Freezing Sperm for IUI's

aves0708

DH and I have some big changes coming up for us.  This week he was presented with a last minute opportunity to work abroad in the Netherlands for three months.  It caught us both off guard, we scrambled to make a decision.  The most obvious factor affecting our decision was him not being here for treatment cycles.  Neither one of us wants to put this on hold for three months, but it's also an opportunity that we don't think he should pass up.  So we agreed that he should go for it and he got the official notice today that he will be  going.  His tentative departure date is May 4.

I am going to ask our RE about freezing sperm so we can keep going with treatments while he is away.  Has anyone else done this?  I read that the counts are lower after thaw, but that it's usually still enough for IUI depending on what the original sample  looked like. 

We are in the  middle of our first clomid cycle now ( I go in for a second monitoring appointment tomorrow), and based on how that goes hopefully IUI's sometime this weekend.  We obviously hope this works, but I am being realistic and trying to prepare that it might take several cycles for us to have sucess, if at all.  If he's leaving May fourth we will need to freeze samples in the next couple of weeks.  How much does freezing samples genearlly cost?  Do you think it's worth it??

Sorry this was so long. Thanks in advance for any advice!!

WillCMyInk

I'm not sure, but I'm interested in answers. MH leaves in July for some very extended military obligations and that will become our only option.

Lillovebug79

We were given the option to freeze when my DH was going to be out of town for one of our IUIs. We were told that you lose about 40% of the sample if everything goes well and they like at least 10-15 million after the wash, freeze, and thaw. We opted not to do it because MFI is our issue. The price we were given was $230 each sample and that included up to 6 months of storage.
My RE said they always prefer fresh sperm but frozen are still okay and can get the job done.
Good luck with this cycle and hopefully you won't need any on ice!

theholmanherd

I would say, as long as he has good counts to begin with, go for it. But I would definitely ask your RE what his/her thoughts are first. Maybe there's a reason he would or wouldn't do it. Let us know what your RE says!

kaynix21

We haven't done it yet but will be as of next month. DH is active duty military so he is gone every other month, if not more.

Talk to your RE but they let you know if there won't be enough. What they were telling me is the like to do 10 mil sperm per IUI. If they don't have enough they'll have him come in and do it again so we have to leave about a week of time before IUI so DH can do it twice if we need it.

aves0708

Thank you for the responses!!  My monitoring appointment this morning did not go well.  The 12mm follie I had on Tuesday has not grown at all, so my RE is not optimistic about this cycle.  I am going in again on Saturday, but if there is still not enough growth then I guess we will cancel this cycle

I asked about freezing sperm for IUI's while DH is away and she was not very encouraging.  She tried to tell me I should just wait the three months until he comes back because the chances are much better with fresh sperm.  Even with his good numbers, she said quite a bit is lost between washing and thawing.  My argument though, is that we clearly need to change dosage/meds for me to get a proper response, so what if we wait the three months, try again with a different dosage and still don't get a good response?  Then we're talking more like  4-5 months wait.  So we agreed to try one cycle with frozen sperm.  DH has to go in over the next two weeks and give four samples, and they will combine two samples for one IUI.  My clinic does back to back IUI's so two combined samples will  give us one cycle.  When DH goes in on Monday we will be getting more info on the cost. 

aves0708

Lillovebug79 said:

We were given the option to freeze when my DH was going to be out of town for one of our IUIs. We were told that you lose about 40% of the sample if everything goes well and they like at least 10-15 million after the wash, freeze, and thaw. We opted not to do it because MFI is our issue. The price we were given was $230 each sample and that included up to 6 months of storage.
My RE said they always prefer fresh sperm but frozen are still okay and can get the job done.
Good luck with this cycle and hopefully you won't need any on ice!

It is encouraging that your RE said frozen sperm can still get the job done, gives me a little bit of hope