The boston area is blanketed with snow (an oddity this winter) and as a I look out my office window i see frozen trees and a blanket of white...
later this week we will have KD's frozen "goods" shipped to the fancy fertility factory (FFF) near us. We know doing a live insem would probably yield better results but the though of dragging a toddler across the country for a 3-day "sperm" trip is not appealing, so we are going to try the frozen route until this summer when we will be out west. It feels like new territory and exciting in a "brand new" sort of way.... Paperwork is done, blood tests are done, dye test (ouch!) is done and we even had our (awesome/awful) mandatory sit down with FFF's therapist. After the first 5 minutes she pretty much told us that she didnt need to meet with us and apologized for wasting our time. Since we were already there -- and always up for a therapy session-- we decided to stay and talk about our experience as moms thus far, other-mothering the reverse direction, etc. She seemed fascinated (taking notes a mile a minute) and thanked us for "all of the information since she generally works with infertile straight couples" --shessh -- this is MA, lady!
Since we went the "at home / fresh" route last time around we find FFF's policies pretty amusing
-- at this point (ask us in a few months how happy we are and i'm sure Ill have a laundry list of complaints). But im really confused about the timing situation so Id love some advice. They told us to call when W gets a + opk and schedule 1 insem for the next morning. Is this standard? W feels like she ovulates mid-morning (so the day she finally gets her + is actually the day after she thinks she o'ed) -- does the "next morning" insem still apply?
When we were doing it last time we would do at least 2, more often 3 insems from the time we got the + to 48 hours after. I read the manual-thingy for the Clear Blue OPKs and obviously FFF is the expert, but....any advice/thoughts.
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Timing is the painful part about using frozen. I've never used an OPK (had bloodwork at my clinic) and the timing was 24 post surge. Therefore if the OPK is detecting the HCG surge an insem the next morning makes sense. That said, it's best to have the sperm there for when you Ovulate and not afterward so if you feel DP may be ovulating earlier than it may be worthwile to do a monitored cycle.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Our FFF required we come in the morning after a positive OPK. They then do an ultrasound to make sure the follicle is gone and if so then they insem. We also always had to go in for an ultrasound on day 12 to check for follicles and their size.
ReplyDeleteno advice since IUI never worked for us, but GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe FFF we used had us do the first 3 IUIs with C.lomid to assure good timing and those happened 24 hours after the HCG trigger shot in the office. For our 4th IUI (which was successful) we used F.ollistim, and the trigger shot was O.vidril 36 hours before insemination. I have irregular cycles and have never really been able to feel ovulation (or what I thought was ovulation was clearly not that). The reason we were given for an IUI 24-36 hours after LH Surge was that it takes at least that long for the Egg to release and the Egg will live for approximately 24 hours while the frozen sperm lives more like 6-8 hours. I was concerned that we didn't have 2 IUIs, but the most recent research on this shows that chances are just as good with 1 well timed IUI when using follicular stimulation and that saved us the cost of 2 procedures (we paid for everything out of pocket).
ReplyDeleteThe trial that proved that 1 IUI is just as effective was written about here: Bagis T, Haydardedeoglu B, Kilicdag EB, Cok T, Simsek E, Parlakgumus AH (May 2010). "Single versus double intrauterine insemination in multi-follicular ovarian hyperstimulation cycles: a randomized trial". Hum Reprod 25 (7): 1684–90.
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