Donor Question: WWLGBTP do?

ball.and.chain · December 2012

I just went on to our cryobank's website and noticed our donor now has limited availability. They don't list how many vials -- it just says "Please Call." I'm guessing he has at least one left, since he's still showing up in the catalog.

We have 5 embryos from this donor. I had planned to use as many of those 5 as I needed to conceive a sibling in a few years, but now we have to dip into the 5 to conceive #1. We may only need 1 of the 5 for #1, but we may need more. All embryos are very good quality -- I think we may have transferred our only AA the first time, but we have at least a couple of ABs and I don't think anything is below a B. I am 34 now and hopefully will conceive #1 before I turn 35, but will likely be 37-38 when we're ready for #2. We are pretty committed to doing SETs, so it is unlikely we will end up with twins (if we did get twins, we would be done).

I am not that attached to this donor -- if I got through all 5 embryos with no baby and decided to go through egg retrieval again, I would be perfectly happy choosing someone else. But I AM attached to having full bio siblings, so if we conceive #1 on embryo #5, I would want one vial of this donor to do another IVF cycle for the sibling (we only need one). That makes me want to buy one now just in case. But for over $700, it's a big investment for something we may never use. OK, not a huge investment, I know some of you are sitting on thousands of dollars of sperm you might never use, but we have a lot of home improvements we need to do, are due for a new car, spent a lot of money on Christmas, and are likely not going away on our next vacation due to lack of funds (or needing them for something else). Spending over $700 on bio sibling insurance when we have so many good embryos would be a pretty hard sell for my wife, especially since she is an optimist and is 100% positive it won't take much for me to get pregnant again.

BUT! I can't help worrying about this. Reality check? WWYD?

JoySeattle · December 2012

I would call and see how many vials they actually have, explain your situation and see how long they can hold it without a purchase (usually 24-72 hours, but they sometimes make exceptions). That would give you some info and some time to discuss and make a decision without it getting bought out from under you. That said, I'd ultimately buy at least that 1 you'd want should you get to the point of another IVF cycle for a sib.

Feel free to take into account that for me, full-bio-sibs are nearly-essential and that we have 12 vials of our donor to use for a sib; two of which have always been ear-marked for at least two IVF cycles (for the theoretical situation that you described, regardless of initial embryo number/quality in the first one, I'd want an extra vial). I personally always want insurance and I know that the regret of not having spent $700 would completely eat at me forever. But, again that's just me and my intense desire for full-bio-sibs for my kids. Plus, you can usually sell it back to the bank for 50% or to another parent wanting sibs (especially once the donors sold out) for as much or more than you paid.

Best wishes on your decision and that you'll never need another vial!

ball.and.chain · December 2012

jrtmom:
Honestly, I would call the bank and buy as many remaining vials that they have. If you already have 5 embryos you have a pretty good chance. Better safe than sorry. Our sperm bank lets us sell the vials back to the bank if they have not left the bank. Maybe your's has a similar policy?

Our bank will take back unused vials, but for only a 50% refund. So we'd still be out for around $350 a vial -- not terrible, just kind of annoying. Wish I could predict the future!

It's become pretty clear to me that I want to buy a vial before he's sold out, but I think it's going to be hard to convince my wife. I don't think she wants to entertain the idea that these embryos won't work out -- and she's much less invested than I am in the full bio sibling thing. Maybe I'll get her liquored up first...

Thanks for the input.

Manada · December 2012

We are also pretty invested in using the same donor for our planned two children. We are buying our sperm through Xytex and they don't have their inventory online, but we have been talking about calling to find out what it is and possibly buying in advance.

I think our plan is to start buying 2 vials with our cycles from here on in, and then if we get pregnant quickly enough buying enough so that we have 4 or 5 in storage for our future tries. It's a lot of yes, but also is one of our top priorities in this process so we consider it part of the operating cost....

