Iui

Hi I never tried IUI but I did have successful IVF. My doctor was Dr. Jon Lischke at IGO medical group in La Jolla. If that's near you try giving them a call- they are awesome. Good luck- I know how frustrating it is to be able to get pregnant in the "normal" way.

Sorry you are going through this. I see you've received a lot of responses already, but here's my answers to your questions:
1. When I was 30, I started fertility treatments. I had 7 IUIs in total, 3 with Clomid and 4 with injectibles. I did not conceive with any of these. My story is a bit different because I lived in a state that covered infertility treatment (IL) and therefore was a bit more rigid about what it would take before moving onto higher-tech treatments.
2. After 7, I moved on to having a laparoscopy. I did not have obvious signs of endometriosis, but my RE doctor had had a lot of success with patients with unexplained infertility becoming pregnant after a laparoscopy that detected and cleaned up endo. In fact, he claimed that 80% of the patients like me did in fact have endometriosis that could be effecting their fertility. Since insurance covered this and not IVF for me, I proceeded with the procedure. I was discovered to have endometriosis moderate to severe in places. It did not appear to be directly effecting my fertility (like if it had been my tubes or ovaries). We then tried for months on our own to no avail. Finally, on our second fresh IVF cycle (1 frozen failed cycle), we conceived our oldest. One year later, we opted to try again and later had our twins resulting from our first IVF. This resulted in 3 children born in exactly 20 months.
3. The reasons for the IUI not working were never discovered. I will share one interesting, prophetic thing that the old doctor I had in IL shared. When I asked why we weren't being more agressive with the meds (I would only produce 1-2 eggs per IUI cycle), he told me that in his experience, we were exactly the kind of couple who go on to conceive high order multiples if not managed carefully. I thought it was a strange comment since we couldn't conceive at all, but I now believe he was really onto something.

I wish you the best and hope that you will conceive soon. Before the IVF that finally worked for us, I took some time off work and somehow managed to change my desperate attitude. I can't tell you how I did that, I guess I had just reached my limit and resolved that I was only trying one more time and then would move to a new game plan. I had found an inner peace that somehow I would be a mother, whatever road that led me down. I don't know if that made a difference, but maybe it did. Interestingly, the second time around I really was not ready to try for more children. I only returned on the recommendation of my doctor to get started trying again. Of course, that worked too well (not that I'd change having all 3 of them for anything). It used to p**s me off to hear people say, "Just relax and it'll happen", but having my mind in a better place did help me. If only trying to get to that place in my mind hadn't been so stressful...

I would say it is your frame of mind. You said it all when you said I couldn't imagine not being a mother. Try to relax and let it happen. I have a close friend who tried for 6 years and got preggo after invitro. She just found out there was indeed nothing wrong with her because she got preggo, on her own this time, when she was not even trying. Just let it happen. Stress can do horrible things to our bodies, including not allowing us to conceive. I know it is easier than it sounds, but it makes sense if you have not medical issues to speak of. Good luck to you, it will happen. : )

I don't know what IUI is - but it sounds like fertility treatments. Between myself and 3 girlfriends who all started trying to get pregnant around 38 - we all did IVF - It took my one friend 6 times to have success, my other friend did at least 8-10 and then ended up adopting because they weren't successful (and is madly in love with her daughter)- I was the lucky one - at 43 after 2 rounds of IVF I conceived my daughter.

The point of this story is that at 38 you want all the help you can get conceiving and you want a great Doctor!! Fertility is miraculous when it works, yet still a brutal emotional and physical process that will wear on you and your husband.

Good luck to you!

I started out with 3 unsuccessful IUI's. I was 41 at the time. I'm guessing the reason for not being successful was my age as they did various tests and couldn't find anything wrong, especially since we conceived a daughter naturally 3 years prior.

So we moved onto IVF, I was then 42. I got pregnant with the first one but miscarried at around 4-6 weeks. I had about 10 frozen embryos from that IVF so we thawed them. After thawing, we were left with 3 good embryos which were all implanted. We ended up with a beautiful baby boy who is now 17 months old.

I HIGHLY recommend the Dr's at Reproductive Partners, my main dr was Dr. Wisot (loved him), but they were all really good. They have an office in Beverly Hills but I went to the one in Redondo Beach so the drs may be different.

Wherever you decide, go in for a consult - I think my consult fee was $250. And remember, check your insurance as some may cover part of it.

They have a lot of info on their website:

www.2reproduce.com

Best of luck to you!!

did you do homeopathy? good classical homeopath can make all the difference in the world. should not be an MD, OD, ND or any other "D" - will not have the time needed to devote for successful use of homeopathic remedies. for both of you should undergo homeopathic treatment even if you want to keep trying conventional medicine too.
Good Luck
V.

I was the same way..."unexplained infertility". I did 4 IUIs before my doctor referred me out for IVF, which is the next step if you are trying to conceive. I always developed a ton of eggs for the IUIs with no success. However, I did not respond well to the injectable drugs during my IVF cycle. I produced very few eggs of which only 3 could be inseminated and only two that were viable for implantation. Very discouraging. BUT...one of the eggs took and now I have my gorgeous, smart little boy. Hang in there. You are not alone.

I also wanted to add that I do know how hurtful and ignorant it is for people to tell you to "just relax and it will happen". They don't know the pain of infertility or of seeing everyone get pregnant around you when you are not. "Unexplained" does not mean that it is just stress. It means the doctors can't pinpoint the cause.

