Got my first IUI yesterday. Stats looked good, 2 mature follicles (with letrozole and trigger shot) and 100 million sperm post wash with 95% motility. Any first IUI success stories? Nervous for our results, want this so bad.

I had my first IUI on Jan 15, got a digital positive on Monday(!), and went in for my first beta draw this morning.

Nurse called this afternoon and told me that I was “technically” pregnant but we should be cautious as my hcg is at a 39 and they like to see it at 50. I go in on Friday for another draw to see if it double.

I am panicked. My last pregnancy ended in a TFMR at 16 weeks so I’m just overcome with all kinds of anxiety. Is this really as bad as the nurse made it sound? Her tone was like I shouldn’t get myself too excited….

I’m 30 and have one living child, conceived when I was 26 (my husband was in his early 30s). We got pregnant the first month of trying.

We’ve now been trying for baby #2 for 1.5 years—one year of trying naturally, followed by six months of IVF. My first IVF round ended in a miscarriage at six weeks after a fresh transfer. Since then, I’ve been embryo banking and haven’t done any transfers yet, but I’m planning to in the next couple of months.

Embryo quality doesn’t seem to be the issue: our fertilization rate varies between 80–100%, and about 70% of our blastocysts have tested euploid. My hormone blood tests have all come back normal, and both ultrasounds and an HSG showed no issues.

My periods aren’t particularly painful, nothing that would raise red flags. I just don’t know what else to investigate. My doctor keeps saying EMMA/ALICE testing isn’t proven to be helpful, so I’m at a bit of a loss.

Could this be silent endometriosis? Or is there anything else I should be looking into?

Hey everyone!

Quick background: going through secondary infertility. I had a spontaneous, vanishing twin pregnancy in 2021 and gave birth to my daughter full term.

Since Dec 2022-January 2024 my husband and I experienced 3 CPs. Out of the 4x we tried to get pregnant we got pregnant 3x with those early losses.

In February 2024 we were referred to a RE and did all the testing. My husbands results came out clear with no seen issues. I have MTHFR and AMH 2.4. I do carry the Fragile X Gene and I have been told that I am going through early perimenopause at 33 years old (turning 35 in May). I have been diagnosed with Hashimotos but my TSH is in perfect range at 1.9 with elevated TPOAb. (My endocrinologist refused to put me on Synthroid for now as my TSH is normal). My husband and I decided to take a year off from trying for our mental health sake (did a lot of traveling and enjoying our 3 year old!).

Now we are trying again and this was my first month on 100mg Clomid (CD 3-8)with Ovidrel trigger and timed intercourse. I had 3 mature follicles ranging from 16-22mm. My main S/E of Clomid was bloating.

I was hoping to see if anyone has any similar experiences or has any success stories they would like to share 🙌🏻🥹 I have been cruising through the group to search Clomid but they seem to be older stories.

Been trying for 7 cycles. Tracking my BBT & LH strips (kind of inconsistently). I’ve tried mucinex and preseed. Got my hormones checked via blood work and everything was in normal range. Did at home sperm test it was OK. Not great but not in danger zone. Really starting to get worried that something is wrong. Any tips or words of encouragement ?! 😭 28 y/o

As the title suggests, I’m hoping to find inspiration from this community of couples who have had an unexplained infertility diagnosis, but who managed to get pregnant on their own! Going down a depressing path as I’ve been trying for 2 years, and gone through 2 cycles of IVF unsuccessfully, and have yet to see a single positive pregnancy test.

I’ve come to accept that this journey may take a lot longer than I thought. Hoping to hear everyone’s stories!

I just wanted to put the question to this thread: how stressed were you when you conceived?

I'm always told to "just relax" and I know that stress is overall not great for fertility, but sometimes it's unavoidable, especially during fertility treatments. I feel like being told not to stress just puts the responsibility on women to "calm down" and makes her feel like it's her fault she isn't conceiving.

Any stories about successful pregnancies that were conceived under less than relaxing times?

