Tubal Reversal - Start Your Quest With 3 Questions

Suppose you had a tubal ligation and like so many women every year, you decide you want to have a baby.  What are your choices?  Most likely they will be either a tubal reversal or IVF.  But you will have questions about which choice you should make.  Let's start with these three below first.

My Doctor Has Never Heard of Tubal Reversal and Pushes IVF.  What's Going On?

Of course it could be your doctor has heard of tubal reversal but still pushes IVF, or in vitro fertilization, anyway.  Why would he do that?  There are a couple reasons.  First, if your doctor has not heard of tubal reversal it could be that didn't receive training in it.  Because most insurance won't pay for tubal reversal, unless you have a specific rider, this means you have to pay for it yourself.  Hospitals charge big bucks to have the surgery done.  Therefore, most don't do it very often at all which means your doctor probably never saw it done during his training.  If you don't see something done, you may think it's impossible.

Unfortunately even those specializing in reproductive endocrinology will be lucky to see a tubal reversal done.  What they will see, including your doctor, and know most about is IVF which is our second reason.  If you wonder why that might be, let's take a look at the next question.  The answer is there.

How Does a Tubal Reversal Surgery Compare to IVF?

You might be surprised to know that IVF is expensive.  OK, maybe you aren't surprised.  These procedures cost an average of $10,000 - $12,000 per cycle.  You usually have to expect an average of three cycles before you get the hoped-for outcome.  This is because each cycle, which last from three to eight weeks, only has a 10 to 30% success rate.  The average per cycle is 28% because more eggs are usually implanted which ups the odds.  Now do the math and you get an average of three tries that mess up your body for the whole time with all the drugs you have to take for a grand total of $36,000.  Understand that some doctors will charge a whole lot more than that.

With a tubal reversal, you will pay $8,000 to $9,000 per treatment on average.  The good news is that one does the trick, if you get the right tubal reversal surgeon.  Please choose one who is very experienced.  Don't let someone who has done maybe two surgeries in three years operate on you.  Chances are he will cost you a whole lot more money as well.

Now the success rate of tubal reversal are pretty good as well.  There is one website online that publishes statistics from their own patients where you can check them.  So we will use those as our guide.  The average success rate, which means a pregnancy, is 69%.  You should know, though, that this will vary up to a high of 82%.  The rate depends upon your tube length, type of tubal ligation and age.  That last brings us to the next question many women ask.

I'm XX Years Old.  Will This Matter?

Hard as it can be to hear, yes, age matters.  If you are over 35, your body is already beginning to lose the ability to get pregnant.  If you are over 40, you know that even for someone not tubally challenged, you have a much lower chance of getting pregnant.  

So how does that play into getting a tubal reversal?  If you are under 30 when getting your tubal reversal, you have an 82% chance of getting pregnant.  Again, I am using the statistics from the site mentioned above that publishes their client success rates.  However, if you are over 40, your chances go down to 41%.  But even at that, your chances are better than with an IVF.  At least the way I see it.