If you have had your tubes tied and want another baby now for whatever change in circumstances precipitated the desire, you are left looking at a tubal reversal or at in vitro fertilization. But before you make up your mind which one to go for, there are usually a few questions you want to ask. Some of those questions are answered below.

1 - One question that gets asked comes after talking to your doctor about wanting to have another baby. It’s usually some variation of my doctor hasn’t heard of tubal reversals but is pushing IVF. Why? The short answer may be that he is either working with outdated information, or if he went through medical training in the last couple decades, he may have never even seen a tubal reversal surgery. And you know that if you aren’t trained in it, it must not exist, right? After IVF came along it became the treatment of choice. Take a look at the next question and I think you will understand why.

2 - What are the statistics for tubal reversal and IVF? You will average three cycles of IVF though I have read on one woman who had 75. She must have been rich. Why? Because in the U.S., each cycle costs around $11,000. That’s an average and for each cycle. Maybe she lived elsewhere. Remember to factor in what the treatments do to your body and the risk factors. With tubal reversal, the average is about $8500 though you can find it cheaper as well as much more expensive. Same for IVF. The leading tubal reversal doctor in the U.S., maybe the world, charges $6900. That is all he does. Success for each cycle of IVF is ten to thirty percent. The range has to do with the number of eggs implanted. For tubal reversal, using the leading doctor’s published statistics, the average success rate is 69% but yours could be higher depending on your age.

3 - Does my age matter? Yes, age does matter. Even without having had your tubes tied, the older you get, the harder it is to have a baby. After 35 there starts to be some decline and after 40, it starts getting dicey. So, your age does matter in your chances. You can check at the statistics here - http://news.tubal-reversal.net/pregnancy-study-2007-pregnancy_rates.htm - to see how age affects outcome for the leading tubal reversal doctor in the U.S.

4 - It has been X years since my tubal ligation. Does that matter? Here’s an example. Suppose two women had their tubes tied 11 years ago. One was 21 when it was done and is now 32. The other was 32 then and is now 43. The one who is now 32 will definitely have a better chance of getting pregnant after the surgery than the 43 year old. See the last question.

5 - How long will my tubal reversal surgery be? Depends upon the surgeon you select. How often has he done the surgery in the last two years? Once? Then you can expect it to take a few hours. Or you could select someone like Dr. Berger who pioneered the outpatient procedure and who does it four times a day, five days a week. Can your doctor say that? It takes Dr. Berger, or his new associate Dr. Monteith, about one hour.

6 - Does my doctor do only tubal reversal? This is a question you should ask if you aren’t. Why? Because if he does IVF as well, you only need to look above at 1 and 2 to understand what he wants to do regardless of your situation. And if he does other types of surgeries as well, how experienced and practiced is he? When you have the choice of the Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center where tubal reversals are all that is done, just think of all the experience they have.

There are more questions but this article is long enough. Get the answers to these questions for yourself. Then you can decide if IVF or tubal reversal is best for you. You can also decide which surgeon will be best to go with as well.