Hi all, first IUI cycle. I am doing a monitored cycle with letrozole and a trigger shot. I went for blood work 7 days after my trigger and my fertility nurse called to tell me that while my progesterone level is “on the lower end but in range” They like to see over 12 and mine is 12.3. However, my estrogen is only at a 52 and they like to see over 100. I was prescribed estradiol that I will take through my pregnancy test and then continue if I do wind up pregnant.

I’ve had a really hard time finding info or other posts about these levels a week after triggering? Most of what I’m seeing is levels at the time of the trigger. I also see a lot of posts from people who took it prior to their IUI to improve lining thickness. Mine lining was fine at last monitoring.

[edited because I incorrectly used DPT to mean days post trigger]

Has anyone else had their levels checked at this time and had success with supplements?

My husband and I have been TTC since September 2023. I fell pregnant around this time last year, which ended in a pretty traumatic loss at 18 weeks. Yesterday I got two coloured convincing indents on tests, only to discover today that everything is stark negative. So we are moving into cycle 9 since my loss. My husband’s parameters were not great, originally about 4-5 million count which we managed to get up to about 12 million with lifestyle changes although we did manage to conceive once. His motility was good, but morphology very bad 1 - 2 %. He has since had a varicocelectomy and goes in for his repeat analysis next week which we are hoping will show improvements. Our clinic are saying we should go straight to IVF with ICSI but I’m wondering if his numbers have improved if we can try IUI first. Mentally and financially I just feel like I need to try it before I move on to IVF. Did anyone have success with IUI with borderline numbers and if so could I ask what they were?

TL;DR - for those who had success with IUI, what were your husbands semen parameters like?

Is it difficult to conceive naturally with a FSH of 12?

Has any one here conceived naturally with a similar FSH?

Looking for some reassurance really. My husband is older than me - he's 45 and I'm 30 (F). We're having difficulty conceiving and have had two early losses. There's so much stuff out there about how older males pose a greater risk of miscarriage and health problems to the baby. I guess I want some reassurance that it's going to be okay despite my partner's age.

I thought I'd write down what worked for me after several failed attempts, in case it could help someone else with the same characteristics.

Context:

36yo woman, BMI 23, partner is 35, we had been trying for a year with timed intercourse without success. No smoking and barely any drinking for both of us. Vegetarians. Both healthy body weight and weight lifting 2-3x/week. I have had hypothyroidism since I was 17, on 75mcg synthroid, and I've also known about my PCOS for that long. I always had super long cycles (45-90+ days) which gradually became regular at around 35 days after removing lots of stress from my life and eating better (confirmed ovulation via BBT).

Because I was aware of my PCOS we went to a fertility clinic after a year of trying. They ran extensive tests, but they couldn't find anything obviously "wrong" with us other than my PCOS. Clear HSG, no insulin resistance. Mild MFI on his end (morphology 1%) for which he got put on antioxidants. I was taking a prenatal, got prescribed vitamin D (10,000 UI 1/week), and they upped my thyroid meds to 88mcg.

What we tried:

After another few months without success, we got started on IUI. I got put on Letrozole 5mg on days 3 to 7 of my cycle, then an Ovidrel shot once follicules were confirmed via ultrasound, and insemination within 36h. I was also on progesterone from insemination until my period started. On the first IUI cycle I also went to acupuncture 2x/week (money down the drain). We did 3 IUIs back to back and none of them worked. During this time I also tried a keto-adjacent diet to try to influence my PCOS despite no evidence of insulin resistance, but no luck.

After that we decided to take a break from fertility treatments for the summer because it was really difficult emotionally. The plan was to go back for 3 more IUI treatments in the Fall, this time with added gonal-f injections and metformin. We tried to take our minds off it and focused on continuing to exercise and eating well. I installed MyFitnessApp and lost 4kg/9lbs over two months to take my BMI down to 21.5 which was a weight that made me feel better. Crucially, I also started taking 4g of myo-inositol (New Roots) and 200mg of Ubiquinol (Sisu). I had tried myo-inositol in the past to try to make my cycle more regular but never saw any effect, but thought it couldn't hurt.

