Why can't they use several days worth of sperm?

ChicagoWeded2007

Here's a question.  If you can freeze sperm and use it, and Dh has a low count.  Why can't they have him come back and do like 3 samples and then thaw them out and use them for an IUI?

99luftballoons

I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is that it has something to do with the freezing process being pretty rough on sperm.  You are only going to get a small percentage of sperm surviving the freeze and if his counts are low already, you just may not be able to get to a point where it makes sense.  Isn't sperm freezing also pretty expensive?  Just my guesses, I really don't know the answer.

Traci09

Sorry, double post.

Traci09

99luftballoons:

I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is that it has something to do with the freezing process being pretty rough on sperm.  You are only going to get a small percentage of sperm surviving the freeze and if his counts are low already, you just may not be able to get to a point where it makes sense.  Isn't sperm freezing also pretty expensive?  Just my guesses, I really don't know the answer.

Yeah, this is pretty much the reason.  We talked to our RE about doing this, and he said that with the losses due to freezing/thawing, that DH would probably need to do about 10 frozen samples to get 5 million sperm for an IUI.  The cost of washing, freezing, and storing all of those samples would have been high - I think about half the cost of an IVF cycle (not including meds) so we decided not to do it.

Our RE said that this is more common with milder cases of MFI where only 1 or 2 frozen samples would be collected and combined for the IUI, so it might be something that you would consider if that was your situation.

ChicagoWeded2007

I guess that makes sense.  But if you doubly MH's count, he would have enough to do IUI, so maybe we'll ask about it later.