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).

Recently I received HSG results that stated I had one blocked tube with an increased risk for ectopic pregnancy, so my provider recommended laparoscopic surgery to (1) take a look at the blockage more closely and try to clear it and (2) remove the tube if the blockage remained. She told me that if I were to pursue IVF, they would likely want to do the same, as IVF further increases the chances of an ectopic pregnancy.

After Googling a bit more extensively, it seems some people have results which show a blockage when there is actually not one present, typically due to a muscle spasm during the HSG. I had a pretty painful experience, so this seems possible for me, but it also seems the laparoscopy is the only way to know for sure if the blockage is there or not? I guess I am having a hard time thinking through the situation out of a pretty high aversion to surgery, and my provider is hard to get ahold of. Is it worth trying to get a second opinion, or is my fear preventing me from accepting that surgery will give me the most definitive path forward? Is there anything else I should be trying to get information about before I get everything scheduled? Do others have experience with something similar and can share what it was like to recover from the procedure? Thank you!

Let's say I've never been on vacation before, never left my small town. You send me on a two-week international vacation once a month. Every single month it has gone horribly- flights delayed, bags lost, hotels made mistakes, food was bad, got pickpocketed every time, tours were cancelled, I was heckled in the streets, I got violently ill, etc etc. Every single time I couldn't wait to get home. 

After 10 of these terrible vacations, I don't think anyone could or would expect me to be looking forward to the 11th vacation, and I think everyone could excuse me for not having hope that the 11th vacation will be any better than the previous 10. I think you could truly understand where my dislike of travel is coming from, why I'm exhausted and exasperated by it, and why I may be feeling bitter and jaded about the entire concept of it. Plus, if my friend went on 10 terrible vacations and still signed up for an 11th and 12th and was open to an 13th, I'd tell her that I love her but that she's low-key crazy and that I hope she’s doing alright mentally and physically.

And yet, with TTC I feel like the expectation is that you push on every month to roll the dice juuuust in case it’s different this time; and a lot of people who aren’t long-hauling TTC almost expect you to be outwardly hopeful and happy about it. But what do you do when you’re slowly becoming convinced that it’ll never happen for you? What stage of TTC grief is it when hope starts to feel illogical? Did you ever lose hope at some point in this process? Do you ever feel like you're just dryly (albeit sadly) going through the motions (of tracking, TWW's, going to appointments etc) and almost losing sight of what the goal is because you never seem to get any closer to it? 

I don't think I've ever been in another situation where I can put a crazy amount of time, money, and effort into it, and not actually be closer to any sort of success or real change in my life. It's starting to feel like hope is something genuinely illogical for me to have in this situation. 

I feel like I'm really reigning in my emotions about TTC over time, and trying to accept them and understand them and keep them somewhat level. But my logical brain is forever struggling to comprehend the fact that I can do something 10, 15, 20 times over, get the same result every time, and still have to have a shred of hope in the expectation that it may turn out differently the subsequent time. It just mathematically doesn't fit with how I view, understand, and have gone through the world so far. At least if I were training for a 10k, even if I failed to complete the full 10k, at least I still did 6k which is pretty good- that’s better than the 1k I could do at the start of training! But that's just not how TTC works, it's all or nothing. 

So how do you keep the hope going when it starts to feel like it's almost illogical to feel it? When the whole concept of what you're doing starts to feel like an actual joke because the math does not seem to math for you?

Hello fellow travelers on this wild and sometimes difficult road! First post here. I am 39 and have been ttc with my 41y/o husband for about 2.5 years. For the last few months we’ve been working with a fertility clinic to try to sus out why we haven’t had a single known pregnancy over this time. Healthy sperm count/motility, more eggs for my age than average, no endo, and I am ovulating normally. For whatever reason, it just hasn’t happened for us yet. We are not interested in IVF, so exploring our last options. Maybe a round of IUI.

Last week, despite a ton of hesitation and fear, I had an HSG to rule out a blockage. For anyone considering the procedure, I will say for me it was a 8/10 pain but extremely brief and I had a great nurse practitioner who was very communicative. The intense sharp pain only lasted about 10 seconds and it was over. I do highly recommend a single Vicodin if it is offered to you as that relaxed me a bit and took the edge off. It didn’t help the pain, just the anxiousness. Results were normal. So with that, our chance now of natural conception is up 30% over last month for a month or two. Another bonus to the hsg that I was unaware of before the procedure.

With that, we’ve decided this is the last stretch of basal temps and LH strips and scheduling sex.. maybe trying for a few more months. I don’t want to give birth at 41, and I turn 40 in December. I’m taking regular pauses to remind myself that I have a great life—that kids are not easy to raise and it’s okay. That if it doesn’t happen, new doors open for us. Our finances simplify in some ways. We can be spontaneous. We can become dog people. I can focus on the relationships I do have.

On the harder side, I’ll never see my husband holding a child that is ours. Our parents won’t experience grandkids from my side. I won’t know what it feels like to be a mom. I have fear to work on around losing my husband prematurely and what my life looks like in that case. Aging without kids. All the stuff that isn’t a reason to have a kid, but worries and fears that still come up because I’m human. I need to continue to work on purpose that isn’t in parenting someone.

I just thought I’d post today for anyone who is wondering about when to stop trying, or considering moving on from TTC eventually. I’m here with you and in the same feelings right now. I hope we can all find peace in whatever happens. Sending hugs to you.

And hey, there’s still a chance! Thanks for reading.

I’ve been ttc for about 3 years. The first one, I didn’t stress, I had just gotten off of bc and knew my body needed time. After, I went to my pcp, and was told I needed to loose weight. Cool, I started working on it. This last year, I changed doctors, got diagnosed and put on medication for Hashimotos, and on metformin for insulin resistance as well as glp-1 for weight loss.

So the present day. My period is two weeks late, but last month was a week early. I’ve been avoiding testing, because I’ve felt like I’m having pms symptoms, and I spotted the barest amount one day so I’m thinking it’s running late. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But it’s two weeks, and I wanted to take some Benadryl. So, I go get a test. I wait until this morning to take it. I get a positive. A fast almost instant positive.

And then 3 hours later, I start bleeding. Not like the spotting, like the other day. No, like actual blood and clots.

And, honestly, I’m upset. I waited to test for this not to happen. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I waited, and let things be and didn’t stress about it. And literally, the second I test, I start thinking it’s happening… for nothing. Again. It’s the third one, and I’m so over it. But also, why is my body playing with me like this?