When you both have ovaries...

[klake42]

Ok, so my wife and I are both cis women, but I'm the only one who wants to get pregnant.  She's never really been into it, though she has wanted to be a parent.

After 3 failed IUIs, we haven't given up on getting me pregnant, but we are aware that there are some obstacles for me.  I'm 38, with low ovarian reserve.  I'll probably try a few more times before we start talking IVF.  But even with IVF, low reserve can reduce the chances for success.  We're getting to the point where we need to find out the state of her ovaries.  If mine are are old and dusty, but hers are still chugging along (she's 36), we might look into partner IVF, getting me pregnant with her eggs.  (She is also playing around with the idea of getting pregnant herself, though.)

We just started charting my wife's temps, and this morning she gave me the dates that her last 6 periods started.  She had this idea that her cycles are irregular.  But when I looked at the numbers, every single one of those cycles is exactly 28 days!  Her temp also shot up today (day 14).  This leads me to think that her ovaries may well be all shiny and fresh, and functioning properly!  (I know, there's a lot more to look at, and she's getting blood work done soon.)

I'm wondering, for other families where you both have the capacity to get pregnant (where you're both cis women or trans men, etc.), and where the one who most wants to get pregnant has some trouble, have you explored using the other's eggs?  Or has the person who's less interested in getting pregnant decided to try instead?  How has this conversation gone?  What problems have you encountered? 

Thanks y'all!  I'd love to hear how others have dealt with this, or are dealing with this!

[healz413]

Hey klake42.

Low ovarian reserve sucks. My partner manada has DOR (diminished ovarian reserve) and after 7 failed IUIs, we switched to partner IVF. (Side note-- I had to have both fallopian tubes removed due to severe endo, so IUIs weren't an option for me.)

It was a fairly easy decision for us at that point. At our clinic, the additional charge for partner IVF vs. standard IVF was only about $800 so that they could monitor M's cycles and get our cycles synced up. Both M and I wanted to be pregnant, but since we were going to use my eggs, it seemed like it made sense to start with M carrying so that we could each have a biological/physical connection to our first child.

As it turned out, we only got 3 day 3 embryos from me and we decided to transfer two to M's uterus a year and a half ago (it was a fresh transfer). She got pregnant with twins. Our daughters Tavin and Casey were born prematurely and did not survive. But the way we made them was a really special and beautiful thing and we were both super keen on having done partner IVF.

Because of the loss, M did not feel prepared to carry again. So, last December we transferred the one remaining embryo into me and we are now 30 weeks pregnant with Rocky 3.

I suppose at this point we technically did standard IVF to get me pregnant (the embryo came from my egg and is in my uterus), but it still feels partner IVF is inseparable from the experience because it was part of our journey and it was obviously where Rocky 3's siblings come from.

Anyway, I'm a huge proponent of partner IVF, but I also know that some clinics charge significantly more for it than they do for standard IVF because they treat the one partner as an "egg donor." As far as I'm concerned, partner IVF should cost no more additional money than a frozen embryo transfer would. It's the same process (preparing a body that isn't being stimmed) as an FET and as long as your clinic considers the embryos to be the property of both of you (which it should!) there should be no additional costs except potential some general screening blood work if one party has not previously had blood work at the clinic. If your clinic tells you the cost will be more than this, I would really recommend questioning them on why that is the case and comparing it to a fresh freeze-all IVF cycle followed by a frozen embryo transfer.

Good luck!

[wittyandwaiting]

It's a non-topic in our house, C has no desire to be pregnant, is very anxious about medical procedures and has a very irregular cycle. I'm not even sure she'd go for the her egg my basket route.

[mahler5]

We are in the process of doing reciprocal IVF in TTC #2. I carried our first via IUI. My wife really wants to have a genetic child too , and because she has bad fibroids we decided to do reciprocal IVF. Plus , she doesn't particularly want to be pregnant, and probably wouldn't be able to breastfeed , and wouldn't be able to stay home as long. So, it makes sense for a lot of reasons.

Good luck with whatever you all decide to do.

[karlamo]

For our son my wife and I did Reciprocal IVF. We did it out of necessity. My wife went through 12 IUI's and 2 failed IVF cycles before being dx with DOR at 32 years old. After all she went through we both wanted her to be the one to get to carry so badly. Our insurance paid for me to be her egg donor. We live in the US and that's how our insurance plan worded it despite the fact we are married. I had to pay out of pocket for mandaotry FDA testing before being allowed to "donate". The cycle where we did Reciprocal IVF was actually the fastest and easiest IVF cycle for us. I had an amazing response to the stims and we had plenty of eggs and day 5/6 embryos to use. I think it took us all of 6 weeks start to finish for us to get our first ever BFP.

We talked about me taking over TTC but we were not willing to have me do any IUI's after the slew that we already went through. So we figured Reciprocal IVF was our Hail Mary pass and if it didn't work then we would look to either me trying with IVF or adoption.

For us it wasn't a hard decision to make since we were running out of options pretty quickly. I am currently 32 weeks pregnant with our second that came from the same batch of embryo's so both our kids will be full siblings which I love.

[esquette]

I'm with wittyandwaiting, it is a total non-starter to talk about Sweetie being pregnant. She would never do it and I would never ask her. I think IVF of any form will probably be a no-go too, actually. Sweetie thinks that if it's not meant to be for us to get pregnant it means we should go forward with adoption rather than spend the money on IVF. I'm not sure how I feel about not ever being pregnant, although I am game for adoption. We'll see, I guess!

[kona]

This is still a topic of discussion for our family. My DW carried our first through IUI. I honestly wasn't keen on the idea of being pregnant until I saw the bond has with our daughter. Most likely my wife will carry our 2nd given our age difference but we may have 3 if I still feel the desire to carry or I'm not able to induce lactation. There are other variables for us as well since I am the primary bread winner that will factor in.

Good luck with your journey.

[cetcar]

We've talked about this as well. I think in our relationship we always had a sense that CAR would carry, as I am excited to parent, but didn't feel the urge to be pregnant, and she did. We started out with IUI and ended up with IVF after an overstim, so now we have 8 embryos of hers still in the freezer and are currently pregnant. The original plan was to have her do IUIs for our first, and then when/if we wanted a second, we would do partner IVF with my eggs.

Now, however, we're having to decide when I should do mine, and it feels a little silly at times even doing it since we have more than enough frozen. Still, though, I'd like to do it. For awhile we were considering me doing it this year and freezing all for the future, before we possibly had a baby in tow going to all the appointments, and for tax reasons as well. But now it's all seeming a little much for this year, so we may wait and see.

There's so many possibilities, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Good luck, and feel free to ask any questions along the road!