Donor Sperm IUI/IVF- 2012

[MrsC8776]

Oh goodness, I have a whole list of places. My clinic gave it to me. Would you like me to share them? I can try to scan it and add it to a post if you want some places to look. I see you are in the US so shipping wouldn't be an issue.

My main questions were about the health history of the donor. That is all shared on the websites. Most of them are free to look at and some charge. Why they do that I have no idea. The sperm and shipping is expensive enough. We ended up ordering 2 vials just in case and now have one sitting at the clinic. I don't know what we are going to do with it. Maybe ask you clinic what them like to see on the CMV status. I think thats what it is called. Some clinics don't care and others do. Also ask the sperm bank if the donors can change their mind later down the road about being open ID. I don't know what you are going for but to some that makes a huge difference. I will try to think of some more questions.

 

[WANBMUM]

Girls, sorry I've been missing, I thought sadly this thread had died off as it wasn't showing in my subscribed threads. I came on today to bump it up and was really happy to see you have all been posting and be

 

[WANBMUM]

Ing so supportive. Thanks guys

My iui went good. I will post properly later when I'm on my laptop.

 

[HollyTTC]

What type of questions did all of you ask regarding donor sperm? The only 2 I have written so far is 1) if I want siblings for the baby 3 to 5 years down the road (not that I would do this but just want to keep options open), would I be able to use the same donor? and 2) in case of serious health issue where my bone marrow might not be a match for the baby/child, would we be able to check for a match with the donor guy? I still have to think of more questions regarding the costs and their procedures/policies before I'm ready to meet with dr to discuss this option. Obviously I will need to find out how much information we are allowed to have/see in order to pick out a donor.

We are using donor sperm through xytex. I asked a lot of questions, so here are a few I think might help....
CMV status? (cytomegalovirus)
Storage costs for unused units?
Family health history? (xytex gives you a full family health history for all donors)
Screening processes? ( What do they screen their donors for?)
I also asked about the bone marrow thing - they said it would be up to the donor at that time.
Do they limit the number of reported births by each donor? (Xytex does)
We also had to see a fertility counsellor as part of our process and we found if VERY helpful. Might be something you'd want to look in to.
Good luck!

 

[HollyTTC]

I'm so sorry Guenhwyvar.

I just wanted to pop in to tell you all I am taking a bit of a break. I am not coping well with the birth control pill and I am scared I am doing damage to my marriage. DH and I are going to have a heart-to-heart tonight and I am going to ask him if we should delay our IUI for a few months. I still have another 10 days on these pills and it just isn't worth it. I feel like a lunatic. I've made an appointment with my family doctor about my shortness of breath but I think it's anxiety and now depression. I just want to crawl under a rock and cry.

I'm really sorry you're having such a hard time. Maybe just taking a break and regrouping a bit will make things easier. I hope your DH is understanding about all you are going through..... sometimes they just don't get it though.

 

[tobefruitful]

hey ladies, all very very good questions to ask. we met with dr. today to discuss our current situation. dr. was very patient and answered all of our questions. although both DH and i got the feeling that he really wants us to try IVF again. we expressed interest in DS. he suggested xytex bank, so that is what we are looking into now i guess...can you believe they charge extra to look at photos? our clinic doesn't require us to go to any therapy sessions. both DH and i are on board with DS because, like all of us, we would like a baby i believe i will be on clomid 50 mg to start with. dr recommended only trying DS 3 times before tossing in the towel do to the fact that we have already done 3 IUI's with DH sperm. hopefully it will only take 1 time thanks for all the advice!

CanadianMaple- so sorry for the extra stress you have going on right now. i feel like you are doing the best thing. please don't crawl under a rock, we all really like hearing your voice of wisdom on here. you are not alone. you are in my thoughts.

Mrs.C- how are you feeling?! i see your baby is the size of a sweet pea, love it!

HollyTTC- have you ordered your DS yet? are you on any other medications going into your IUI?

WANBMUM- fingers crossed for you!! were you on any meds as well this time around?

 

[HollyTTC]

tobefruitful - My fertility specialist arranged for us to get all of the extra information that we needed for the donors we liked. We went through all the Xytex basic profiles and sent our fertility clinic the "short list" of 4-5 we were intersted in. They did all the work and emailed us the extended profile as well as any available pictures. Maybe see if there is a way that that might work for you....

