This month is our second cycle/last cycle of IUI in conjunction with using injectable medication. We did IUI last month with injectables and were unsuccessful. {I won’t rehash that experience since you will get the jist of it in my next post}. I am going to get into some med talk real quick so you will know what I am referring to in my subsequent posts. So bare with me:
For those of you unfamiliar with infertility talk IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination. This is when they take your mandangos spooge and clean em up, spin em around, and separate the good from the bad. Then they take that clean, amazing liquid gold {77 million to be exact- in our case} and insert it past your cervix straight into your uterus using a syringe and catheter. This helps bypass any hostel va-jaja and makes it so the sperm doesn’t have to swim as far. Their adventure begins a lot sooner. {all really exciting stuff. I know.}
Injectable medications- in my case- consists of hormones such as Gonal-F and Menupour {75 iu}. These drugs help stimulate a strong ovulation, produce multiple mature eggs, and helps stimulate healthy estrogen production. Like I said before, I don’t have issues with any of these things- or so we think- but the meds can help juice things up. We decided to be aggressive with our treatment since we had tried other oral medications such as Fermera and Clomid with no luck. Our doctor also recommended doing injections because statistically the rate of pregnancy is a lot higher. With that said rates of multiples are a lot higher as well, 30% chance of multiples. Bring it on baby.
In conjunction with using these meds I also do what is called a “Trigger” shot. This is a medication called Ovidril which causes your body to release all your mature eggs instead of the largest of the eggs, usually just one. In a normal cycle your body will only release one mature egg- maybe two, which is how you get fraternal twins. When you do a trigger shot it forces your body to release all your mature eggs and gives you a better chance of conceiving. With that said, you have to be careful here- injectable medications can cause you to over stimulate, causing you produce too many mature eggs that are being released. BOOM this is how you become Octomom or John and Kate Plus 8. Not fun. Your doctor should be monitoring you very closely so that this doesn’t happen. Usually they will have to cancel your cycle if you overstimulate. A good number of eggs to have is between 2-4.
Keep in mind IUI doesn’t increase your chances of getting pregnant that much. In a normal cycle you only have about a 20% chance of conceiving. IUI ups that about 5%. Injectables up it by 19%. It is a gamble. It is also said that if IUI doesn’t work for you after 3 cycles, it probably won’t work and you should consider moving on to another form of treatment.
IUI with injectables is also very $$$. I was extremely lucky to have a friend who had just gone through IVF. She became pregnant and had unused medication that she gifted me. YES you can do this with fertility medications. If you are interested in doing any kind of medication for fertility I would check with your doctor and ask about using someone else’s unused meds {not talking dirty needles here}. If it wasn’t for my friend Jen I don’t think we would have been able to afford two cycles of IUI. Also, without the support of my parents we would not have been able to continue with our treatments. So thank you to everyone who has helped us 🙂 It is our personal decision that we are only doing two cycles of IUI. I have done research and I believe that if it doesn’t work this time then it wasn’t meant to be. We have talked about other options such as IVF if this door closes. So please pray, send good vibes, do whatever it is that you do that this month is our month!!
The Chronicles of the Unfruitfulness 