Those who have had IVF because of a partners sperm problems

[KatieDD]

How many attempts did it take to get pregnant please and do they need to do anything to you too ?
Also DH will not risk twins so do they still want to put 2 eggs in and would it be a disaster if we just wanted one ?
Thank you

I had ICSI 7 years ago do to exh's sperm problems. I ahd 1 attempt, putback 2 embies and one of those embies turned 6 in Feb!!! I didn't need to do anything other than the IVF procedure. Good luck. It's worth it!

I had IVF to conceive my son. It took just one attempt for us. My DH has sperm 'issues'.

They put 3 embryos in for me but only one 'took'.

There is now something called 'soft' ivf where they don't stimulate your ovaries to produce more eggs and therefore you only get one anyway. It is easier on the woman and has the benefit that you don't have to wait 3 months between tries. Should also be cheaper as you use less drugs.

I had ICSI to conceive DS due to DH lack of live sperm (failed vasectomy reversal).

I had to complete the full IVF cycle each time including the drugs to "downregulate" and then injections to stimulate the ovaries. I then had egg collection under GA and DH had immature sperm aspirated under local anaesthetic.

With ICSI the sperm is injected into the eggs, and then any resulting embryos can be replaced or frozen.

When I had my eggs collected I had a problem with overstimulation of my ovaries (quite common because of the drugs involved) so I opted to freeze all my embryos.

I then went back to the clinic to have 2 defrosted embryos replaced, which resulted in a positive pregnancy test, but had an early m/c at 7 weeks {sad].

A few months later then had a further 2 embryos replaced and another positive pregnancy test which resulted in DS

IIRC you can choose to only have 1 embryo replaced if you wish, any clinic would respect this decision.

The "soft" IVF option sounds interesting, I wish it had been available then.

Hope you get on OK Katie - do you have an appointment to start treatment?

The other option for only putting one back is by letting the embryos go to 5 days (blastocyst) stage before putting them back, that way the embryologists pick the one 'best' embryo to put back. This is what the HFEA want to encourage to reduce the number of multiple pgs from IVF. Ask your clinic about it when you have your first meeting. Good luck

Thank you, I'm right at the very begining at the moment, DH had an appointment with a consultant about having a vasectomy reversed today and the jist was that whilst the operations success rate is 90% the chances of getting pregnant in the first 2 years is 50/50 and I do not want to wait that long to be told it's not going to happen if there's another way.
My eldest is 8 in August and I don't want a huge age gap so the poor soul feels left out.
I'll look into "soft IVF" does it go by any other names ?
Thanks for the replies, I'll be back asking more dumb questions no doubt.
Thanks again