We have had our DS for about 4 months now. It is stored at our Fertility specialists office. I am on clomid 25mg (which doesn't seem to be working by the way!) as well as thyroid medication. I am also monitoring my BBT, but that isn't really getting me anywhere. My temp is lower than the chart my DR. gave me. We meet with him on the 13th to see why things aren't working. They also let us try 3 times before another consultation with him. My husband has no sperm at all due to childhood leukemia, so we knew the DS was the only option if I wanted to carry our children.

 

[raelynn]

Hey ladies, mind if I join? I've been lurking for a while now and finally feel up to posting. Hubby and I have decided to go down the dIUI route after we had an early miscarriage after successful IVF. Unfortunately, it comes mostly down to finances and we just can't afford to keep doing TESEs and IVF/ICSI rounds. We've pretty much picked out our donor since there are so many similarities to hubby but any insight you girls can give would be great.

How to cope with moving on to a donor, how you picked your donor, what the process is like, etc. I feel like a newbie after being so focused around IVF and then just coping with the miscarriage. Not really sure where to go from here other than setting up my appointment to review things with our doctor and to meet with the social worker. I'd be curious to know what kind of stuff the social worker goes over if anyone else had this required with using a donor.

 

[tobefruitful]

Hey ladies, mind if I join? I've been lurking for a while now and finally feel up to posting. Hubby and I have decided to go down the dIUI route after we had an early miscarriage after successful IVF. Unfortunately, it comes mostly down to finances and we just can't afford to keep doing TESEs and IVF/ICSI rounds. We've pretty much picked out our donor since there are so many similarities to hubby but any insight you girls can give would be great.

How to cope with moving on to a donor, how you picked your donor, what the process is like, etc. I feel like a newbie after being so focused around IVF and then just coping with the miscarriage. Not really sure where to go from here other than setting up my appointment to review things with our doctor and to meet with the social worker. I'd be curious to know what kind of stuff the social worker goes over if anyone else had this required with using a donor.

welcome raelynn! i think you will find this group to be very helpful. i know it has been beneficial to me.

our situations are similar but not exact. DH and i just did a round of IVF/ICSI. first transfer the second transfer only to find out it was a chemical pregnancy as stated above our DR would like us to go another cycle of IVF but it is just so much $$. it really doesn't help that we had not such a great experience with it both times. DH has low morphology, so far my results are good.

i am curious to ask if you don't mind sharing, how many eggs you had removed from your retrieval. although i am only 29, i only produced 10. just wanted to see what your experience was like.

what donor bank have you and your DH decided to use? our DR suggested we use Xytex. was it hard picking a donor and does your DR plan on putting you on meds? we are going to start our first round in sept. fingers crossed

 

[raelynn]

tobefruitful - Thanks for the welcome. Sorry you had to go through a chemical. I never understood the pain involved with losing a baby until it happened. Even so early on I was still attached. I have to admit to something a little embarrassing - the thing that got me ready to move forward again was watching teen mom I was like, I could be a way better mom, I deserve a baby too! How terrible is that?!

I'm guessing our doctor will be the same way and try and talk us back into IVF since we were technically successful with it but we're going to want to spoil our little one when it finally comes along so being broke is not going to be the best situation for it. I had 15 eggs retrieved. I have PCOS so they kept my meds very low so I didn't overstimulate. I was only on 75 meopur and 75 gonal.

We had already started looking into dIUI before hubby had his TESE since we weren't even sure there would be any sperm to be found so our clinic had already given us a list of banks we could use. We picked Fairfax since they're very close to us, their online interface is great, and we found a donor we liked on there. It wasn't too hard deciding once we picked the things that were most important to us - like blood type since hubby and I are both O and could only have an O child. I'm also CMV negative so we needed a negative donor. It took a while to narrow that list down but one of the donor essays sounds like my hubby could have written it so that was the winner. I'm assuming I'll be on at least clomid since I don't have regular cycles on my own because of the PCOS but we haven't me with our doctor to go over the specifics yet (I've been procrastinating). Gosh, I didn't mean to write so much! Hope I didn't overwhelm you!

 

[deafgal01]

MrsC- I'd love it if you could share some of them with us, in case I'm interested in looking at them myself during my free time.

 

[WANBMUM]

Raelynn. Welcome I'm glad you popped over to us.
Hope your doing ok after everything youhave been through.
The only advise I can give to dealing/coping with donor is time I guess. I'm sure it will be slightly different for you but as my husband and I said, if a stork dropped a baby on our front porch, we would love it unconditionally, without hesitation.

I just had my 2nd IUI, unmedicated (as I overstimulate on chlomid) but with trigger. I guess my chances are lowered because of only 1 follicle, but all we need is one.
Our plan is to have iui 3 times as we get 3 vials of donor sperm, it's usually cheaper to buy it this way and after 3 attempts we have another consultation to review what's next.