What is your stress level? My husband and I tried conceiving for SIX YEARS before we finally got pregnant naturally at the age of 41. While we didn't do IUI or IVF, we did get all the tests done to see if there was anything wrong and there never was. I did three rounds of Clomid and nothing. I have now determined that it was job stress in my life that caused me not to become pregnant. I had a very high pressure job that really stressed me out and I KNOW this is why I didn't get pregnant for so long. It was only after taking a job that had some stress as all jobs do, but not horrible stress that I was able to naturally get pregnant. Once I became more easy going, relaxed and not so "type A" I conceived and am VERY happy with my baby girl. :) I wish you all the best!!!!

I have been through this twice. Once with a success, once without. My daughter, took 3 months of IUI and was successful. Next time around, not so. :( I did a year of IUI with Clomid (I didn't do it every month) and then after the clomid I did injections for 2 years (again it's not every month so it wasn't 24 cycles, per se). Do you have insurance? Kaiser by any chance, lol? They do cover infertility and the docs and nurses at the Euclid/Romneya office are the best!

Hi J.,

I had 3 IUI with clomid and then did 2 more IUI with injectible medication and had no luck with any of them. Our Dr also said she could not find anything wrong with either me or my husband. At that point I was 38 and we decided to move onto IVF. Those Drs did much more extensive testing on both myself and my husband. We finally got lucky on our third IVF cycle and we had our son. It was a long hard road, but definately worth it.

Hope you have success soon!

I don't have personal experience with this, but I wanted to share that my friend had 5 rounds of IUI and nothing.
She gave up on getting pregnant and the next month, she was pregnant all on her own. (well with the help of her hubby) I also have a few friends that struggled getting pregnant and they all did acupuncture and got pregnant. Find an acupuncturist that specializes in fertility issues. On a final note, I was told that I probably couldn't conceive on my own and my hubby was told that he might not be able to get me pregnant. We both have issues. When we got married I threw away the birth control pills and told him, if we've got a long road ahead of us, we might as well start trying now. There was no stress or pressure as we figured we would deal with it all later after a few years went by. Well, I now have 2 little ones and never had an issue with conceiving. I swear it all had to do with attitude because medically, it shouldn't have happened. Even when I was getting an ultrasound from the technician during my pregnancy, she said omg - your ovaries are a mess - how'd you get pregnant? My point is, you have to find a way to believe that you'll get pregnant WITHOUT stressing out about it! I wish you success, happiness and lots of luck in getting a little one, however it may happen!

Hi J.,
Three tries with IUI is probably enough to warrant moving onto something else. I did 3 round of IUI then moved on to IVF. Two rounds of IVF unsuccessfully and the doctors have no idea why. If you really want kids, its time to try something different. IVF would be the next medical step. Adoption is also on the table hopefully. We adopted successfully. If you have the money, try a round of IVF. If it doesn't work, my advice is to try another round of IVF with a donor egg (egg from a 20 year old). This will increase your chances from around 10% to around 60%. Just ideas to consider. I know each of these decisions are very personal and depend on both you and your husband being on the same page.
Good luck!

I started trying to have a baby when I was 35. My regular OB doctor put me on Clomid & assured me it would work...I trusted him but the Clomid didn't work. He kept reassuring me to "hang in there" and "give it time"...needless to say I wasted over 2 years of my fertility on this false sense of hope. I finally went to see infertility "specialists" (3 in one practice) and did over 12 IUI cycles (with every infertility drug...pills/creams/injections etc...over 15-17 months with zero success. I became depressed, frustrated and hopeless. I gave up for 3 months and decided to try
IVF but wanted a new specialist. After much research, I decided on Dr. I. Lane Wong. He made all the difference in the world. He studied my old medical records and asked many more questions that the last group of specialists ever did, he ordered even more tests on me (I am the one with the infertility problems) and I didn't think there were any more tests that could be done. After several weeks of "studying" my case, he formulated a plan and discussed it with me. I liked the fact that he included me in all his thought processes and decisions. We agreed on a plan and I had my 1st egg retrieval and IVF cycle about a month later. My previous specialists never got more than 3 egg follicles from me ever and on his first try of med. combinations he harvested 18 viable follicles. 16 of the follicles fertilized and he inserted 6 (my age at the time was 39) and none took. I was devastated. I froze the remaining 10 embroys and tried the next month. I lost some during the thawing process but he had 4 great ones to work with and my 2nd IVF attempt was successful! My daughter is now 3.5 years old. When she was 18 months, I wanted to try and give her a sibling so I went back to my friend, Dr. Wong and we formulated another plan of IVF cycles...but during his ultrasound exam on me that day, he found that I actually was about to ovulate (something I seldom ever do with out fertility drugs) and wanted to try an IUI procedure. I told him how reluctant I was since I had 12 failed ones before. He wisely said I had nothing to lose to try and he had never attempted an IUI on me before since we went straight to IVF. I said fine, knowing full well not to get my hopes up. Well, he did it again. I got pregnant on my first IUI attempt with him and delivered my son a year ago at the age of 41. Dr. Wong is a God-send and I would happily recommend him to you. His office is in Irvine. My feeling is if he can't get you to be a mother, no one can. Here is his website www.hopeivf.com I don't think you will be disappointed to go see him and just talk to him. He has the absolute best bedside manner/ personality...and I should know since I have been a nurse for over 20 years and see a lot of doctor's and witness their bedside manner...Dr. Wong is second to none. Good luck and don't give up hope.