The All Things Donor Conception Thread

[foxinorangesocks]

Thought I'd start an ongoing thread for all mnetters that are having, thinking about having or have had treatment using donor eggs or sperm or who are considering/have been a donor. Come and talk about all stages of using or being a donor, from exploring the idea of donor conception and pursuing treatment (or not) to parenting donor conceived children or being a donor- all in a supportive and encouraging space. Whilst I say All Things - this is NOT meant to be a thread for expressing concerns over the ethics/morals of donor conception in negative/forceful/hurtful ways. Please start a thread elsewhere for this.

Well my update is that on Monday, after seven weeks on buserelin, my cycle was cancelled due to poor response from the donor. It's been a very sad few days my end and I haven't yet formulated a new plan. I was given a high estrogen protocol (I have no idea why) which has made me really ill so just riding it out now til the drugs leave me. The clinic have been very supportive but there are things about the way this cycle has unfolded that I'm not very happy about, not least the lack of induction that there was a problem, even when I directly asked. The phone call on Monday was just devastating.

Anyway, control and juney the baton is passed to you! Do keep us posted and wishing you the very best.

Oh fox I'm so sorry :(

Thanks juney, feeling really sorry for myself today. This was our last decent window to try with work leave etc for quite a while. Will keep checking in and cheering folks on though.

sorry to hear that fox, hope you manage to formulate a new plan, my plans are all on hold and i'm bored already of waiting to hear if i will get any nhs funding, there's still another 3 weeks to wait as well!! but hey ho, just got to keep busy and try not to think about it!!
fingers crossed for everyone cycling and also those that are formulating new plans!!

God fox I am so sorry, that is just too cruel. I am sure the donor will be feeling pretty bad, but it won't even be a patch on how you must be feeling right now. If you want to vent or let off steam, we're here. Give it time, you'll start thinking about alternative plans when the time is right for you, no point forcing it when you're not ready.

Fox just seen this, god I'm so sorry, my friend had a donor cycle there too and got terrible eggs, what happened? What have they said? Will they rematch you?

I really want to know what the guidelines are for accepting donors there xx

Hi Lauren. I have to say that my faith in care and their donor process has been very knocked. If I didn't have my NHS go, I wouldn't be going back. Has anyone reading this had success with donor at Care? Or a good amount of eggs via egg share? I've taken this really hard, I'm sure the emotional and hormonal combo aren't helping. Also their long use of buserelin and my stupidly high estrogen protocol with no evidence it was needed makes me very doubtful of them. I guess I'm just sad and angry, I feel really shat on. How are you lauren?

Thanks control and bob. Time for the luck on here to change!

Hi all,

I've had two failed Ivf / icsi cycles. Originally our problem was extreme mfi - morphology particularly low. They said that even selecting the best sperm wasn't great - they had "weird head features".
We've had good fertilisation with both rounds but the embryos have been slow. None have made it to blast and the most cells we have had are 7 by early on day 3. Most have only been 4 cells by day 3. They have very low fragmentation, they are just slow.
We haven't had our follow up yet, they can't fit us in until late September which is bloody marvellous when you want to know what went wrong. They said previously it could be a sperm, egg or both issue.

Consequently we are now considering either iui with a sperm donor, Ivf with an egg donor or possibly going abroad for donor embryo because we don't know if my eggs are useless as well as dh's sperm not being great.

Bizarrely we have one naturally conceived child, conceived 5 years ago the very first cycle.

Have now been trying for dc2 for nearly two years. Strangely I felt after having dc1 that we would never have another baby and so far I've sadly been proved right.

I just came on the thread for company and also to ask if I will have to down reg for donor eggs? Due to suffering horrific migraines when I took the pill I've only done short protocol. The migraines were so awful they caused stroke type symptoms - consequently I'm not keen to take anything that's likely to cause those.

Just to add last time we did 50:50 Ivf/icsi because motility had improved even though morphology was 2%.
The Ivf eggs fertilised but were slower than the icsi ones. The icsi ones reached 6 or 7 cells by day 3. The Ivf ones were only at 4 cells.

Do you think this means it is the sperm and not the egg? I'm 31 by the way. Ideally see would rather do donor iui as it is cheaper and less traumatic and we could afford a few goes at it.

Hi Sleeps

Its Lauren from your other thread we tested around same time, I down regged for 2 months for DE, they say fertilisation is an egg issue and what happens after fertilisation points more to the sperm

Are they letting you cycle again Fox? You must be so so gutted, my friend is donor there and got 23 eggs for her lady, have they offered you a consultation appointment?

I'm starting to think "sod it, lets just replace them both and go for donor embryos."
I'm put off by having to travel to Spain.

Surely it shouldn't be this complicated!

How long will you wait before trying again?

I would try again next month if we could, but u want to have another lap first check everything's ok, and maybe look at immunes testing just to make sure I have checked everything before the last cycle

Just a very quick one - literally about to head out the door to work. Sleeps I'm doing donor embryos in Spain, in fact I'm flying out on Sunday for transfer on Tuesday. It's worked out cheaper (including the hotel and flights) than if I'd done it in this country. Also, the average donor age is much younger and they have a much larger 'stock' to select from so characteristic matching is pretty high.

