Infertility discussion

[MrsSpendyPants]

Looking for all of the tips and tricks for those battling infertility!

From cheap places for IVF (CNY Fertility in NY) to where to get the best-bang-for-your-buck supplements to which acupuncture treatments or diets are worth it - help us out and let us know how you got your bundle of joy the frugal way!


Personal story:
Struggled for two years then got our first.  All tests come back fine.  Normal BMI, 30 years old, no problems on female or male tests.  Been trying for our second and recently had one of my fallopian tubes removed due to an ectopic pregnancy so now keen to try again but know our chances are reduced so hoping to do it on the cheap.  No insurance coverage for fertility and our reproductive endocrinologist is $400 per visit.

Help me give our son a sibling without breaking the bank!

[NorthernMonkey]

IVF sucks, it sucks really really bad, its awful in every way.

It has a low chance of success, make sure you know what youre getting into

[BTDretire]

I'm not sure what you have looked into, but there are things before IVF.
My wife had some treatments, not sure what they were, hormonal or what, it's
been 29 years ago, but it worked. (3 years and two kids later I got a vasectomy!)
I suspect there are even better methods now.
If you haven't, visit a fertility doc, Wishing you good luck.

[obstinate]

One thing I can say with little doubt is that acupuncture is not going to help with this, since it's just a placebo. By way of encouragement we do have friends for whom nothing worked for years, then it just happened. Good luck.

[fuzzy math]

I would start by finding out if consultations are free. If so, I'd get a bunch of them and pick everyone's brains there. Find out chances given your circumstances, from natural, to meds, to a full IVF cycle. If your other ovary still works there may be many options to try before IVF. Its ultimately up to you where you stand on the lower cost / longer time vs higher cost / shorter time options they present. Good luck!

[Cassie]

Have you consulted your doctor for advice?

[TheFrenchCat]

Did your doctor say removing the fallopian tube would reduce your chances?  I ask because I lost an ovary to a cyst and didn't have trouble conceiving.  My gynecologist never thought I'd have trouble due to that. 

[Morning Glory]

How long have you been trying? If you just started then I can offer some encouragement.
Took us 3 years and 2 miscarriages to get our first, tracking cycles and everything. Did not do IVF.

Started trying for second as soon as first was a year old for this reason. Conceived second after six months off birth control with no tracking/timing stuff, and probably less frequent sex due to having a one year old in the house. I was 35 years old at the time.

[Saffron]

As a fellow woman with reproductive challenges, I'm super sorry. This sucks. The good news is that you have been able to carry on pregnancy to term. That means that both your and your husband's reproductive systems have functioned correctly in the past. The loss of a fallopian tube does diminish your chances by half, but at your age with a healthy amount of trying, especially around your ovulation window, you will likely fall pregnant again.

I know that you have anxiety and it might just be worthwhile for both you and your husband to sit down and have a consult with a reproductive endocrinologist. For additional assurance you could get your both of reproductive systems a checkup (hormone levels, sperm count, maybe even an HSG). But from what you're telling us, in my inexpert opinion, it does not sound like you should have too much more trouble conceiving than the typical couple. The place where things get tricky are if you have another ectopic pregnancy. You really need to be aware of potential pregnancies and get them evaluated as soon as you become aware. This means garnering a pre-existing relationship with a OB/GYN to be able to have them ready to have you in for ultrasounds or other evaluation capabilities on short notice. A potential loss of your second fallopian tube will make things a lot more invasive (and expensive) to continue trying to conceive (read: IVF therapy at $10-$30K+).

Infertility treatments aren't cheap and are often excluded from health plans, with exception of some states that have mandatory coverage. There is nothing cheap about it, and cheeping out isn't necessarily the best way to go about things. Get to know about all the treatments and the process. This can span from IUIs to using donor embryos to surrogacy, all with various elevated costs. Be wary to woo-woo stuff like fad diets, suppliments, acupuncture, or "oils".  Snake oil salesman are out to make money off your pain.

As additional resources, I'd suggest the reddit forums r/infertility and r/infertilitybabies (Fair warning, r/infertility does not allow casual mention of live children as it can be triggering. Read their rules before posting.)

[Caroline PF]

Did your doctor say removing the fallopian tube would reduce your chances?  I ask because I lost an ovary to a cyst and didn't have trouble conceiving.  My gynecologist never thought I'd have trouble due to that.