The first month nothing happened. We were enjoying the summer. Then I got busy planning a trip overseas, planning a 10-day long hike, and we went on a short local holiday where we really disconnected. It really took my mind off of things. I even allowed myself a little bit of weed, which I hadn't had in over a year and a half. And at the end of the 2nd month... I tested at 13DPO and found out I was pregnant. I couldn't believe it. It really does sometimes happen like people say, "when you stop trying". Reflecting back on it, I am convinced the Ubiquinol helped my ovaries produce better quality eggs. I had never even gotten a positive pregnancy test before in my life.

I hope this helps someone out there. I am now 24 weeks pregnant with a seemingly perfectly healthy baby and a normal pregnancy. Fingers crossed it stays uneventful. Best of luck to anyone trying ❤️

TTC for 15 months. Got pregnant naturally 24 months ago which ended in MMC. I ovulate every month according to bbt and opks. Did two 50mg clomid and four 2.5, 5 and 7.5mg letrozole cycles with timed intercourse that all failed. I take progesterone suppositories at 3 dpo every cycle. I’ve read It Starts With The Egg and did the Mediterranean diet. Tried mucinex. On all the supplements. All of my tests came back perfect. Laproscopy with tubal cannulation came back perfect. Zero issues. His post wash count was 48m per ml with 3ml and 82% motility. Pre wash has high viscosity but post wash was normal.

Doctor wants to do an IUI next cycle with 100mg Clomid. Part of me is excited but the other part of me is hoping it’s not just a waste of time.

So basically my wife and I have been trying to conceive for around 2 and half years without success After trying alot of things including IUI , but after I read one of the posts here regarding HSG and showed it to my wife she decided to talk about it to her doctor and while she had the procedure they discovered no problems but just a slight blockage on the left fallopian which was opened up by the HSG itself , and the first month we tried After that procedure we got pregnant naturally , so maybe this post could help someone.

Anyone had success conceiving after starting acupuncture? Started this month and am hopeful it’ll help somehow.

Go!

All of my labs came back perfect, with the exception of AMH (0.07), FSH (18.9), and I have extremely irregular periods. For instance, I had a normal cycle in Sept, nothing in October, a brown like cycle in Nov, then 2 cycles a week apart in Dec. My doctor says there is no way to conceive naturally and that I should look into an egg donors. I’m lost and mentally drained but so happy I have answers to my long journey of infertility. If you had these factors, did you conceive?

Hi beautiful people, today morning I (32F) had our first IUI after the last one being cancelled due to Estradiol being low. I am trying to understand our chances through the numbers. Can you guys comment on what you think, what should I avoid or do to have better chances?

My protocol was - 2.5 mg Letrozole from CD 5-9. Had a dominant left side follicle of >16mm at CD 9 , and endo thickness was 8 mm. Estradiol level was >300 what they wanted, LH was a bit low, so doctor upped the Ovidrel dose to 500mg on CD 11. Will start Crinone from tomorrow morning.

I was having sharp ovulation pain starting right at 36 hours after the trigger shot which was this morning at the appointment time. My partner (36M) had pre wash sperm count 11 million with 36% motility and post wash 7 million with 100% motility. We are of south asian descent. According to the doctors we don’t have any major issues. All I want is to conceive and have a successful happy and healthy pregnancy. Thank you for reading ☺️

Second SA post wash results - 3ml / 48m per ml / 82 motility / <2 viscosity / 7 morphology

Has anyone done IUI with similar test results and were successful? Been trying for 15 cycles. 6 medicated cycles. No success. All of my tests came back perfect as well.

Trying to decide if we should try IUI or just save time and money and go to IVF.

Hi! All of my initial bloodwork and imaging came back "normal", but still not ovulating. Doctor thinks possibly PCOS. We are going to proceed with IUI + letrozole and trigger shot. Curious what other peoples experiences have been with this protocol.
Thank you!

