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IVF vs. Tubal Reversal - How to Decide

By: Sandra Wilson

Many women who have had a tubal ligation have been told it is a permanent form of birth control. When they change their minds about wanting another child, their doctors usually counsel having an in vitro fertilization or IVF. What these women usually don't know is that tying their tubes can be reversed with an operation. So you are left wanting to know about IVF vs. tubal reversal and which is best.

First, you need to understand that a tubal reversal is a surgical procedure. The surgeon will access your fallopian tubes. Hopefully, you will have carefully checked out the available surgeons and chosen a very experienced one who does the procedure on an outpatient basis such as Dr. Berger of Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center. There is little you will need to do to get ready for the surgery other than having your surgeon review the tubal ligation operative report. It's best to check with the surgeon you choose to understand just what preparation you do need, however minimal.

With an IVF, however, there is a course of drugs given to you. You will receive both intramuscular and subcutaneous shots. Some stimulate and some prevent premature ovulation. Most of them will be taken over the course of a few days which means it's not just a one time shot and you're done. Ouch! And that's just the beginning preparation.

Seems like it should be time to remove the eggs, right? Well...you get another injection before ovulation is due. And your doctor will have to monitor you to be able to grab the eggs at the right time. He or she will do this with a needle. This is painful as you can learn by reading a few of the forums available on the topic of IVF.

Now, comes the part you have been taking all those shots for. You will have the fertilized eggs implanted into your body. This will happen after some time in the lab where the fertilization and the beginning development of the embryo takes place. You will most likely get more than one fertilized egg, which actually has begun developing into an embryo, placed back into your uterus. One possibility with the remaining embryos is to have them frozen for when this cycle does not give you the hoped for result of a pregnancy. You will get more injections at this point as well.

This is when you hold your breath hoping everything will go OK. Of course,this will depend upon things like how skilled your doctor is and how careful he was in implanting the embryos among other things. If it doesn't work there are always those embryos you had frozen, if you did. And you get to go through all the shots and preparing your body again. Some of those may not happen if you do choose frozen over another fresh cycle. All this hyper stimulation and such could have some adverse affects on both you and your child, if successful. Be sure to check out the Internet and learn about the potential risks of IVF.

Before you make a decision to have IVF done, you should probably take a look at the success rates. Most commonly the success rates of any one cycle are given as 10 - 30% that you will be successful. You have a higher likelihood of success with more eggs implanted but don't want to go overboard as that could lead to some problems as well. You will find that three embryos is about the max any doctor will implant.

You will need to learn more about IVF in order to make the best decision but you can see that a tubal reversal surgery just might be a better choice. Starting with success rates for tubal reversal you will find it varies with the doctor you choose. Actually most will only give you the industry wide statistics because they don't collect their own nor know them. However, when looking at a center such as Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center, you will find their success rates posted on their website. Overall the success rate for them for tubal reversals is 69%. Take a look at the charts to see where you with your specific circumstances fit in. But, barring any other problems, after the surgery you get to try and try again to conceive all for the same cost.

So let's look at the cost of IVF vs. tubal reversal. One course of IVF treatments will average $10,000 to $12,000 with some going as high as $20,000. That's just one cycle. On average, doctors will tell you to expect to go through at least three cycles. On the other hand, the average cost of a tubal reversal is $8,000 to $9,000 and you will find that, too, can go up to $20,000 or higher. Don't pick one of those later surgeons costing that much. You can see that it usually is much cheaper to go with tubal reversal rather than IVF

Article Source: http://www.articlegush.com

Using the IVF vs. Tubal Reversal report above, you can decide which is best for you. For the leading tubal reversal doctor, visit our website www.tubal-reversal.net

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