Before my POI diagnosis, life felt neatly planned. My husband and I had decided to start trying to conceive after our Japan trip in the summer of 2024. The timing was perfect: a baby born the following summer, with all the crucial newborn follow-ups safely before RSV season.

Then came the curveball. The diagnosis of Primary Ovarian Insufficiency meant that conceiving naturally was, in a word, virtually impossible. Not completely impossible, but incredibly challenging. One of the biggest hurdles was my hormone levels, making it unfeasible to track ovulation. I even tried ovulation test strips, but they were useless; they look for a surge in Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH), and with POI, my FSH levels were already consistently high. Despite these challenges, we tried, but without any luck.

Exploring Our Options: IUI and Donor Eggs

We began having conversations with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) who laid out our options for someone with POI: Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) or the use of a donor egg. Even with IUI, the likelihood of getting pregnant is very low.

At that time, the idea of a donor egg was a hard line for us, a firm no. We decided that IUI would be our best first route since natural conception wasn’t getting us anywhere.

The Emotional Rollercoaster of IUI Cycles

The IUI process is demanding, both physically and emotionally. It involves frequent trips to the doctor’s office for blood work and vaginal ultrasounds, week after week.

I’d message my doctor on the first day of my period, and then they’d schedule the baseline appointment. I’d go in for the ultrasound and the blood work. No matter how many times I did it, it felt incredibly strange.

Then, I’d have to go in the following week to repeat the process: get probed by the ultrasound wand again, get stuck by needles again, and hope there was a follicle. If there was, my husband would give me the trigger shot (more needles!). From there, he would provide a sperm sample, and we’d move on with the actual IUI procedure.

Except, we never made it to the trigger shot step. Not yet, anyway.

Week after week, I went to the doctor’s office, getting poked and prodded, always hoping for good news. Hoping for news of a follicle. But, we didn’t have any luck. Unfortunately, we recently had to pause the process due to an illness and a death in the family.

I’m not going to lie: going to the doctor’s week after week with no good news is emotionally taxing. Wiping off that cold ultrasound gel just to receive disappointing news is hard on you mentally and emotionally. But it’s not a journey we are giving up on, just taking a hiatus.

Our plan is to pick it back up in the new year. And as we continue to navigate this path, we’re even more open now to the possibility of donor eggs if that is what’s in the stars for us.