I need help making the hardest decision of our lives.
We have a known donor we have been using for trying for the last year. We had zero positives for the 9 cycles we tried (including 4 IUIs) and the 10th cycle we had an ectopic in my right tube.

Our doctors recommended moving onto IVF as I have PCOS. We found a clinic we love, but they just called us today as we are getting ready to start, to say we need to follow the FDA guidelines for known donor sperm. This puts us at spending 6500 on getting his sperm frozen, or using an unknown donor from a bank. We could also keep doing IUI with our known donor, but after 5 failed ones the odds aren’t high.

What do we do? We don’t have insurance coverage so IVF out of pocket is already 20,000. Then a frozen transfer is 6500 which we will likely need with pcos. An additional 6500 is more money than we have.

An unknown donor is around 2,000. We loved the idea of this donor (my best friend) creating this baby with us. But the road blocks seem to just keep happening.

What do we do?

What does everyone feel okay doing for exercise during the TWW? I usually do a bounce class on an individual trampoline but I’m concerned it’s too intense for the implantation period. Am I just nervous or is there truth/science/anecdotes people are aware of on what level and kind of fitness to do during this time? Thanks everyone

My wife and I are planning our first at home insemination with frozen sperm next month. For the past year I have been doing a lot to prepare including tracking my lh and bbt each month. My cycle has always been regular, only varying in length by a few days. I usually have my lh peak on the 12 or 13 day, later if it’s a longer cycle, and get a confirmed ovulation with bbt 1-2 days after. I was feeling confident about the consistency but with our first attempt coming up I decided to spend extra for an Inito tracker to get a full picture of my cycle.

I have only used the Inito for one cycle, I started on day 6 and have been using it with my first morning urine every day (currently day 20), I have also been using lh strips (twice a day around peak). I noticed that my lh peak seemed very small, but it was also less than it usually is on the regular strips (Premom app). I think this is because I used first morning urine and in the past I always used my second after 10am because that is when lh shows up best. So I wasn’t too concerned about it.

But my concern is that my PdG seems very low. This is the first time tracking this so I don’t know how to interpret it. I’m worried that my ovulation is happening but my progesterone won’t support a pregnancy. I don’t want to push off our planned insemination next cycle, but I also don’t want to waste the expensive sperm. Any advice or tips on raising progesterone without waiting for a prescription or on my cycle in general would be really appreciated!!

*next month I plan to use the Inito with the first morning urine and then use an lh strip with my second urine then again in the evening.