Have been TTC for over a year, I am 38 and my husband is 39. This is our first round of IUI and I guess we are considered unexplained as all tests are free and clear. I was put on 5mg of letrozole and went in today for monitoring (CD13).

I have 3 follicles: 24, 13, 11. From everything I am seeing online the ideal is somewhere around 18-20. The ultrasound tech didn’t say anything about it other than the 24 looks about ready to ovulate on its own. I’m scheduled to do my trigger shot later tonight and IUI Wed morning. Depending on bloodwork they may call and ask me to trigger this afternoon and come in tomorrow.

I’m feeling kind of down about it as the 24 seems too big, especially with 2 days until the IUI, and the 13 and 11 are too small. Is there any hope this will work??? I know odds for IUI are already low.

Hi! If you had a positive test post IUI, what were some symptoms (if any) leading up the positive, and when? Thanks so much!

As with anything in this community, take all of this with a grain of salt. With so many variables, it's impossible to say what truly worked. However, I found peoples' stories on here so reassuring and educational, so I wanted to share a bit of mine. [Note: We thankfully lived in a state with a mandate for medical insurance to cover IVF, so we paid copays and for add-on treatments. I want to give this context because it influenced the number of cycles and add-ons we were willing to do.]

Background: After a year of trying (started at 33 yo), my husband and I saw an RE. After initial testing (bloodwork, HSG, SA) she did not alert us to any outstanding fertility issues. We tried 3 unsuccessful IUIs with Clomid. I wasn't satisfied with my doctor's approach and lack of bedside manner, so I found a new RE to begin IVF. It was literally night and day. First lesson: shop around for an RE. My new RE immediately told me my FSH was high for my age (it was 11 and I was 34 yo). She explained how this would likely impact our outcomes and recommended embryo banking to give us options for our future.

Protocol: Our first three cycles did not go well, we had trouble getting embryos. I was on an antagonist protocol with high levels of Follistim and Menopur. By the 2nd and 3rd cycles, I had added in HGH for the first few days of stims. We also added in calcium ionophore (abbreviated below: Ca) to help with fertilization (this is an add-on my lab offered), due to my poor egg quality.

IVF 1: 15 retrieved, 1 embryo (untested) -- FET failed

IVF 2 (w/ HGH and Ca): 15 retrieved, 3 embryos frozen, PGT tested -- all aneuploid

IVF 3 (w/ HGH and Ca): 17 retrieved, 0 embryos made it to freeze

At this point, I felt hopeless. We decided to through everything into a final cycle. For round 4, my RE made the following changes:

- Primed with testosterone patches the cycle (month) before, combined with Estrace estrogen

- Primed with HGH and continued for the first few days of stims (until I ran out - so expensive)

- Flipped dosing: Higher Menopur and lower Follistim

- Dual trigger (we'd done this for a cycle before too)

This cycle produced the same number of eggs (17) but we had a much better attrition rate: we sent 5 embryos off for testing. Of the 5, just one came back euploid.

I was done with trying to create more embryos and wanted to transfer. To give myself peace of mind that I tried it all, I underwent additional testing.

Pre-transfer:

• ERA, EMMA and ALICE cycle (modified natural using letrozole and trigger) with a hysteroscopy: everything came back normal
• NK cell blood testing: mine came back as elevated, by my clinic's standards
• Vagibiome suppositories: even though my tests were normal, this was a "can't hurt, might help" add-on I did leading up to transfer
• Low carb, high protein diet for the month leading up to FET (thought it could help with any inflammation, who knows)
• Supplements (recommended by my RE): lactoferrin 250mg, vitamin E 400IU, CoQ10 (honestly, just in case I had to go into another egg retrieval cycle)

Transfer protocol:

• Modified natural using 5 days of letrozole with a 10K HCG trigger
• HCG uterine wash immediately before transfer: this is something I read research on, and felt like it was a cost effective add-on that could help (I already had an extra vile of HCG on hand to use, luckily covered by insurance).
• Intralipid infusions for NK cells: one the week before transfer, another the week following transfer (pre-beta). I did a third infusion 2 weeks after positive beta (6 weeks pregnant).

