ICSI - recommend any reading materials?

[londonfever]

Hi all,

I'm a bit of a lurker and this is my first time to post.

DH & I been together for 3 years. 12 months into relationship he advised that he is infertile...long story but he & previous partner had tried for children and after many tests discovered he is infertile. at the time, i took it on board and we agreed that we love each other enough for it to not be an issue...

now the time has come, we are in the process of starting treatment. Specialist has advised ICSI as best chance. Due to all the tests with his ex DH has sperm on ice which we are hoping will be good enough to use however, DH's brother has also agreed to be a donor...

all sounds like it is going in the right direction however, I'm still very daunted...NHS funding had been approved but now we have a "known donor" have discovered they won't pay for anything...que lots and lots of tears from me as we have been waiting in limbo for so long and i thought Jan 2014 was just going to kick everything off. Specialist has now said that funding will go ahead but we need to pay for Donor's treatment! Great news...

I suppose i am posting on here...hoping for some advice on what books people can recommend. I have a rough idea of treatment but Specialist although very nice doesn't want to get too far ahead and hasn't really explained it all to me so I just really need to understand what happens when etc...as we are still waiting on confirmation of few things...

any advice is greatly received or if anyone has any experience of donor & ICSI that would be great

[naty1]

We had very low count.
You only need enough for the eggs you will have.
But if they arent that good the fertilization rates may not be good.
We only had 2/8 fertilise even with icsi.
It just seems to vary a lot.
The protocols seem to vary a lot so you need to know which one they will put you on

[londonfever]

Hi naty1,
Thanks for the feedback...2/8...can I ask, did it work for those 2?
We have been told that chances are very low...grateful that we have a donor on standby but I'm anxious about it also...

[naty1]

Yes we have a 20m old. I was 32 at the time. They didnt defrost our 1 frozen ampule of sperm.
We were allowed to put 2 back.
If the ones you have are good quality it would help a lot im sure.
They asked if we wanted donor backup and we didnt.

Is the count zero now?

[londonfever]

Yep, count is zero...the only reason we have some on ice is because he had an op to try and recover some, what is on ice has never even checked as sample was so low so really we don't even know if it will be used which is why we have a donor...
DH is really adamant that he will never go through op again and I wouldn't ask...donor is probably our only real hope...it's all just swirling in my mind all the time at the minute!
I'm so glad it worked for you though, we have been told 45% chance if it working, I'm 34...just desperate for it to work!