How much sperm?

PrincessLeash

Hey ladies, 

I'm reaching the end of our investigative cycle!! So it's time to look seriously at buying our swimmers. Our 1st choice has 4 vials at one location and 5 at another location available. We just found out that he is retired and there are no vials in quarenteen.

We're not really sure how much to buy. We would really like two children carried by me and ideally through two pregnancies. lol

How much did you buy? How many did you use? DW would like to just do one at a time but I think that could be risky as we don't really have any other favourites at the moment. The bank we are using charges $725 a pop so we have finances to consider too. 

So excited, so nervous, thanks for reading

Kershnic

We originally bought 4 at a time. It gave us a shipping deal. Shipping one vial at a time would have been very expensive. Also, our RE charges a 80 intake fee each time sperm arrives.

Kershnic

Also, if you're committed to this donor and committed to a second pregnancy with this donor I would not be excited about gambling on being a one hit wonder on either pregnancy. Many normal healthy people take much longer to become pregnant.

clairmeij

Our donor had lots available, so we've been buying and shipping two at a time.

2brides

We bought on a month to month basis (2 vials per month) since we weren't invested in a specific donor (we used 3 donors during our TTC time.) Overall, we used 18 vials.

2moms2b

We decided to buy three at a time.  This allowed us to not "over buy" but also saved us on shipping as the cost was the same to ship up to 3 vials.  What I would do first is contact the bank and see if they will give you a discount (ours discounted our vials by 20% for doing three at a time).  That would allow you to more easily purchase all the vials of that donor.  Also check with them on their storage options such as not shipping them all at once.  Then ask your RE how many vials they will store for you at a time (ours did 5 without additional fees).

It's a crazy science!  I also second the pp.  If you are absolutely planning on two pregnancies with two bring home babies from the same donor, I would find one that is not retired.  It took us 15 vials to get our bfp (maybe less if we would have sought help sooner).  I know some ladies that are on cycle number 12+ with an RE so there really is no way to know how many vials you will need each time. 

Again it really just depends on finances, your RE as well as personal opinion on using a retired donor.  We knew we would be done after this pregnancy so the status of the donor did not really matter to us. 

Two*True

We bought three and our BFP was try number 3.  After she was born we bought everything the donor had left in stock (10 vials) just in case we ever decide for #2.

FWIW, even if you have your heart set on one donor, your body might not agree.  I believe that most REs will suggest a change in donor after a certain number of tries.  Personally, I was going to give us 6 tries with our donor before moving on.

leapgirl8

We talked to our RE about it and he said that he rarely sees switching donors make a difference with his patients - he said it's usually something else going on. (I know that a lot of REs - and patients - have conflicting experiences with that.) So we weren't worried about being able to switch. We bought 5 vials initially and when I noticed his availability numbers dropping we bought another 7 - and he sold out quickly after that. We ended up using 4 vials (over 3 cycles) to get pregnant and have 8 left in storage for potential future baby #3. 

hlke

2moms2b:

It's a crazy science!  I also second the pp.  If you are absolutely planning on two pregnancies with two bring home babies from the same donor, I would find one that is not retired.  It took us 15 vials to get our bfp (maybe less if we would have sought help sooner).  I know some ladies that are on cycle number 12+ with an RE so there really is no way to know how many vials you will need each time. 

This.  There is no way to know at the outset how many vials you will use, so if you are set on a second pregnancy with the same donor, it would be best to choose a non-retired donor.  And even after your first pregnancy, there's no guarantee you'll get pregnant quickly with a second child, even if you did for the first.

mypalbabs

We bought one month at time (2 vials per cycle).  Our cycles went like this:

Donor A:  BFP, then CP; BFP, then CP.

Donor B:  BFN; BFN

Donor C:  BFP!  (due April 16)

We were not super invested in our donors and switching felt like no big deal to us at all.  We're also "team one and done", so bio-siblings wasn't an issue either.

Good luck sorting it out.

JoySeattle

We are fairly unique in that we are very invested in our donor. We bought twelve, used three, took a break, donor retired, still on break, two more became available so we bought them, and will now be trying. While I know we could get two kids out of that many, I'm sometimes nervous about it. I know this will dictate how we progress and if I don't get pregnant right away, we'll plan to do IVF with hopes of embryos for two singleton pregnancies.

ball.and.chain

We are using our 10th vial on our IVF cycle.  Hopefully it will work both for a successful pregnancy now and for frozen embryos to use later, and we won't have to buy anymore.  Our donor is still available, though, so we can and will buy more if we need to.

We bought 2 vials at a time, even though it was more expensive than if we bought more at a time (shipping costs the same at our bank whether you're shipping 1 vial or 10 vials).  We wanted to have the option to switch donors at any time.  We ended up switching to a 2nd donor after 6 vials/IUIs, and we're still using the 2nd donor (which we used for 3 IUIs).

I agree with PP that it's risky to invest in a retired donor with limited vials if you want to use him for more than one pregnancy and you don't know how easily you will get pregnant.  You need to decide which is more important to you: using the same donor for both pregnancies, or using the first choice donor.  If you try to have both, there is a significant risk you won't succeed (and there is some risk that you'll end up with neither).  I know what it's like to feel committed to one donor, but unless you are working with very specific criteria that is non-negotiable to you, I would urge you to consider other donors.  When we switched I thought we would never find a second donor we liked as much as the first, but we did, and I'm pretty happy with our choice.

PrincessLeash

Wow thank you for all the responses. We defiantly have a lot of things to consider. I wish we could just do the deed and make a baby. That would be way more fun and wouldn't hurt the wallet.

TaylorandMel

Our children came from our 3rd donor. The first one was always BFN, the 2nd one produced one CP many BFN, the 3rd we only used for IVF it worked the 1st time. I think in the end we used 19 vials. I can't say for sure, but I know it's between 18 21. We have 5 in storage of our kids' donor still for future children.

betsykerry1

My partner and I bought one at a time... and it's a good thing -- i got pregnant on the first shot... so, if we'd bought more, they would have had to sit in storage until (and IF) we have another baby. We were ok with maybe only getting one shot with our donor. However, we also used a pretty large bank with many many good options. :-) GL!

BostonGayGal

I bought 12 and used 9, but we attempted IUI's for all cycles but one.

I now have 7 embryos and 3 vials that I pay rent for each year