A few months ago, we went to a seminar hosted by a nationwide infertility institute (which shall remain nameless, just in case) to hear the main guy and the local doctor talk. They pulled you in by telling you it was a 2-hour seminar with a drawing for a free IVF cycle, then held us all hostage for 4 hours, dangling that drawing in front of us. Obviously we didn’t win, but we did learn a lot of new and in-depth information, and it was worth attending.
The whole point of all that isn’t terribly relevant, but a few weeks ago we met with the local doctor that spoke. He seemed nice and I have a few friends that see him, and the institute really pushed that they give individualized treatment and really does things differently than other clinics. We wanted to hear what this doctor had to say about our situation. And the consultation only cost us $15, so we figured, what did we have to lose?
It was definitely interesting. He looked at D’s most recent SA and told us that we don’t have a “male factor” to worry about. He tested my AMH to check my ovarian reserve, and that came back normal. When I asked about the polyps, he said that polyps don’t cause infertility and the only way he would recommend removing them is right before IVF.
Based on these things, he said we fell in the 10% of infertility cases that is diagnosed by – get this – Unexplained Infertility. After 4 years and numerous issues resolved, we have no obvious problems. He recommended IVF.
So we’ve come to the end of the road when it comes to searching for answers. There are no answers to be found, apparently. The answer is IVF.
The doctor recommended we do something called Mini-IVF, which is basically IVF with minimal stimulation. Basically, you take less drugs and make less eggs. It’s a lower success rate, but a lower cost. Not a lot of clinics offer it. We considered it, but the cost would still be about $9000 instead of $13000, so we figured that if we’re spending that much, we may as well go all in. If the cost was closer to half and we could do 2 mini cycles, we might have thought more about it, but then my friend had a terrible experience with this doctor and we completely threw out the idea of ever seeing this guy again.
There seem to be no more tests, nothing more we can do. We were both hoping there could be some other answer, but we are joining the hoards of other couples who have been given no answers. IVF is our answer and we are just counting down the months until we can jump into that. More on that delay soon…
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ugh thhe dreaded unexplained IF reason. I am in a similar boat, I have several small issues, but no smoking gun so it is largely unexplained. the micro ivf sounds interesting, I know very little about it. I hope you find a plan and a RE you are comfortable with.
I’m sorry he couldn’t give you a more positive solution.
That would be pretty frustrating to have no explanation. But at least you’ve got confirmation that IVF is the way to go. And I would do the same thing with skipping the miniIVF –1/3 off isn’t really a great deal when you’re talking about signficantly lower chances of success, especially in IF where everything is so uncertain anyway.
I don’t know if it provides any consolation but the 1st IVF also has a diagnostic value – they might be able to find out what really is the problem. We were also a case of “unexplained infertility” but with the first IVF it appeared that 90% of the eggs wouldn’t mature and also there were big problems with fertilisation, so I found out that actually, the problem is the eggs. Not a very nice thing to hear but at least we know what the problem is. Good luck!