That said, if we end up having to do IVF for one pregnancy, I am not sure how that would change it IVF will tap our finances so much I would have similar reservations as your wife.

Does your sperm bank save a number of vials for 2nd pregnancies anyway once they officially retire a donor for first time use?

Two*True · December 2012

$700 per vial? Is that including shipping? Wow, I'm just shocked at prices that high. But I bought 2.5-3 years ago and think we paid $365 (??) a vial.

I'd buy one vial. I understand it's a huge chunk of change, particularly if you don't end up needing it, but like Joy said, $700 for insurance is pretty cheap.

It's not an easy decision either way so I wish you the best of luck!

ball.and.chain · December 2012

Two*True:
$700 per vial? Is that including shipping? Wow, I'm just shocked at prices that high. But I bought 2.5-3 years ago and think we paid $365 (??) a vial.
I'd buy one vial. I understand it's a huge chunk of change, particularly if you don't end up needing it, but like Joy said, $700 for insurance is pretty cheap.
It's not an easy decision either way so I wish you the best of luck!

$715, actually -- and no, that does NOT include shipping (which is about $100-$200 per shipment, depending on whether you do overnight or 2-day). I wouldn't have to pay for shipping now, though, since I'd actually want it to stay at the bank so that we could sell back if we didn't need it. It's California Cryobank, which is not the cheapest choice out there, though there are other banks with similar prices. And it's ID release, which is significantly more expensive (at CCB anyway) than totally anonymous donor sperm.

Paying $715 now though, knowing we can get $357.50 back if we don't need the vial, really is cheap "insurance." I think I'm having a little trouble planning for my future transfers to be total disasters, even though if they were I would be happy I had planned ahead. You know? Ugh. I honestly thought we were done with sperm. Forever.

Thanks everyone for your input!

JoySeattle · December 2012

It sounds like you're comfortable with the idea, and it's a matter of your wife being on board. Good luck with the conversation!

Maybe you mentioned it before or maybe it was based on the price, but I had a feeling you were using CCB too (we are and our donor is also WTBK, so the price was basically what we paid for our two most recent vials). I'm often amazed by the lower prices others mention, but I've never had qualms about our choice to use them.

ball.and.chain · December 2012

lucubratrix:
What is your clinic's success rate per SET for you age demographic? You can enter your info into a binomial probability applet:

My clinic's success rate for a woman under 35 using her own eggs is 60%. That's not specifically SET -- I wasn't given that number -- but since they strongly recommend SETs for women under 35, a lot of the women whose cycles figure into that number likely did SETs.

Thanks for the applet link! I'll give it a shot with 60%, knowing the SET number could be a bit lower, and see what it says.

Was going to talk to my wife tonight but my sisters came over and then I freaked out because I thought we had overdosed our cat on antibiotics (whoops -- we didn't). Not really the night. Don't go anywhere, spermies!

JoySeattle · December 2012

Good call on waiting until it's a good time to talk!

I was going to say in my last post, but totally forgot, that since you are at CCB, they may be willing to hold a vial for a few days. Also, if you're going to buy one, try to do so before 1/1 as they have a history of raising prices with each new year.

ball.and.chain · December 2012

JoySeattle:
I was going to say in my last post, but totally forgot, that since you are at CCB, they may be willing to hold a vial for a few days. Also, if you're going to buy one, try to do so before 1/1 as they have a history of raising prices with each new year.

Good point! They did raise their prices about $30/vial last January, I think.

ball.and.chain · December 2012

lucubratrix:
But assuming you did have a 60% success rate/SET, you'd end up with a 9% chance of having less than 2 babies resulting after 5 transfers, and thus needing more sperm. Whether that is something you'd feel comfortable risking or not really depends on how strongly you feel about the full biosibs thing.
(Our clinic also strongly encouraged us to SET, but their average number of embryos transferred in the <35 age bracket is still closer to 2 than to 1... so there are a lot of patients who due to insurance coverage for high risk pregnancy and births, but NO coverage of infertility treatments, decide to transfer 2 anyway to be more cost effective.)
(But seriously, good for you for doing SETs all the way. We are also committed to that strategy!)

