I am first timer for IVF with ICSI and looking for some advice :)

cherylanne3550

Hello everyone!  I have posted here and there over the last 15 months which is when our infertility journey began and am extremely excited to say we are FINALLY financially able to move on to IVF with ICSI which is what our docs recommended from day 1 but our insurance did not cover   My parents were gracious enough to take out a home equity loan to lend us the money so the dark tunnel we have been in finally has a light at the end   I am looking for those of you who have done IVF with ICSI and hoping you will share your experiences and maybe what we can expect during this process.  We will start this process when I get my period this month which is due @ the 21st-23rd.  Our docs have explained everything I am just looking for personal experiences, what infertility issues you had, how long it took from day 1 of your period until egg retrieval/transfer, how many attempts until your BFP, etc. - our background is I am 32, my husband is 40.  We have been together almost 12 years, married 5 years and trying to conceive for 4 years.  We were not doing anything extra or stressing about it just thought when it was meant to be it would happen but after 2 years of having unprotected sex with no pregnancy knew we had to get tested.  All of my tests came back normal and actually showed I naturally produce a good bit of eggs, all his tests came back normal EXCEPT he had very low sperm count due to elevated FSH, all other parts of his bloodwork, urine and physical exam were normal - his first SA was only 1 million, 2nd one 5.4 million.  I was relieved there was nothing wrong with him causing the low count and felt horrible because he was blaming himself for this whole situation   They immediately recommended IVF with ICSI but our insurance does not cover it and we were not financially prepared for this diagnosis, it kind of blindsided us   Our insurance did however cover unlimited IUIs and the bloodwork, ultrasounds, meds (pills not injectables) and sperm prep associated with it so we went ahead and did numerous IUI cycles (12!) knowing the odds of it working were slim to none but figuring it was worth a try since it was covered.  My hubby began taking a variety of vitamins and making lifestyle changes to may help increase his count which did actually help, over the 12 cycles his prewash numbers jumped to anywhere between 5-20 million and postwash numbers varied from 500,000-16 million.  Our doc normally only allowed 6 cycles but since I was having no side effects they allowed us to continue knowing our financial situation.  Out of the 12 cycles 1 was cancelled due to my hubby's postwash sperm count only being 100,000    None of these resulted in a BFP and after the 12th cycle we went on a much needed break, during all this we remained positive but definitely needed a break until we could move on to IVF.   In the meantime we applied and were approved for the shared risk program at our doctors' office which covers 3 fresh IVF cycles and 3 FETs - if after all of this you don't take a living, breathing child home from the hospital we get back 70%.  It was great to get approved for it but still did not have the funds, that's when my parents stepped up and offered their assistance for which we will be eternally grateful.  Twins run naturally on both sides of our families (I have identical twin sisters and each time my mom was pregnant it was or they thought it was twins) so when we started the treatments knew the odds of multiples increased but now increase even more with IVF.  We are just telling each other what is meant to be will be - thank you all for your feedback and support and sorry for the long post!

DH1972

My wife and I both had fertility issues so after a year of trying we went forward with IVF w/ ICSI. We did a 5-day transfer, and believe it or not, we got our first VERY faint BFP 4 days later. 6 days after that we had our first beta at 662. Second beta 48 hours later was 1576. 2 weeks later we had our first ultrasound and found out we were having twins.

MBandBud

Hi there!  Very excited for you!  Good luck with your cycle! 

My IVF was a few years ago and a bit of a blur - I was on bcp then stopped then CD1 started with Bravelle and Menopur - started going for monitoring every few days then every day - retrieval was somewhere in the middle of the month, but probably more like 20 or so?  I was a great responder but we didn't want leftover embies given our age and beliefs so we limited fert to a gamble of 5 - we had 2 left to transfer - although really 1 petered out  but they transfered anyhow.  We got a call on the day after ER - and they told us the status - 4/5 ferted.  We only signed for emergency icsi - so that if there were not enough ferting natually they would do it.  They gave us updates each day and we did a 5dt with a blast and a peterouter, and wound up with DD.  I tell you people talk like IVF is hard - and I guess it was? but I always had my eye on the hope - and so it really was fine for me.  Sure, hormonal, painful shots, but really, it was nothing b/c I had hope.  Sounds like you do, too.  You will do great.  Good luck to you and feel free to post here during your journey with questions.  thoughts and prayers with you!

cherylanne3550

Thank you both for sharing!  Yes we are excited, anxious, nervous but most important of all determined   We know this will all pay off in the end, it's just scary to actually see so many couple having issues!  I thank god every day for the advances in medicine that allow us to have children

LALASEPT05

Congratulations on finally getting to the point of making it to your first IVF cycle. And how wonderful of your parents to be so generous as to help you like this. We started IF treatments after 2 years of unprotected sex. We were unexplained after both of us were tested. We did 3 IUI's with clomid and then moved to IVF. Since we did not have a diagnosis I really wanted to do 1/2 ICSI and 1/2 natural fertilization. I think it was actually my naturally fertilizing eggs that made the best qualifty embies and what we transferred. How long your cycle takes probabably depeneds on what protocol you are doing. Since you do not have a known medical issue it's probably long lurpon. I think it was maybe 12 -15 days between the start of my cycle and retreival. We got pregnant on our first transfer...we had one IVF cancelled because I overstimmed. We put back two embies and had twins. Good luck to you I wish you all the success in the world! Youv'e certainly been through a lot.

