no tip on it, just a flat head..... well, we used that, semen into a 'sterile' vessel, then into the syringe and my wife inserted/positioned it as best she could, as well as she knew, as far in as possible and sunk the plunger........ conception followed, as did another successful pregnancy, and by 'design' or coincidence, it brought our 2nd daughter in Feb 2018!!

As mad as it sounds, it may be worth a try for others in a similar unexplained boat.....

LegacyUser

diyiui wrote: »

We were also a case of unexplained 'infertility', no obvious indications as to why it wouldn't be happening for us after all the standard tests & analysis. By the time we reached conception, we had been TTC for about ~22 months, I was about 31/32 and my wife 33/34 when we started trying....

We attended SIMS in Clonskeagh and found them quite good to deal with. After a number of unsuccessful TSI cycles/attempts with my wife on Clomid, we went the IUI route. We luckily hit the jackpot first time on IUI and all went well with the pregnancy, culminating in the arrival of our daughter in Aug 2016!

I think it's equally tough in a case where it's unexplained compared to if there is a diagnosis - at least with a diagnosis there can be targeted treatment, but still for us there were steps to take and that got us there.

And now I'm going to share something a bit 'off the wall'..... we were a number of months trying for no.2 and were almost at the stage of going back for analysis/treatment.... we figured, since we were an unexplained case, maybe the 'swimmers' just weren't reaching their destination for some reason... IUI would have delivered them straight to where they needed to be (and sure enough 1 of them did it's job there first time around).... Can you 'DIY' IUI at home?.... no, but maybe you could give the swimmers a bit of a head start - so here's what we tried.... seriously, this is no joke!

You know those tube type syringes that come with Calpol & the likes, no tip on it, just a flat head..... well, we used that, semen into a 'sterile' vessel, then into the syringe and my wife inserted/positioned it as best she could, as well as she knew, as far in as possible and sunk the plunger........ conception followed, as did another successful pregnancy, and by 'design' or coincidence, it brought our 2nd daughter in Feb 2018!!

As mad as it sounds, it may be worth a try for others in a similar unexplained boat.....

We've recently tried this again, on two cycles, and it looks like it may have worked again! Again, it could be a coincidence, but I really think, as daft as it seems, that this would be worth a try for others who fall into the 'unexplained case' bracket for fertility issues.....

mark_jmc

Fertility issues/IVF can be a very long journey, after 3 iui’s, 6 failed IVF attempts we finally had success on what was our final attempt with baby due next May. Being the man I did not have to go through the hormones, injections etc but I could see the toll this had on my wife. I hope you have success on your IVF journey- one thing I have learned over the years is that there are a huge amount of people in the same boat as us

LegacyUser

diyiui wrote: »

We've recently tried this again, on two cycles, and it looks like it may have worked again! Again, it could be a coincidence, but I really think, as daft as it seems, that this would be worth a try for others who fall into the 'unexplained case' bracket for fertility issues.....

Indeed, it did work again that time previous, but unfortunately we suffered a miscarriage.

However, having tried again recently using the same 'DIY' method, we are now pregnant again! Fingers crossed :-)

This really is worth a try for anyone in the 'unexplained' bracket, mad and all as it sounds....