Herbs, acupuncture....

Hi Catec, I haven't had any experience with acupuncture, but I did go to a naturopath who prescribed herbal supplements while I was TTC. Ours was a similar story to yours. My DH got a reversal after 5 years and initial post-reversal tests showed that it had been successful. However after 2 years of TTC we had DH tested again. The first time they did not test him for antibodies which treat the sperm as if it is disease and kill it off. The second time they tested for these antibodies and he had them! So my first recommendation would be to ensure that your DH has been tested for these antibodies, because when we found out that DH had them we found out that we had less than 1% chance of conceiving naturally. So basically it was not going to happen. So any amounts of herbs for me were not going to aid us in TTC. We went ahead with IVF and I am now 5 weeks pregnant with our first child! IVF is mentally challenging (but so is TTC with no success!), but I didn't find it that bad at all. It is all over and done with within 2 months of starting the cycle, and in our case it was totally worth it. I know there is not any guarantees that IVF will work for everyone, and I am under 35 so our chances were pretty good. But if your DH has these antibodies, it may be your only option. I hope this hasn't depressed you further, but I know when we found out about the antibodies it was almost a relief, because we could stop trying different things that were never going to work. The not knowing why is the worst I reckon.
I hope you find your answers and that you get your longed for child

Hi catec! I'm sorry to hear of your troubles ...it's really hard long-term TTC with fertility issues. COnsidering your ages, time is not on your side, so perhaps a good idea is to sit down with your husband and talk about what options you have. I see that IVF is a last resort for you, but to be really honest, I wouldn't muck around. Have you considered consulting a specialist about your fertility issues?

Yep, the $ is part of the problem. We've been to see a fertility specialist initially to see if there was any 'in between' steps we could take or tests to increase chances rather than launching straight down the IVF path, but that was a pretty negative experience - pretty much: "You're too old to bother with that, you need to do IVF immediately and it will cost $11,000 each cycle and you have around a 20% success rate with each cycle. see the nurse to book in and arrange payment" - she seemed to just see $, not people (the cut-off age for free IVF, I think, is 38). So that's part of the reason for looking at alternatives, plus having friends who've had several IVF cycles and ended up with nothing but heart-break and in one case a divorce (cos she wanted to keep trying, he said they couldn't afford it and it was too emotionally draining...).
so to any of you getting near the age cut-off, don't leave it until it's too late!

Catec, sorry to hear you have so many obsticals in your way to get what you want, I hope things start turning your way soon. All the best