LnR70707

We did IVF w/ ICSI, as my clinic does it with all IVF patients unless otherwise requested because it yield much higher fertilization rates than regular IVF.   We are technically undiagnosed, but I had Stage I endo and late ovulation.  Clomid was a major fail for me (thin lining) and we had 2 failed IUIs before moving to IVF.  IVF #1 was our BFP for DS.

Also, don't stress out about multiples because of family history.  Your DH's family has absolutely no impact whatsoever on you, and your side can only pass on fraternal twin chances, not identical, as it depends on the number of eggs released in a single cycle, which is obviously not a concern with IVF.

ETA:  Timing wise, the whole cycle from AF to first beta was 31 days.  Not sure if you are familar with charting, but you can see my actual chart here (added in after the fact, I did not bother charting while doing it)

https://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/LR70707

I stimmed from cd3 to cd13, had my retrieval on cd 16, my transfer on cd 21 and my beta 10 days later.

perry7285

we did IVF with ICSI and were very lucky in that our first IVF worked for us. i stimmed pretty strongly and the doctor rushed the egg retrieval by a couple of days to keep me from getting OHSS. at first i was upset because the rushed retrieval resulted in a lot of immature eggs and only 6 of the 18 retrieved fertilized. but of those 6 we transferred two and both stuck! unfortunately we lost our twin very early in the pregnancy, but we are very grateful for the baby that we had. we plan to do IVF with ICSI again in a year to get our son a sibling!

that's great that you can finally afford IVF. i'm excited for you--wishing you all the best! 

sucredee

I don't remember a lot of the details but we did IVF with ICSI due to failed vasectomy reversal. I am supposedly healthy but I am not so sure about that. With my XH I tried conceiving for 6 months with no luck (then we stopped because I was graduating and did not want to take the chance of getting pregnant and only being able to work for a few months before taking leave. Best decision ever since we ended up splitting not too long after) . I know that isn't necessarily abnormal but after doing IVF it made me wonder. 

At the time we started this I was 36 and DH 47. The first cycle I had about 16-18 eggs and about 6 fertilized. We chose to do  Preimplantation genetic screening for no reason other than we were both older and if we knew we had a chromosomally normal embryo the chances of pregnancy were higher (a lot of miscarriages are due to some chromosomal abnormality). Out of the 6 embryos we only had one normal one. Since we did the screening it was a frozen transfer at a time of our choice.  The first one did not take. Our doc was really surprised that we only had one normal embryo and also because the abnormal ones were all random abnormalities (no pattern). 

Our second try he (the doc) thought it might be better to to a fresh transfer and not do the genetic screening since he felt that it was probably a fluke and we might have a better chance with a fresh embryo. We decided against that because after the first results all of a sudden I felt we really needed to do the testing.  I had the same number of eggs, same number of fertilized eggs and only one normal embryo once again. That one was transferred (so frozen embryo from frozen sperm this time) and luckily it took and gave us our DD when I was 37.

So my eggs were all 36 y/o eggs and I'm very healthy. So who knows what the problem was. We are one and done because we are obviously old now but DH had 2 kids already (now college age) and we are raising his nieces so we really don't need any more kids . Plus we would have to do a whole new cycle since we don't have any frozen embies. And I would have to do it like yesterday and I would not be ready for that now. I am having lots of fun with DD and she is still BF.  If we were a few years younger I would probably consider another one after DD was 4 or 5. I am just happy that I was even able to have one LO so no regrets here about not being ale to have another one.

Good luck with your journey. It is a lot of work as far as appointments/blood draws etc but I actually felt that the shots/meds weren't all that bad (and giving yourself shots really wasn't bad at all).  

LakeGenevaBride

We have severe MFI.  DH only had between zero and 10 sperm with each sample.  Obviously IVF w/ ICSI was our only shot.  I have done three fresh IVF cycles.  I did a long lupron protocol for all of them (which is pretty standard from what I understand, especially if you don't have any known issues).   I stimmed for 8,8, and 9 days respectively.  My first cycle was a BFN and I was devastated.  We were strongly considering using donor sperm, but my RE encouraged us to try again.  My next cycle I got pg with my twins.  We decided to try again after the twins (and only transferred one embryo) and now I'm pg with a singleton.  So even with a VERY low sperm count, we were successful and I hope you will be too.  We were both 32 for first IVF. 

cherylanne3550

Thank you all for sharing!