Vasectomy Reversal or IVF?

Hi Guys,

Hubby and I are facing a dilemma, or rather, a decision on which way to go.

Here's the lowdown. I have a gorgeous 19 month old daughter (with my ex fiance) and fell pregnant very quickly after coming off the contraceptive pill in 2008.

My husband has three children with his ex fiance and as a result of that, had a vasectomy (when he was still with her). That was three years ago.

My husband and I married this year and desperately want to have children of our own. We are both 31 years of age.

We have booked in for a vasectomy reversal, which we can cancel without penalty provided it is more than one month prior to the scheduled procedure (late Jan 2011).

We were all for the reversal, since we have had kids before and had no fertility issues. The only issue in our way is the fact that hubby has had a vasectomy.

But now though, after reading of experiences, it seems that just going to IVF is the better way to go. We both believe we are fertile (minus the vasectomy part), so it should be a good way to go.

But what would you do in this situation?

Looking for insight from those who have been there or are going through it.

The vasectomy reversal is going to cost us about $13,000. Medicare does provide a really good rebate.

But what's the go with IVF and rebates? I'm under the impression it's around $3k per cycle and all of it comes out of our pocket.

Please share your insights - it's greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

P.S. I know IVF is far from fail safe, but one smart### on another forum was so kind as to say, "Just because you had kids before doesn't mean you're fertile and IVF will even work". Don't want comments like that please. We'll lose hope when we actually see a doctor.

omg i cant believe that was said to you how rude and closed minded.

i dont have personal experience but other options to weigh up are if going with the vasectomy reversal how long are you prepared to wait until you fall pregnant (in other words it may still take years to fall pregnant despite a history of falling pregnant quickly - i got pregnant with DS and DD1 straight away, dd2 was 2 years, the twins were a few months)
where as ivf pressuming all goes as planned would be quicker.

IVF if successful the first cycle would be cheaper than the reversal (subject to rebates)
IVF is a one shot deal - in other words a vasectomy reversal leaves the oppourtunity for more children by accident or having to fork out for a vasectomy all over again, IVF doesnt run that risk

Natural conception has more chance of a singleton pregnancy where IVF is more likely to be mulitples (from knowing quite a few who have gone down that path) but here i am saying that pregnant naturally with twins.

Thats just some of the things i would weight up if i was in your position sorry i cant be of anymore help

Thanks Nikkie and a big congrats to you on twins! I hope you're feeling great! You are so fortunate.

If only it was possible for it to be natural for us, but it's just not.

I have no real idea about what's involved in IVF, but would love to hear some stories.

Hi Mother Goose, we did IVF and fell pregnant in April. The costs involved were higher than you've been told, we paid about 8000 and got about half of that back.
I'm not sure about how they go about collecting from your hubby as my hubby had no issues such as vasectomys etc. We were told we had about a 1 in 3 chance of success, yours may be higher as you have no fertility issues (I have PCOS and Endo as well as blocked tubes). I didn't find the whole procedure that unpleasant (but that may be hindsight now that I'm pregnant) I remember having some reactions to one of the drugs (got very weepy and cranky) but the needles etc were fine as were the actual procedures. Happy to give you more in depth details about what was involved if you want them.

Good luck!!

Hi There and congrats on your pregnancy!

I think now we are edging more towards IVF. We have more confidence in a medical intervention in a lab than just leaving it to fate after having the pleasure of forking out thousands on a reversal. More and more stories are coming about saying that reversals don't work and almost always end in IVF anyway.

Now to try and find some good fertility advice. Any good clinics out there in Sydney?

Hi Mothergoose,

We are in the same position as you, my husband has had a vas, but both of us have no fertility problems..well except age on my behalf :lol:

We are currently just about to start our 2nd cycle with IVF, first one was cancelled due to poor response.
Our decision to try IVF first and see how we go. We figure we have a 30% chance there, and if that doesn't work we can look at reversal, of which we have a 30% there too...working on 60%..in theory ..:pray:

the main reason we decided on IVF was the time factor, it can take up to 18 months for sperm to improve in enough numbers and strength to create a pregnancy, which for us wasn't an option...*tick tick tick* ...although I am struggling with the invasiveness of IVF, I think for us it was the best decision due to my age.

I guess there is no quick fix, and only wish that we had of stored some of DH's sperm before the decision of a vas.

I guess either way its now a bit of an emotional roller coaster..has it worked , will it work..why didnt it work..

Good luck on your journey...:lol:

Hi MG

While I didn't face the issue myself my understanding is that sperm quality is generally pretty poor because of the vas. From memory what happens is that after a vas sperm are still produces but they die as they can't go anywhere and this changes the environment within the testes slightly and reduces the quality of the new sperm that is produced.

What this means is that they may have to use a type of IVF called ICSI (depending on sperm quality and there isn't really a way of telling until you get a look at it) As an aside, your DH does know how they get it out doesn't he? Mine would have freaked and put a stop to everything if someone had gone near his boys with a needle! :p

Back to the serious point though - just because he was clearly fertile before isn't a guarantee that he still will be quite as fertile as he was before. But I am absolutely not saying that IVF won't work, but it may be that you would have to use a significantly more expensive process - I'm not sure of the current costs in Sydney but when we did ICSI last year it was just over 10K.

Several of the IVF clinics give an indication of costs on their websites - and it may be that if you want more than one kid together it may be cheaper to have a reversal (although as you said - you hear plenty of stories where reversals don't work).

Whatever happens that you have a little bundle of joy in your arms soon.

my DH has had a vasectomy, and we opted to get it reversed first, because it had been <5years and i am young with no issues. unfortantly it didnt work. the dr said he has heaps of good swimmers there...they just cant get out because there is too much scar tissue. we are only just looking at what our other options might be.
our reversal didn't cost half of that though!! wasnt even a quater...and he did go to a good dr (not some cheap one). the dr said that dh is the only one his done that hasnt worked.

Mrs Goose79,

My DH had a vasectomy for abouy 5-7yrs when we met. I explained I wanted children and he agreed to a vasectomy reversal. He had that in Nov 07 and in Dec 07 we conceived our DD who was born in Sept 08. We were not told to wait at all after his reversal just as soon as he is ready to go for it. We were incredibly lucky.

Anyhow in Sept 09 we decided to start trying for No2. Fast fwd to April and I finally convinced my Dh to get a SA done and it came back zero..... Apparently scar tissue has formed so it was like he never had the reversal done....

We are now onto out 1st FET after our fresh cycle failed.

For me I would always have the reversal done....it was so much better. We keeping it as a backup if IVF doesn't work for us but because of already having one reversal done our chances of the 2nd one working is only 50%.

Goodluck, I see you are nearly at your appointment time. I wish you the best whatever you have decided.

Hi there,

My story is not the same as yours, but I did do IVF/ICSI due to me having PCOS and my DH having okay sperm, but not great. For our stimulated cycled we were out of pocket about $2,000 but this was before the government made changes to the Medicare rebate with IVF. Our FET we were only out of pocket about $500. However that is just the clinical costs. There is a lot of medication involved that is veery expensive. I got a BFN for our stimulated cycle, but got lots of embryos that we froze. I fell pregnant on my first HRT FET and now have a gorgeous 20 month old DD. Whilst I was pregnant with DD I had to stay on HRT medication and daily pessaries until I was 10 weeks pregnant. The pessaries are not cheap and I probably spend at least another $500 on them.

Good luck with your decision. Ivf can be an emotional roller coaster, but it sure is worth it once you get your longed for baby.

Janie xxx