Factors affecting your chances of success

Whether you have had a pregnancy before

Having previously been pregnant (either on or off treatment) increases the chance that you will be successful again.

Your response to treatment

Some women do not develop follicles in response to the medications, and others do, for reasons that aren't entirely understood.

Semen quality

The closer to normal the semen results the better the success rates are. Motility of sperm (how well they move) is very important in predicting success.

Fallopian tubes

Women with 2 normal fallopian tubes have higher success rates than women with only one functional tube. Women who have both tubes absent or blocked have very low success rates.

Your age

As you can see from the graph below the age of the woman is a very strong predictor of whether you will be successful. However, there have been babies born after successful vasectomy or tubal ligation operations! Your IVF Specialist or IVF Nurse can help to give you an idea of the chance of success you have without treatment.

You might also like to look at an on-line fertility calculator such as the one found here.

Smoking

Whether it is one or both of you, cigarette and or marijuana smoking decreases your chance of success. You can't do anything about how old you are or how your ovaries behave, but you can do something about this one. We are happy to refer you to a counsellor for help with quitting.

Weight

Women who are over or underweight have a lower chance of pregnancy both with treatment and without. If this applies to you then you might like to consider taking a few months to address your weight first. We can refer you to someone who can help, or you might like to try an established program like Weight Watchers.

Lots of luck and persistence

At the end of the day, some couples get pregnant and some don't and we don't really know why that happens in an individual situation. So there certainly is an element of luck involved. As the old saying goes "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again". Persistence, like most other things in life, is the key to success.