Can anyone tell me about IUI?

[grneyednurse]

Hi there,

I think hubby has sperm issues as far as count goes according to home tests (going for SA this week) and have been thinking of options should worse come to worse, i would consider IUI down the road, but I have so many questions and my searches have turned up way too much info on this topic, so I was wondering if anyone out there can answer my questions on this topic or has been there and can share what to expect...I would really appreciate it!
Here goes:
1: How does an unmedicated IUI work? What are all the procedures, bloodwork, monitoring, etc involved?
2: How much does an unmedicated IUI cost with everything included per cycle? I live in Arizona, USA if that helps any.
3: What are the differences between all the various medicated IUI's available and how much more in cost are these than the unmedicated?
4: How do all the medicated IUI's work-procedure-wise? What does one have to do each cycle?
5: What are the options if i already ovulate each month, but we have only sperm issues?
Sorry for all the questions, but I am overwhelmed by my dead-end internet searches and am as confused as ever.
Thanks so much in advance!

 

[kitty_kat_48]

Hey there,
I'm not in exactly the same position as you, as I am using a donor, but I've just had my 9th IUI so I'll be able to tell you a bit about it

1.-I'm sure it varies from clinic to clinic, but through the clinic I am going to (in Australia) basically you call them on day 1 of your cycle, start blood tests around day 9, have one every day until they tell you you're ovulating the next day & to come in for the IUI. Then you go in, get it done, wait for 2 weeks & have the blood test on the day your period would have been due, obviously. It's not too complicated

2.-I'm probably not the best on to answer this question since we live in different countries, but my IUI's cost around $900 every time, and I get a lot of that back from Medicare. So yeah, no idea how much that would be in American dollars!

3.-Can't help too much with this on as I'm not really medicated, the only thing I'm taking is progesterone, but that doesn't really change how the IUI works or anything like that, and it just increases the cost by the amount that the progesterone costs, which is not too much really.

4.-Sorry, can't help with that one.

5.-I already ovulate each month too, I'm not on any medication to help me ovulate, so it just works like I explained in the first answer, but as for the sperm issues, I really don't know, because as I said I'm using a donor.

Sorry I couldn't help you more, but hopefully a little bit of that might have been helpful!

Jess

 

[hayley352]

ive just had my first IUI and it worked first time.

I had 100mg clomid from day 2-6 then i went in for my first scan on day 8, i then was scanned everyother day till i had a bigger enough folicle.

they also tested my urine as i didnt get a surge i had the hcg trigger shot, i then went in for iui 36 hours later. hubby had to go 1st and produced a sample, they wash the sperm and take away any bad ones and then put it into a certain fluid.

they insert the sperm via a catherter, it just feels like having a smear test done.

 

[enicole]

ive just had my first IUI and it worked first time.

I had 100mg clomid from day 2-6 then i went in for my first scan on day 8, i then was scanned everyother day till i had a bigger enough folicle.

they also tested my urine as i didnt get a surge i had the hcg trigger shot, i then went in for iui 36 hours later. hubby had to go 1st and produced a sample, they wash the sperm and take away any bad ones and then put it into a certain fluid.

they insert the sperm via a catherter, it just feels like having a smear test done.

Congrats Hayley352! Do you mind sharing if you were having medical difficulties or if it was OH's sperm?

 

[grneyednurse]

Thanks everyone for all of your answers, but DH's SA came back very bad and we would probably need IVF/ICSI...I don't know anymore what to do. Glad to see that these things can work the first time. I am so glad for you-big hug!
Don't know how some people can go through the expense and disappointment of failed procedures...I may have to in the future though...sigh