I'll do a proper post tonight, once I'm back home and finished my to-do list!

fox my friend who has had twins from her donor eggs had hers done at Care Manchester, she found them to be excellent but was very disappointed that only four eggs were retrieved. Thankfully they were good quality, all fertilised and she now has her dts, but emotionally it was very hard.

sleeps your situation sounds very similar to mine - terrible male factor, but potential unknown female factors too. I've chosen to go down the donor emby route because I've got two failed cycles under my belt and the consultant can't decide where the issue may lie. Donor emby almost feels like cheating which I'm 100% willing to do right now because we are skipping straight ahead to a guaranteed pair of good quality day 5 embryos. I too get awful migraines but found that I had no side effects from the drugs at all for either the long or the short protocol. In fact, the worst side effects I have had have been off my current cycle's progynova which is a form of HRT. I used to have bad migraines and sickness when I took the pill as a teenager so this kind of makes sense.

We're pretty much done now - just some final packing to do, and last minute cleaning ready for the cat feeders to come round while we're away. It's all hitting home a bit now. Up til today I could ignore the IVF side of things and just concentrate on the holiday but today I was having to do contingency planning at work in case this cycle is a bust as I'll be going straight onto sick leave instead of going back to work if that is the case. I didn't realise how much I was invested, emotionally, in this cycle working. I thought I was convinced it would fail and that I was ok with that. I guess I was wrong.

control I so hope this works out for you. Which clinic are you using and is it basically a FET? What side affects have you had?
I'm a type 1 diabetic so am aiming for as little medication as possible - if that is possible with these things! How many times have you had to go to Spain and how long has the process taken? Did they match physical characteristics? What odds have they given you?
I hope you don't mind me asking all this - I'm just feeling totally out of my depth. We would like to get a shot in before christmas if we can. I've emailed a few Spanish clinics, just waiting to hear back.

Side effects even!!

Thank you sleeps :) I'm using Instituto Bernabeu. They've been ever so good. I haven't had to go out to Spain yet, they do the initial consultation by skype. They put me on a treatment plan that required a uk scan at a clinic of my choice around day 10-12 of my cycle then based on those results (the clinic did me a report and scan photo printouts to email across) they gave me a date for the transfer.

This time my side effects have been migraines and extreme tiredness, but it's completely possible that I would have had that anyway, as it's not been every day.

Technically we only need to be in Spain until after the transfer, but we've decided to make a really good holiday out of it and are staying over for 12 nights. The process was ever so quick, I contacted them the cycle before last, had the skype appointment at the start of my last cycle and am having the transfer this cycle.

Essentially it is just FET, but if the embryos they have selected don't survive the thaw they are able to just choose more from their freezer as we aren't genetically tied to any of them.

They match as closely as possible on physical characteristics, and you can give (I think) up to three things you want them to give high priority to. I asked for the donors to be taller than me, because I hate being short

If I were to have one emby transferred they reckon the odds of success are 30%, and with two being transferred the odds are 50%. The donors are so young - average age of 23 for both male and female, so they really are at their peak for fertility.

That's where I'm considering! I don't want to be away long because dh can't take the time from work and I don't want to be away from ds for long...

Do you suffer migraines anyway or is it definitely the drugs that have caused them? If I had migraines like the pill caused I'd have to stop because I lost speech and feeling in one side of my body, was violently sick and have never ever been so unwell.
How much has it cost if you don't mind me asking? Can you specify a level of education or only physical characteristics?

Thanks so much for your help!

I do get migraines quite a lot, especially when the weather is changeable, which it certainly has been this last week! If you cycle at a slightly less busy time of the year, you will be able to book your flights last minute and spend as little time out there as possible - two or three days should do it (out, transfer and back).

I didn't ask about education, we were just so desperate for it to happen as soon as possible that we wanted to keep the field as wide open as we could. In total, this cycle has cost us £3,000 for the drugs, IB's fee and the UK clinic's fee, plus £2,000 that we spent on the holiday (but we could easily have brought this down to about £800 if we weren't staying for so long). If we have to go again, it will be in January when we can next afford it, and we'll be looking at getting everything done out in Spain, including the scans, because I am so disappointed with my UK clinic. At January rates for flights and accommodation, we'll be looking at around £3,500-£4,000 to cover us being out there for potentially 3 weeks.

Glad I can help :)

I'm wondering if I might get away with an unmediated cycle because my periods are exactly 28 days and because the womb lining always looks good.
I wonder if they'd go for that? I need to speak to them I think, although I believe it will cost me £140.
Do I have to get my current clinic do release the medical records to them?

Even with unmedicated they scan you regularly to see how big the follicles grow.

It's definitely worth asking, especially if you have a history of being regular with a good lining. My ovulation is a bit irregular (day 14 - day 20 ish) so thought it safe to do as I was told

Yes, the initial consultation is 140 euros (about £113) but after that you can do everything by email, at least that's what I've done, and there's been no additional charge. Good point about your medical records - you'll need to put in a request with your uk clinic for a copy of your notes. You can either follow their own process for around £40, or you can put in a data protection act 'subject data access request' for £10. The turnaround time is usually the same for both, around 40 days.

I don't mind the scans. I do mind the migraines.

Do I need my notes before I do the consultation?

Thank you so much for this x

IB were happy to do the consultation with the paperwork to follow - mine was received a couple of weeks after the first consultation. Oh - they also need the results of a number of blood tests taken within the last 12 months for you and your DP/DH, again not necessary for the consultation but must be received before the transfer as it's a legal requirement in Spain. If you're over 40 (sorry, I can't remember if you have said your age) you'll also either need to have the results of a mammogram taken within the last 12 months, or have signed a mammogram waiver. I was able to get all of the bloods done on the NHS, so no cost at all (same for DP) and as I'm 37 didn't need the mammogram. I can let you know what tests they are, if you need to get the ball rolling on these.

You are very welcome, I'm really pleased to be able to pass on what I know and help xxx

I'm 31 so should be able to escape the mammogram.

What other tests will we need?