Would you do IVF in my shoes?
We basically need to decide by tomorrow morning if we are moving forward with IVF. What would you do in my shoes?
CONTEXT
- have a 2.5yo child; experiencing secondary infertility
- age 34F, partner is 35M
FERTILITY HISTORY
- baby #1 was conceived after 2 cycles TTC. Easy pregnancy and delivery.
- started TTC for baby #2 in May 2025. Got pregnant immediately but miscarried (~5 weeks). Took a few months to recover/normalize. Got pregnant again November 2025 (4th cycle TTC). MMC at 10 weeks, found out to be a chromosomal abnormality. D&C Feb 2025. Have been TTC since March 2025 (5 unsuccessful cycles so far, one of which was IUI). I never imagined I’d reach my due date for my last pregnancy and still not even be pregnant again :(
DIAGNOSIS
- My AMH is low for my age (1.30)
- Husband has borderline high % of DNA fragmentation (29%)
- HSG and SIS came back clear. Karyotype normal. Miscarriages chalked up to “bad luck”
NEXT STEPS
- we have been told IUI doesn’t make much sense for us and is a waste of time/$ in our case
- IVF cost is manageable for us as insurance covers a large portion (we are incredibly blessed to be able to say this)
WHY (OR WHY NOT) IVF
- close family members think we are crazy for “jumping” to IVF and think we should keep plugging away at it naturally
- I feel a sense of urgency around age gaps. Maybe this is silly, but so many of our friends did 2u2 or close to it. I had always envisioned a 2.5 year gap but now we’ll be >3 years.
- it seems to be taking me an increasingly long time to get pregnant - this is the longest # of cycles TTC. I’m worried something has changed since I last carried a healthy pregnancy.
- I’m worried about having another miscarriage given the tremendous amount of time it takes to recover and start again (plus the heartbreak of it, of course)
- I believe strongly in fate and “what is meant to be will be,” so I worry I am trying to over-engineer things by doing IVF
I truly don’t know what to do. Two different REIs said we could go either way (natural or IVF) and it’s really our call. We’re in a medical gray area. My husband is traveling during my fertile window this cycle, which is frustrating. I need to commit to IVF by tomorrow and submit payment, or wait until next cycle (or thereafter) to start (having not tried naturally this cycle due to trip).