It can seem counter-intuitive, but losing an ovary doesn't change your fertility, whereas losing a Fallopian tube will cut your chances in half if the ovary on that side is still intact.

The way the ovaries work is that they both start off about 15 eggs toward maturation. The first egg to win the race to maturation sends out a hormone that stops the rest of the eggs from maturing. The ovaries are essentially racing each other, and about 50% of the time, the left will have the winning egg, and the other 50% the right will have the winning egg. If you lose an ovary, the remaining ovary will always win the race, and you will ovulate on that side every month.

But if you lose a fallopian tube, half of the time, the ovary without a tube will win the race, and there is no way for that egg to get fertilized.

One thing I can say with little doubt is that acupuncture is not going to help with this, since it's just a placebo. By way of encouragement we do have friends for whom nothing worked for years, then it just happened. Good luck.

Just to add my 2 cents here. Acupuncture is placebo. But the placebo effect is real. Placebos can help. So as long as the acupuncture, or massage, or essential oils, or whatever, makes you feel good, and is affordable in your budget, don't feel guilty doing it. 

[obstinate]

One thing I can say with little doubt is that acupuncture is not going to help with this, since it's just a placebo. By way of encouragement we do have friends for whom nothing worked for years, then it just happened. Good luck.

Just to add my 2 cents here. Acupuncture is placebo. But the placebo effect is real. Placebos can help. So as long as the acupuncture, or massage, or essential oils, or whatever, makes you feel good, and is affordable in your budget, don't feel guilty doing it.

The placebo effect occurs sometimes, most often in cases that depend on human perception, like pain management or self-reported mood. Placebos do not generically and universally offer results better than a non-intervention baseline. For example, a placebo will do nothing for a stab wound.

Getting pregnant is probably somewhere in the middle between pain perception and life-threatening physical trauma, but it's probably closer to the latter in terms of susceptibility to the placebo effect. (I'm not saying this as a scientist with empirical data, but simply based on my priors and my understanding of the biological mechanisms involved in getting pregnant.)

[wonkette]

If you are near a Shady Grove Fertility location check out their Shared Risk IVF program. This is probably where my wife and I are headed and we like the peace of mind of knowing we will pay for the chance at multiple tries instead of facing death by a thousand cuts in financial decisions. We can also pick up our toys and go home (so to speak) and get our money back. https://www.shadygrovefertility.com/affording-care/guarantee-programs

That said, you have to qualify for the program and either party can break the contract at any time as new information comes to light. They don't list the cost on the site but it is around $20k for six tries, not including the cost of PGT testing which is $5k or meds. Many meds have coupons and if you have enough lead time you can order your meds from overseas for a lot cheaper.

[Laura33]

Have you had a full testing work-up?  Sometimes there are hidden factors that don't show up in a basic screen (like clotting factors that can affect implantation/getting oxygen to the baby).  If you have coverage for that testing, it can be really helpful (for more than that -- that's how they discovered my Hashimoto's Thyroiditis).

Barring that, I have two recommendations: 

1.  The obvious one:  live as healthfully as possible.  Particularly given your anxiety, I would think that some daily exercise and relaxation (meditation/yoga) would be almost critical to getting by.  As you know, trying to have a baby when you know you will likely have problems doing so is fraught and anxiety-inducing in and of itself.  So take extra care of yourself to manage all of the stress in your life and keep both your body and your mind whole.  Be gentle with yourself.

2.  Take a baby aspirin every day.  After my first couple of miscarriages, my reproductive endocrinologist said that he could do all that testing, but it would cost $2K (no insurance coverage at that time), and the first line of defense if anything was wrong would be baby aspirin (apparently a number of those antibodies can lead to clotting-type issues that restrict bloodflow), so why not try the baby aspirin first and see if that works?  It did.  (And my subsequent test results a couple of years later confirmed that that was the right call -- in fact, by the time I was pregnant with my son, I needed heparin).  There is very, very little risk associated with low-dose aspirin (in fact, I know a doctor who is taking a full-strength aspirin daily as Covid protection, given the clotting issues with that disease), so IMO it falls into the "may help, can't hurt" category.  (Obviously, if you have any medical conditions that might make it a concern, don't do it until you talk to your doctor!)