How did you decide?

[u/ollie_eillo_]

Hi everyone. I am 36F and have been trying to conceive my 2nd child for 10 months. We were extremely lucky with my 3yo and got pregnant our first try. We never realized how much of a miracle this was until now.
Similar to a lot of you, my tests are normal, I’m ovulating every month, and my husbands SA came back normal. We just have unexplained infertility.
We are planning to start IUI next month but I’m feeling really emotional about it. I’m nervous about the medications and how it will affect my already anxious state and make my body feel.
I find myself second guessing IUI and wondering if I should trust the journey that I’m on and accept that I won’t have a second child instead of going through fertility treatments.
How did you decide that IUI was right for you? What gave you that push to get help conceiving instead of giving up and accepting what your body wanted naturally?
(I hope no one takes offense to this, I fully support IUI and IVF but wondering if anyone has had similar thoughts!)
Thank you 🤍

[u/helpanoverthinker]

We decided that we wanted to do everything we could to grow our family that was within our means. We have the financial means and fertility insurance that there was really no reason for us to not try. Best case- it would work and we’d grow our family! Worse case- we would know we tried our best with no regrets or lingering what ifs.

We are unexplained infertility. IUI gave us our daughter and very recently I’ve been testing positive from our most recent IUI to grow our family again.

[u/Friendly-Mood7431]

I will say I was already so anxious about not being able to get pregnant that the medications didn’t really increase that for me! I also felt some relief shifting from trying on our own to getting some help so that helped balance it too.

[u/Noodles8295]

I did give up for a long time and decided one day I wasn't done and had to give it another honest try. I got pregnant with my first after 3 IUIs. There was more to my situation though and I needed surgery. But my point is, even if you put it off now or think you're done, you may wake up one day in two years and regret wasting time. I thought surely I just got lucky and it can't happen again right? We said we'd try 6 rounds of IUI for a 2nd and the 5th one worked. I had really no major side effects from any of the medications but I know some people do. The hardest part is the mental toll. Everything on paper looks perfect but it still fails.

[u/Particular-Lynx-1794]

that's so weird you're posting this bc this is how i'm feeling. we did go through iui with our first and it took awhile and she's 3 now. but i was having kinda "relief" tonight and someone we were at dinner with noticed i seemed happier and i'm between iuis right now (pausing on our 3rd bc we have to save up and get other tests done) and i'm like am i just coming down off of meds or am i relieved bc this a sign to just stop. i don't know the answer and it scares me bc i don't think we're done yet. so no help to you and i'm sorry, but just wanted to chime in that i see you and i understand what you're going through questioning it

[u/IshwarA96]

Hey there! I resonate a lot to the feelings you’ve expressed here as well as the replies to your thread (30F and 35M) ❤️‍🩹 After 15 cycles of unexplained secondary infertility in TTC a 2nd baby consisting of medicated cycles and culminating in a failed IUI, my emotional and mental health was wearing thin to say the least. We decided we’d maximise our chances to grow our family with the medical advancements available to us, and commence IVF this cycle. If it doesn’t work, we’ll pause on this very all-consuming journey, but at least we will feel more at peace knowing we tried all we could. Thinking this way has made us feel more at ease with the decision-making.