Yeah, 60% is high -- I was pretty happy when I read that (it's their interim 2012 rate, Jan. through August, so was actually posted after we'd already been patients and committed to doing IVF with them. Their 2011 rate was 50%). The stats are all from their website at this point; they are SART members in good standing but their scores aren't reported on the SART website as they are still a pretty new clinic (though not new to the field -- they are experienced doctors who broke off from a bigger clinic to form a smaller, more "personal" practice. We love them). So the stats I have for them are not quite as detailed as what you would get from SART. You are right about the # of embryos transferred -- it is 1.8 for under 35.

Also, I'm no math/stats whiz, but I'm thinking once you've already had a successful egg retrieval and produced good embryos, your chance of any one of those embryos producing a viable pregnancy seems like it would be higher than the overall success rate for the clinic, which includes people for whom retrieval and fertilization might have not gone well. Right? But I don't have a success rate for that. I think someone on the IF board said that her doctor told her their success rate for pregnancy from a high-quality embryo was something like 70%.

I talked to my wife this morning. She's not crazy about spending the money, but gets why it's important to me and feels OK about buying it. Though she pointed out that we aren't just paying for the vial, we also have to pay storage fees for it for potentially a couple of years, and none of that would be refundable if we return the vial to them. Storage is only free at the bank if you buy 5+ vials, which is more than I want to buy (I am pretty sure if we burned through 6 embryos and then did another retrieval and burned through all of THOSE embryos, we would just give up on having kids). I think my clinic will store it for less than the bank, but if it ships to our clinic we can't return it and get half the vial cost back. So I need to call the bank and find out how much storage is and maybe see if they'll hold us a vial for a couple of days so I can work everything out.

I really appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts, which have really helped me work through my own.

JoySeattle · December 2012

So glad you had a good talk!

CCB storage fees can be found here (scroll down to "Specimen Storage Fees (Purchase and Store)"): https://www.cryobank.com/Services/Pricing/

So, depending on how long until you'd even theoretically want it should you get to that, you may want to also look into the possibility/cost of long-term storage at your clinic. Depending on the difference, it change your decision-making on where to store it, regardless of the buy back deal.

Our storage story: In 12/08 we got a "Family Tomorrow" 5-year storage agreement (which at the time was actually three years and we just paid the difference for the other two) with the intention of waiting 9-months before ttc, then after only a couple cycles, we used three more years of it during our ttc "break." So, in a year, we need to pony up at least another two years (but more likely 3, just in case) of storage before we'll be ready for #2. The prospect of $700-1000 when we have one babe and are planning for two is not fun, but we won't have another choice.

ball.and.chain · December 2012

Looks like all of this discussion was for nothing, since when I checked today he was completely sold out. Totally kicking myself that I didn't act faster.

JoySeattle · December 2012

Sorry. Sad

Do you have an alert on your account? I did and that's how I found out about two vials someone sold back. I bought them that day or the next day.

You could also call customer service and tell them you want to buy a vial when it comes available and ask them if they can call you if/when any more become available. I can't promise they'll do it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask or surprise me if they did that for you.

Lastly, you can try the bank's forums and/or the sibling registeries (both CCB and the DSR) to see if someone may be willing to sell.

ball.and.chain · December 2012

I would have sworn to you that I had an alert on my account, but I never received a notification that he was low or that he was sold out...so I'm not sure what happened with that. I do have to call and see what I can work out, if anything. Last I checked he wasn't listed in the DSR, but that was a few months ago. I know he's produced at least 5 pregnancies -- no idea how many live births -- so there are definitely people out there.

Ugh. I'm so not motivated to deal with this right now.

Donor Question: WWLGBTP do?

Re: Donor Question: WWLGBTP do?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards