[Red Sox Mommy]

I put this on the TTCMA board as well but thought I could get some insight here too.

Here's what's going on with me- the short story.

I ovulate on my own, but late and irregularly, so my doctor put me on 50mg of Clomid [this is my first cycle]. He was looking for me to ovulate before CD 20 and if this worked, then next cycle we were probably going to move on to IUI. I didn't have any monitoring done, other than a baseline u/s the beginning of my cycle, and a progesterone draw at CD 20.

DBF has MFI- specifically poor liquefaction, poor motility and low [15.5mil/mL] count. See more specifics on my homepage if you're interested.

The RE thinks we're good candidates for IUI. All this stuff is OOP b/c I don't have any fertility insurance and neither does DBF. I am CD 18 with no positive OPK today, so I called the RE's office to set up an appt to talk about this/next cycle since he's out of town the next few weeks at conferences.

What should I ask for? I know if this amount of Clomid didn't work, he was going to up the dose next cycle and then talk about IUI whenever we figured out the right dose for me. Well, since I ovulate on my own, I was thinking of asking him to up the dose next cycle but still do the IUI, with monitoring and trigger [I don't know if he was going to monitor or not- we never got that far into talking about it].

Basically, I don't want to "waste" any more Clomid cycles, plus the cost of the u/s etc are coming out of my pocket- they have to do one every cycle before I go on it etc etc. I feel like I don't want to pay for an IUI and just have them wing it on OPKs- if you look at my charts, I have gotten negative OPKs with a clear temp shift and doing OPKs two to three times a day. If I am going to invest the money I want it done "right" with a trigger and stuff.

Should I see if they will do an u/s to check for any follies this round and do a trigger, or if no follies, start provera? I was thinking about it. Any way, I would LOVE some insight/advice. if you got this far, thanks so much for reading!

[*Mommy2Remington*]

I think you should do one more cycle with a higher dose of Clomid and do U/S and triggers. Your hubbys counts aren't super low...there are still plenty to work with. So I'd try one more Clomid with IUI cycle before starting provera.

Have you been tested for PCOS? I don't know much about it, but from hanging around the ttc board when we first started ttc, your charts look similar to some of the girls who had PCOS. I know there are some other medications along with Clomid that can help if you do have PCOS. I would maybe see if your RE would look into that if you haven't already. It doesn't seem like you always have clear O temp shifts and since your OPK's aren't always pos. maybe you gear up to O but just don't. Also, maybe see about Clomid days 3-7. I O (pretty) regularly on CD 14 and have 28 day cycles and my RE is having me do the Clomid on days 5-9 to get more eggs. I think taking it days 3-7 are supposed to make you O earlier. I could be way wrong on that info, but it seems worth looking into since you're paying OOP. I would definitely go with the trigger and monitoring though since you're not sure when/if you do O. Good luck with everything and KUP!!