By some miracle, our one single euploid embryo stuck and gave us our daughter.

What I think helped? Mostly persistence and lots of cycles. With poor egg quality, I feel like it was just a matter of doing lots of retrievals to up my odds of getting a viable embryo. As far as add-ons: I'm not a big believer in HGH (due to my failed cycles with it), so I honestly would have dropped that if I had needed to do a 5th cycle. I do think maybe the testosterone/estrogen priming helped in getting us a viable embryo. If you have high FSH/DOR, I'd consider discussing priming options with your RE.

I'm on my 2nd round of 2.5 letrozole and I'll be taking progesterone as well because my levels were only 9.4 last cycle at 8dpo. Has anyone had any success with this combo and how long did it take? Going on 2nd year ttc

Just had my baseline scan for IUI#3. They upped my letrozole from 5mg to 7.5mg. The last IUI I had two decent sized follicles (20mm and 16mm). I guess they bumped it up to see if it could help improve ovulation?

Did anyone else have desirable results after increasing letrozole?

Hello TFB Club!

I’m 31F, and my partner (34M) and I started trying for a baby this past September. I have ovaries with a PCOS-like appearance, and my gyno mentioned it could be challenging for me to conceive because I don’t always ovulate—especially after being on birth control for three years. My ovaries are still “trying to get back to normal.”

To help, my doctor prescribed Duphaston for three months to trigger ovulation. In our first month of trying, I discovered I was actually ovulating around day 19 of my cycle (BBT tracking and LH strips were a game-changer!).

Last cycle, my period was 4 days late, and I got a very faint positive line on a pregnancy test. But subsequent tests didn’t show a second line. I had my HCG checked, and it was 14.5 at 15 DPO, then dropped to 8.7 by 17 DPO. Shortly after, I started bleeding—heavy for two days, then lighter. It turned out to be a chemical pregnancy.

BUT! I’m feeling optimistic because this means I can conceive! That in itself is huge given my PCOS.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? I’d love to hear about your positive experiences after a chemical pregnancy with PCOS. Looking forward to your stories and advice!

Just wanted to know if anyone has any iui success story that just took letrozole or clomid or injectables or a combo of these plus the trigger shot and was NOT on progestrone during their cycle. My RE wont prescribe progesterone unless my 7 day post iui lab work shows progesterone less than 10. I advocated so much both previous tries without any give and just want to hear if anyone had any iui success without progesterone

I had my hsg done 20 days back… i previously (6months back) had mild hydrosalpinx which they found out during diagnostic laparoscopy and they flushed it and put me on antibiotics.. very strong antibiotics… since 6 months passed they wanted to do hsg… they told me the tubes are not blocked every thing is ok … i asked what about hydrosalpinx they said I take too much stress i need to relax and everything is gonna be alright.. please dm if you know how to read hsg…

Has anyone noticed a correlation with slower Letrozole response (~3 weeks for my follicles to reach 20mm) and a late BFP? In the TWW and going a little crazy!

Hi! I'm 35 and so is my partner. We've been trying to conceive for just over a year. We did become pregnant last June but this unfortunately was ectopic and resulted in me losing my right tube. Once we were cleared to try again I wanted to proceed with medicated cycles + IUI to try and ensure ovulation on my left ovary. My first two cycles were canceled by my clinic as I only had mature follicles on my right. I asked my doctor to switch from Letrozole to Clomid and increase my FSH injections. He agreed and this round we have three good size follicles on my left to proceed with. My husband and I just did the IUI today - his post wash sperm count was 57 million. I'm hoping some of you in this chat can share some success stories with maybe a similar history. Really hoping to avoid another IUI / IVF if possible. TIA!