Male-factor optimism

[tweetness]

Hi!

I am new to this board. I am going to start my first IVF on Monday. . .that's when I begin shots. We are doing IVF due to male-factor reasons. . .low count, morphology, & motility. We will of course do ICSI with our IVF. I just keep thinking that if they can do tests that tell us the percent that is still good than they will be able to find the good sperm during this process too. How can this not work? If they take the good sperm & put it in an egg? I am blessed to say that I do have one son so I think that's got to be to my advantage. I have my expectations set so high. . . Any of you others with MF have anything to share? Am I being overly optimistic?????

[riogirl71]

It is always good to be optimistic but I think that you always need to prepare yourself for the possibility of the first IVF not working out, which is common. We have low motility, low count due to his chemo a few years back. So we have to go straight to ICSI and in vitro. I am 36 and everything checked out fine for me. It also depends on how you stimm and respond to the meds, the first time around is always a guess for the RE, I used middle of the road stimms. I was able to get 10 follies, 7 eggs, 4 of which were mature enough for ICSI, all 4 fertilized and became beautiful embies, we put all 4 back in and we are in our 2WW. I am very hopeful but extremely cautious. My RE was very clear that there is always a chance of the embies not implanting and us havingto do a 2nd cycle. There are of course many success stories. This is a tough journey for the both of you and this board has great support. I guess my message is yes, be optimistic but realize that this journey is a rollercoaster of emotions and just prepare yourself well.
Baby dust to you!!!!

[LostGirl]

Oh tweetness,
I am glad that you have many reserves of optimism because you will need them. I too am a generally optimistic person. I am also Type A and have always thrived on my ability to kick butt if I work hard.

But unfortunately IVF isn't like most things in life. There are so many things that have to come together for an embryo to stick and for you to become a mother. Seriously sometimes it makes my head spin.
But just some of the things ahead are figuring out how well you respond to meds, (do your ovaries grow follicles?) then it's having the right shaped uterus so that ER is easy, then it's having enough eggs that are in the follicles (they can't tell if there are actually eggs in them until they are out of you), then having the follicles fertilized,(they got 14 eggs out of me but only 7 fertilized, and only 3 made it into me and none were able to be frozen - that's 3 out of 14!), then being lucky enough to have the embryos keep dividing bt your egg retrieval and embryo transfer, and that you're lucky enough to have one of them be stick to your lining which will hopefully be thick enough.

Anyway, you get the point. This is a long road. And you will be on drugs. I am not one for mind-altering states (the strongest drug in my past is rum) so for me it was hard to stay sane when my hormones went sky high. Sometimes my head was fuzzy, other things I was so exhausted all I could do outside of work was sleep. Everyone reacts differently but you will not feel like yourself I'll bet. That's what makes this process doubly tricky.

The good news is you've come to a place where you will get support. The bad news is you will need it, a lot of it.

Sprinkling you with a big handful of baby dust.

[2ndtimer]

Hi Tweetness,
I'm hoping very much that you get lucky & get pregnant with the 1st IVF and I'm sure that you have a very good chance of that happening. DH & I were also just given the diagnosis of male factor and I've been tested for everything under the sun and have been found perfectly healthy. I have an identical twin sister who can get pregnant anytime she wants. I took us 3 IVF's with ICSI & 2 FET's to finally get pregnant.
I just wanted to throw that out there because the first couple of times it didn't work for me I was completely devastated. I thought that if I was healthy & the fixed the sperm problem with ICSI then there was no reason it wouldn't work. But the human body is mysterious sometimes and you just can't predict.
Being cautiously optimistic, thinking positive thoughts but understanding that there simply are no guarantees is probably the best approach to IVF>
Best of luck,
2ndtimer

PS. look into having acupuncture a couple of times during stims & an hour before the transfer. I think that made a big difference for me. It helps to relax the uterus.

[Neffi211]

Hey--

I am also in the same situation...25 years old and male factor infertility. I aslo though since it was not a problem with me that IVF w/ ICSI would be a guarentee for us. After talking to three different Re's I found that that is not the case. I am currently in my 2WW.. Just be prepared for many highs and lows throught he process. My embryos didnt do as well as the RE had thought they would. I though since their inst a problem with me, that they should be great. Anyway, I have three beautiful embies inside me right now....Things may go perfectly for you, I hope they do, just know that there are always twists and turns the in IVF world. Good luck to you

[nicaliw]

hi, I have a similar situation to Lostgirl. My DH had orchitis after he already had kids with his first wife (3 girls and 1 boy). Now his sperm count is low and motility is average at best. I was way over confident that I would be pregnant with the first attempt (I already have one child, he's 7). Actually, I wasn't wrong, we got 24 follicles, 20 were mature, 19 fertilized and 6 made it to blasts. We transferred 2 and froze 4......we got a BFP! but they didn't stick around So, good news is it can work first time we just got unlucky!!! GOOD LUCK!

[ttcnumber1]

I think its great to be optimistic.. I know there are several factors that come into play when talking about IVF.. everyones body is different and everyone responds differently but.. in my case.. we did our first IVF w/ ICSI in June 2007 due to male factor.. I stimmed for the lowest amount of days.. on ER day the doc retrieved 11 eggs, 7 fertilized.. we put 2 back.. and froze the other 5.. out of the two that were put back.. one took and we are expecting our IVF miracle in about 4 weeks!!

I wish you lots of luck with your upcoming cycle!! Keep those positive thoughts coming!!