Welcome, AliCat. You've certainly come to the right place, and I do hope we can help you.

I'm also in Sydney - I go through next generation fertility with David Knight - you can always get in to see him quickly, even for the first appointment. We were in within a week.

I too have PCOS. I did the metformin thing - no go. I did clomid and got nowhere but off work for a week with severe anxiety... no ovulation.

And this is where my FS is different to others. He doesn't seem to like clomid much, and uses another drug called letrozole which works in a similar way, but uses a different mechanism in the body. I've ovulated on it twice now. Way less side effects than clomid, so this could be an option for you? It's not a very common thing in Australia just yet, but I'm certainly a big fan of it now.

When it comes down to the IVF/IUI thing... my FS explained that getting women with PCOS to respond sensibly to IVF drugs can be a bit tricky. Often we under-respond and get nowhere, and a slight increase in dosage creates a massive over-response which usually leads to cancellation of an IUI cycle. I went through that with my IVF cycle... we still got to collect the eggs, but I was too sick from the hyperstimulation to be able to transfer. That's not to say that it's not worth trying IUI. We would have if it were an option for us, but with the state of DH's sperm it was completely off the table for us.

As for the way you feel... completely, utterly, 100% totally normal. It's hard. Some days are worse than others, and nobody ever really thinks TTC will be this hard, or that going through IVF or other forms of assisted conception is as hard as it is. It's important to have supportive people around you - they are the thing that saves your sanity in this!

I hope this has been of some help to you... Feel free to ask more questions, everyone here is more than willing to answer them for you.

BW