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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.

To undergo the IVF process, you will need to have a series of injections. Some will be subcutaneous which means just under the skin but some have to be put into the muscle. For each drug you get, you will have to go in each day for a few days to receive the shots. This is just to prepare your body such as stimulating it to produce more eggs at once than normal.

Next will be the removal of your eggs. Of course, the doctor will need to be sure of the right time to do so and will do this by monitoring to be sure to catch the eggs at the right time. Your system has been stimulated to produce many more eggs than normal. You will get another shot before ovulation is due. Then, when all is ready, the doctor will use a needle to remove the egg. Ouch again!

Once the eggs are withdrawn from your body, they will be fertilized and left to develop for some time in the lab after they reach the correct maturity. One reason they overstimulated your body to produce more eggs is so more than one can be put back into your body after fertilization. You will most likely get two or three. The rest will generally be frozen and can be used if this cycle does not produce a viable pregnancy. Oh, yes, and you get more injections.

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.

So what are your chances of a success on any one cycle of IVF? The figures vary depending upon such things as how many eggs were implanted, but the most common figures seem to be a 10% to 30% chance of pregnancy.

Let’s look at how the success rates of IVF compare to the success rates for tubal reversal. You can look around the Internet to find out what is generally quoted or you can ask the surgeon you are looking at what his specific success rates are. If he doesn’t know, check out Dr. Berger who publishes his success rates right on his website at www.tubal-reversal.net/. Using those, you can see that the overall success percentage is 69%. If you look at all the charts given, though, you can see it varies from a high of 82%. You will have to see where you fit in. And the good news is that once the surgery is done, if no other problems crop up, then you can keep on trying to have a baby however many times you need all for the cost of the one surgery. No undergoing cycle after cycle of IVF treatments.

Finally is the cost comparison. A cycle of IVF is averaging $10,000 to $12,000 in the U.S. It can be as high as $20,000 though that goes for tubal reversals as well. However, chances are you will undergo more than one cycle of IVF. Doctors say to expect an average of three cycles. Add it up yourself. Now a tubal reversal will average $8,000 to $9,000 with some doctors charging much more. But you don’t have to undergo an average of three tubal reversals to get the job done. Taking this into account along with all the above and you can truly see the best answer in IVF vs. tubal reversal.

Filed under: Women