 

[silverbell]

CM - Hope you're feeling better soon.

How to cope with moving on to a donor, how you picked your donor, what the process is like, etc. I feel like a newbie after being so focused around IVF and then just coping with the miscarriage. Not really sure where to go from here other than setting up my appointment to review things with our doctor and to meet with the social worker. I'd be curious to know what kind of stuff the social worker goes over if anyone else had this required with using a donor.

Hey raelynn - I recognise you from the azoo board. I'm so sorry you went through so much recently.

At my clinic (in England) we were given a list of 9 donors. Only 5 of them were suitable for us because I'm CMV positive and they want them to match. DH and I are both 6 foot, so that discounted the short guys So we were actually left with 2 potential donors who matched eye and hair colour to DH. 1 was in the US and 1 in the UK. We went for the UK one in the end, as we felt it would be easier for a child to trace their biological father one day if they wanted to if we chose a UK donor.

So it was that easy for us. At the time I was annoyed we didn't have ANY other info other than height, build, eye colour, hair colour, blood group and CMV status. I had wanted to know more about the donor - their history, their reasons for donating, what they looked like. But actually now I'm very glad I didn't have any of that information. It would have made the choice so much harder and I would have probably judged things or been put off by things. This way I'm just picking the genes that most match DH and not the personality and looks, which aren't guaranteed anyway.

Once we had picked, we phoned the clinic and let them know and that was it - we were reserved a 'pregnancy slot' with that donor. In England a donor can only provide donations to 10 families.

We didn't have to meet with a social worker, but had to have mandatory donor counselling, which was fine and she was stunned how much we knew, how happy we were with our decision and how we understood all that was involved. They basically just wanted to check whether we were going to tell/not tell, what the consequences of that could be, whether we were happy knowing our child may have lots of half-sisters and half-brothers and whether we were both on the same page as far as donor sperm went. I found it a bit of a waste of time because you don't just suddenly decide you want to use donor sperm. It's an incredibly difficult decision and you'd be mad to just say you'll do it without talking to each other in length about it. But I guess they have to do these things! I know others have found it helpful, but for us - and our counsellor - we all felt it was a bit of a waste of time (she even said this to us at the end of our consultation). I guess everybody's different.

Hope that helps

 

[MrsC8776]

raelynn~ Welcome!

WANBMUM~ Good luck during the 2ww.

DG~ I will add the list I have tonight when I get home.

Just stopping in real quick before I head out for the day. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Today is scan day for me to see if we have one or two. I'm so excited and having my hubby home makes it even better. I will reply more to ech of you a little later.

 

[WANBMUM]

Thanks mrs C Goid luck for today. Hurry back to let us know

 

[raelynn]

For those of you who have gone through an IUI before, what CD was your IUI on? The therapist our clinic uses for the mandatory counseling session doesn't have anything available until the end of the month. I'm on BCP now so I'm concerned we'll be cutting it really close with when IUI will happen. I'm assuming I'll be on at least clomid since I have PCOS and my natural cycles are about 3 months long but I have no idea how short that would make my cycles.

 

[HollyTTC]

For those of you who have gone through an IUI before, what CD was your IUI on? The therapist our clinic uses for the mandatory counseling session doesn't have anything available until the end of the month. I'm on BCP now so I'm concerned we'll be cutting it really close with when IUI will happen. I'm assuming I'll be on at least clomid since I have PCOS and my natural cycles are about 3 months long but I have no idea how short that would make my cycles.

My IUI's were both on CD 19. My third cycle, I never got a positive ovulation test. My cycles after coming off BCP were anywhere from 40-65 days. Clomid make my cyles regular (31 days usually) I found the counselling, which was also mandatory, very helpful.....

 

[WANBMUM]

Hi rarelynn. This month it was cd10, month before cd12. I'm on metformin for pcos and maybe it's coincidence but I used to ov cd16,17,18.

 

[silverbell]

Huge congratulations to MrsC ... I see you're expecting double trouble You must be over the moon.

My IUIs have been on CD22, CD13, CD13 and CD10. Without drugs I have a 26-day cycle with ovulation usually CD14.

I honestly don't think you can definitely say when you're going to be ready for IUI on any given cycle - it seems to change about every time. Sometimes the follies grow quickly and other times they're slow.

 

[WANBMUM]

Well spotted silver ell!


YAHOOOO mrs c!! I knew it!! How amazing is that! So so happy! Not one healthy bean but 2! X x x