Has anyone here done an IUI or heard of them?

My wife and I have been trying to start a family for a little under a year now to no avail.

So given she turns 35 in August, her gynecologist recommended she go to a fertility clinic, which she's been doing for a few months now.

She aims to lose 15-20 pounds this summer.

She'd been told by a doctor a few years back that she had PCOS, but the guy she's seeing at this fertility clinic said she doesn't.

She also takes medication for hypertension, hypothyroidism, and insulin resistance. But they told her the number of follicles, egg reserve, FSH, and progesterone levels look fine.

I have an issue of my own: My sperm motility is a bit low, so they have me taking male fertility pills and COQ10. They've done two semen analyses on me, with the second already showing improvement.

And that's where we stand. If the IUI doesn't work (depending on how many we do), the next step would be adding Clomid. And if that doesn't work, we're looking at IVF. But IUIs themselves run in the thousands -- it's not cheap.

Given my wife's age, it's likely we'll only be able to have one child, and I'm okay with that. However, I'd really like to have a baby girl.

Even though we're doing the IUI, we're still going/not going to do those things that increase your chances of having a daughter (e.g., missionary position, no orgasm for her, light breakfast, high calcium and magnesium diet).

Given the information I provided above:

1. Does it sound like the conditions are favorable or unfavorable for having a girl? Can doing an IUI hurt our chances?

2. Has anyone here done an IUI and, if so, did it work out?

3. Also, I'm wondering how the sperm cleaning/sorting process works. Do they pick out the hardiest sperm, or the fastest? Can I actually request that they pick healthy X chromosomes?

Thanks in advance.

Hi and welcome!!

I would LOVE to see your wife go onto our PCOS pink sway diet. Whether you guys end up doing IUI or not, it will really help her a lot to improve her egg quality and boost your chances of conceiving, plus make it more likely to have a girl. Even though she doesn't have the full PCO syndrome she definitely has tendencies that direction and we have had great results both for helping people conceive and for pink. While I have a long thread about it with a couple of sample diets (scroll down past the first couple posts which are more just general info, and you'll see the diets) https://www.genderdreaming.com/forum...rt-3-pcos.html it's probably easier if I just give you the simplified version:

1500-1800 cals a day for most people (a few people go down to 1200-1500, and a large minority go up to 1800-2000, but most people do the 1500-1800 range)

50-60 g protein and fat (you do not count protein and fat in fruits and vegetables, and count NOTHING in low carb vegetables, they are free and unlimited, have as much as she wants, no need to count)

Full fat dairy only, NO SKIM. Avoid skim and part skim dairy like it's the plague, it's terrible for egg quality and blood sugar

Whole grains only. Avoid white refined grains (with the possible exception of white pasta, which some people continue to use since whole grain pasta is gross and pasta is more forgiving of blood sugar than other white flour foods are)

No sugar.

Exercise if at all possible as this will really help with the insuin resistance. Even if it's just moderate exercise like a short walk daily, it really helps!

What fertility pills are you taking?? Some of them are better than others so we may want to have you make a change there , keeping the stuff that's helping while getting rid of anything that's harmful.

The Clomid will sway strongly pink. IUI on its own (without the Clomid) may sway somewhat blue (and I truly don't think you guys need IUI. I suspect this is a situation where some dietary changes may really help a lot). If there's any way to either do the IUI WITH Clomid right from the start, or even try Clomid on its own a couple months first, I would recommend that. But of course that may be up to the RE.

Some of the old school sway tactics have been debunked, so when doing the old school sway stuff be careful you're not doing things that are a) cutting odds of conception hugely and b) possibly swaying blue (some of the supplements recommended on other sites are swaying blue!) When you're doing missionary, are you doing shallow release?? If so, stop. Shallow release has never been proven to sway and it has really cut odds of conception dramatically for us.

If you give me a list of the supps you guys are taking if any I can go over them with you and explain if they really help or hinder your pink sway.

Re calcium/magnesium diet - just be sure that does not involve skim or part skim dairy. I know it sounds crazy but for some reason the sugar in skim milk is really detrimental for conception and can aggravate underlying PCO-tendencies such as insulin resistance, which in turn makes egg quality poor.

I would also very much recommend possibly taking a couple months and trying on a supplement called "myoinositol" for your wife before going to IUI - but only if they're not willing to give you the Clomid without the IUI.

1)I can't say for sure without knowing more about your wife's diet - is there any way you can fill me in about what her diet is looking like, and any supplements you guys are taking?? IUI on its own without Clomid has been shown in studies to be possibly blue friendly, so like I mentioned if there's a way to try Clomid sooner that may be a good idea.

2)Yes many people have done IUI, although it's unfortunately not a miracle cure. Odds of conception are pretty low, and my concern is that unless we correct the potential underlying issue by making those diet changes you guys might end up spending the money and not conceiving. (I am not selling you anything here, I promise. I don't want you to think I'm trying to deter you from a course of action in the hopes of selling you on anything I have to offer. I will help you free of charge however I can whether you do IUI or not, I just hate seeing people spend money on IUI when it's really not that beneficial in terms of boosting chances of conception! Not to mention I don't think your problem is anything that IUI will necessarily help.)

3)The idea that X sperm are more hardy and Y sperm are fast has been completely debunked. X and Y sperm are about the same size, live abut the same amount of time, and swim the same speed. To be honest no one is really sure HOW the sperm spinning works (or if it even does.) Some evidence indicates that it's the chemicals the sperm is washed with that is actually possibly altering the gender ratio, and not the spinning itself, but we honestly don't know if it even works at all (and sadly many of the clinics are pretty misleading with their results). There is no way for them to pick out healthy X sperm. They cannot see the difference in healthy and not healthy DNA with the naked eye, or even with a microscope, and they cannot even tell the difference between X and Y sperm without a very complex process involving fluorescent dye that was not approved by the FDA. The spinning just whirls sperm around and claims to separate the X from Y, but because they are roughly the same size it's a matter of great debate if that even happens, or if the chemicals they use to wash the sperm are actually what is altering the gender ratio.

Thanks, atomic.

My wife and I talked about it and we are opting to go through with the IUI.

I'm supposed to jizz into a cup Wednesday morning, and she's scheduled to have it put in her about an hour later.

Because I'm hoping for a girl (she is too, but not as fervently as I am), I was wondering if there's anything I should do beforehand to boost my chances of having more x sperm in that sample.

Should I take a hot shower first? Wear tight undies the night before? Masturbate a few times beforehand?

If anyone else knows, your tips are most welcome.

Thanks! Please wish pink dust on us! :ttcgirl: :DD:

Sending you all my pink dust!

All that stuff you are thinking of doing will simply make it WAY more likely your IUI won't work. Please follow the clinic's instructions to the letter because you need enough sperm for the insemination, or the whole thing will end up being cancelled.

Good luck!

Thanks as always for your valued advice.

Just curious, though: Does the fact that I have low motility (but a decent sperm count) mean that I may very well lean pink, or does that not mean anything?

I'm wondering because I know they're going to clean the sample to leave only the healthy/hardy sperm. I'm wondering if the pretty-looking ones tend to be x's or y's.

Motility on its own does not seem to tell us anything. If you have low motility it is very, very likely that there will be sluggish ones of BOTH X and Y, and healthy ones of BOTH X and Y. I know there's that old theory out there that X sperm are strong and Y sperm are weak, but that has been completely debunked (I have the full story here: https://www.genderdreaming.com/forum...le-timing.html