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

cherylanne3550

Hello ladies!  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!

kelnyc

Hi there! First off, occurrences of identical twins are not passed down genetically. It is merely a random cell mutation, whereas the releasing of 2 eggs that results in fraternal twins CAN be passed down. If a family has multiple sets of identical twins, it is purely coicidental. I have done a lot of research on the subject since I myself am an identical twin, and they do not run anywhere else in my family.

Second, it sounds like you have been on a very long journey to get to this point, so congrats! My story is explained fully in the blog link in my siggy if you want all the gory details, but the short version is that we were "unexplained" and all of our test results came back great, but it still just wasn't happening. Our insurance had a $10k lifetime max for fertility treatments of any kind, so after almost 2 years, 4 failed IUIs with perfect timing and excellent counts, and 8 months total on meds, we opted to move forward with IVF. Once they did the strict morphology test, they told us that H's morph was borderline and left it up to us whether or not we wanted to do ICSI. We chose to do it since almost 70% of her patients do, given the higher fertilization rate, and it turns out that was likely a good decision since the outer shell of my eggs appeared to have hardened with age, making it difficult for the sperm to get in. They would never have known this until in the midst of IVF and really getting a good look.

Anyway, my cycle started with BCP on CD2, which was October 25th. Lupron injections were added in on CD14 (November 7th) and the BCP stopped on November 12th. I had a "menstral bleed" as expected on CD23 and my baseline ultrasound, to make sure my lining was thin and there were no cysts, happened the next day (November 17th), followed by day 1 of stims (Follistim 225iu and 2 vials of menopur and lupron decreased from 10 units to 5 until trigger) on November 18th. On the 21st, we had our first b/w done to check my E2 level, which was about 300 and then again on the 23rd and 26th. At this point, I had 16 measurable follies, though 9 of them were below 12mm and not liekly to catch up to the other 7, which were between 14 and 20mm, and an E2 over 3500. We decided to trigger on the 27th for ER on the 29th so that we don't lose the biggest ones while we hold out for the others. I ended up getting 14 mature eggs, all of which fertilized with ICSI! We did a 3dt (because we were the 1st appointment of the day and I was already there and on the happy drugs by the time they realized all 14 were going strong) of 2 8+ cell embies, froze 2 on day 5 and 4 more on day 6! We are pregnant with a singleton. From starting BCP to beta, this took 7 weeks.

Best of luck to you!!!

lovebug33

We tried for three years, then did unmonitored Clomid boo . We took a break due to stress and a gall bladder issue, so it had been 4 1/2 years before we went to the RE. I was diagnosed years ago with PCOS. However, apparently I don't have that, I am just unexplained, although he said we could do more testing to figure out what was wrong, possibly. That would have cost us 5,000 dollars because we are completely out of pocket, so we declined. We started with meds at the beginning of Oct., had ER on Oct. 24. I was part of a study, so we had to do FET with icsi as part of the trial. We had our FET December 7 (now two reasons this date will live infamy and got pg. with one (we did two embryos)! We have six frosties waiting in the freezer and hoping to try after Kinsley turns a year old!

cherylanne3550

Yes it's been a long road we are happy to finally be moving on to what is recommended   Thank you so much for sharing your info

4legsRbest

We are unexplained IF with endo and DH was always fine but the day of retrieval his sample was awful so we needed ICSI for all eggs. 6 out of the 7 fertilized this way, 3 were transferred, 1 stuck, none made it to freeze. This was our first IVF.

Welcome and I wish you the best of luck!!

drubie

I have to go back to my IVF spreadsheet

I have endometriosis (but no blocked tubes), and my husband has MFI, low count/motility. He was borderline, so we weren't sure if we were going to have to do ICSI, but the day of ER, his sample wasn't his best, so they went ahead with ICSI. I also had a thickened zona pellucida (even though I had none of the risk factors), which was likely another reason we couldn't get pregnant on our own, and another reason we needed ICSI. This was our first IVF, and likely our only fresh cycle, due to our lack of insurance coverage.

I was on a scheduled cycle, so I started BCPs awhile earlier than needed, and stayed on them until a set date. I started lupron, and stopped BCPs 3 days later. I had 10 days of lupron supression before starting follistim and repronex once my estradiol levels were low enough, and they did an initial ultrasound for antral follicles and to check for cysts. I had my estradiol levels checked every 2 days, and once they hit a certain level, I also had ultrasounds to check follicle count and size. I was on follistim for 9 days, repronex for 10 days (the 10th day was to coast a bit with stims), and a drop down lupron dose for all of those days (5 units instead of the 20 for supression). So between stims and trigger, I guess it was 12 days between stopping lupron supression and retrieval. 

I had 16 eggs retrieved, 14 mature, 11 fertilized with ICSI, 10 @ day 3 (decided to do a day 5 blast transfer, embryologists did assisted hatching due to the thickened zona), all 10 hatched successfully, 2 perfect blasts on day 5, transferred 1 (elective single embryo transfer - my success rate due to my age was 50%, and they didn't go up with transferring more than 1, but my chance of twins did, and we weren't comfortable with the risks that come with carrying twins), then the other perfect one plus another that had caught up a bit were frozen on day 6. I was on PIO after that, and had my beta at 9dpt.

We had been trying for nearly 3 years (I'm 28, he's 37), my husband was the first to get checked out, and was on clomid for over a year to try to boost his counts after doing a varicocelectomy. I wasn't diagnosed with endo until 6 months after his surgery (we figured it was all MFI, since I had no symptoms/indicators of IF), and I had a laparoscopy. We tried a couple of injectable w/IUI cycles after my surgery, but they didn't work, even though I responded well to the meds. We were told that IVF w/ICSI was our only option last July, but didn't have the financial means, nor the emotional readiness to start until last November. We also received money from our parents (on top of using most of our savings) for IVF, which was huge in allowing us to move on. Hope that helps you out in your journey.

cherylanne3550

Thank you all for sharing!!