Big Change of Plans

So the last week has been crazy for us in terms of our ttc plan. We went to our RE's office last Thursday where I posed a plan that we use a combo cycle this month - femara + injectables + IUI. Since this would be the absolute best month for me to get pregnant in terms of medical school scheduling I was ready to go all out to get that BFP this month. My RE finally agreed on my plan (with me pushing her a little) so we added on to our visit a wonderful CD3 (which was actually CD5) ultrasound and saline sonohysterogram, which was oh so fun and will end up costing us a good deal of moolah. We found out my tubes are both open - woohoo - although I was never really concerned that they weren't. Unfortunately at this point it was 5 pm and the clinic was closing so my RE said we needed to come back in the morning for injectable training.

When we got there the next day there is this weird message that we need to see the RE before the nurse. It turns out my RE had never reviewed the results of my husband’s SA from our first IUI and the results were quite low - less than 1 million total motile sperm post wash, which upsets me because I know the bill for our visit the day before will be big and it now will be unnecessary because she thinks that it would be the best use of our time/money/resources for us to move onto IVF.

My husband and I have been discussing it and I think we might just move onto IVF. I just got the packet in the mail today to review and will send in the form for a consultation appointment with the IVF clinic tomorrow (which apparently is different from the RE clinic.)

I have mixed feelings about moving on to IVF. Part of me is excited for it because the chances of success are so much higher than our chances with IUI, although I am still trying to figure out for sure our actual percentages of success with each method – I am quite a nerd and need to know all the info. I am hesitant because it will cost a lot of money, and don't want to spend a lot of money on IVF if we could get pregnant with IUI + x. 

I am probably the worst patient ever (my husband agrees) since I am a medical student and have the books/articles/journals to read so I know what can be done, and what I think should be done, but am not actually a doctor, so I don’t actually know what should be done. I am constantly reading up on infertility, and now that I read blogs and see what options/care other women receive I ask my clinic all the time “can we do this?” “do you do that?” And I ask things like “Are there donated meds for me to use?” (no) “Where can I get the meds the cheapest? Is there a best online source?” (which I think they should definitely know, but neither my RE or her nurse knew – which is crazy since this is a big university and they have thousands of patients seen in this clinic. Shouldn’t they know where to get meds the cheapest?!)  

My clinic says with IUI + femara a couple with a good sperm count has a 15-20% chance of success. If K and I do it our chances are lower since his sperm count is low (She didn't say an actual number, just significantly lower than 15%). The clinic says if we do IVF (+ICSI) our chances of success are 60%, and if we meet criteria they have an option that guarantees either a BFP or baby (should definitely clarify which) or our money is refunded.

It looks like my infertility blog might now become an IVF blog!