New here -- considering IVF

[nbfun]

Hello all. I am new here. My husband and I are considering IVF. All of the information can be a bit overwhelming and we are in the beginning stages. My husband has zero sperm count. Something is wrong w/ the tube. There is nothing wrong on my end. Dh has an appointment with a fertility doc later this month. The initial doc he saw mentioned he thinks dh would be an excellent candidate for sperm aspiration (sp). What do y'all think of this?

I would really appreciate any and all input you all could give.

Thanks a bunch,
Nancy

[rebeccajm]

Nancy,

My husband had a sperm aspiration done and we are just starting our 1st IVF cycle. He had this done because he had a vasectomy 12 years ago which he had reversed when we married 2 years ago. The reversal was unsuccessful, but the doctor was able to get sperm through the aspiration. This was an outpatient procedure and my husband was back to work the next day and playing softball 5 days later. He said he was a little uncomfortable, but that was it. When we met with our RE he said that they got a large amount of sperm that looked good and it will just depend on how it thaws now. They will do ICSI procedure with our IVF.

I don't have a whole lot more to offer as I am pretty new to this, but I will say I am thankful that we have this opportunity.

Good luck!
Rebecca

[kywildcat]

My husband had also had vasectomy 18 years ago, so with both IVF treatments we did ICSI and fertilized very good numbers so I wouldn't be too concerned about your fertilization part. Good luck!!!!

[nbfun]

Thank you both for your replies. They are very helpful. My dh is going to check at work today and see if our insurance will cover any portion of IVF.

What have y'all found the cost of it to be in your areas?

Thanks,
Nancy

[moorebaby]

nancy- hello & welcome! my dh has pretty low sperm count, in addition to poor morphology & low motility. both of his testicles did not descend when they were supposed to &, unfortunately, this wasn't caught until he was much older. his undescended testicles were surgically descended when he was about 6....this is pretty much the reason behind his fertility issues. we've done 2 ivf w/ icsi cycles. for the 2nd cycle, dh had a tesa (testicular sperm aspiration)...unfortunately we got a bfn. we will be doing our 3rd cycle in august & dh willbe having a tesa done on both testicles this time...hopefully this will be it...pma, pma, pma! i'm a teacher in ct &, thankfully, have phenomenal insurance coverage for ivf. tesa was covered also. i know w/o insurance coverage it can cost up to $5,000. please keep us posted & any questions you have, please just ask. good luck!

[dogzrule]

The total cost for IVF, including meds, is typically just under $20,000, at least with everything I've seen here on these boards and online. Moorebaby, does it really only cost $5000 total there without insurance??? Thankfully my husband's insurance covered me 100%, so we payed nothing. Truly a miracle!

[moorebaby]

dogzrule- haha...no i meant the tesa procedure is about $5,000. as far as the entire ivf....around $20,000.

[kywildcat]

My husband also had TESA two different times due to 18 year old vasectomy. It wasn't too painful per my dh. The first local shot hurt but he went against md advice and even ran 5 miles once we got home. The TESA cost us $1200 but had to pay $300 extra because we had to use his lab and he couldn't make it to our IVF clinic so that lab could do analysis. As for the IVF, everything total costs close to $15,000 (IVF, Meds with partial insurance, TESA, and the extra FET option insurance offered at our clinic). My insurance didn't cover any of it however, when I filled my medications they paid a substantial amount. Out of $3,400 I paid $1,200.

Good luck! Just be sure to ask plenty of questions and its great you have already found a message board like this to help you. I am trying again in August with my one an only frozen embryo and thank goodness the ARC insurance plan will pay for this one.

[amaut]

Nancy, my insurance did not cover IVF and we had to pay for it (they just covered blood work and stuff like that). We have paid a total of 10,000$ including medications. We had to have AH and ICSI.
Hope this helps.

[nbfun]

You guys are all so very helpful. Thank you so very much. I do have another question.

When the husband has the sperm aspiration is that usually done at the fertility clinic or done at another place? I know this is probably a dumb question but since we are so new to this I truly don't know. He has another appointment w/ a urologist that specializes in fertility issues later this month so I'm sure we'll find out more then but in the mean time I want to know NOW.

I'm starting to get excited about this but at the same time scared to get excited. I'd pretty much given up on this for the past 7 years so it's fun to start to think about again but at the same time, I find myself staying guarded so as to not get all excited only to be disappointed. I'm sure everyone here can totally relate to that.

Nancy

[moorebaby]

nancy- my dh had his tesa done at the urologist's office. then the "goods" were delivered to my re's office. i had my er later that morning. when do you think you'll be starting? you should come join us in the summer cycle group. where are you from by the way?

[nbfun]

Moorebaby,

Thanks for the input. We are hoping to start very soon. My dh has an appointment later this month w/ the ferility doc at the urologist. We want to start as soon as possible.

We live outside of Nashville, TN so we'll be going to Nashville for the IVF. There appear to be two clinics here. In fact, I'll share the links here and if y'all have time, would you mind looking them over and giving your opinion, if you have one.

http://www.nashvillefertility.com/

http://www.reproductivehealthctr.com/

ETA: I was just looking over our calendar and forgot that we have a little trip planned for mid August so the earliest we could start would be Sept. If I stay on course (which I've been regular for years) my Sept cycle should start 9/7.

Nancy

[rebeccajm]

Nancy~ My dh had tesa done in the hospital where my RE is located. The lab looked at the sperm right away to let the urologist know if he should get any more or not. The urologist does not practice at the same hospital as RE, but received permission to perform procedure there so that the lab could work with him. Good luck!

[Kamaile]

My situation is similar to Rebecca's.....my husbands urologist came to the hospital where our RE works and got permission to use one of the rooms right next to the lab...as soon as they did the tesa, the lab took the sperm and looked at it right away....we did it twice, once was a practice run to make sure we could get live, motil ones and we froze what was collected. On the day of egg retreival, they were gonna thaw the sperm out and use it but my husband decided to do it again, so we could use fresh sperm for our ICSI to try and maximize our chances. The urologist charged us $1000 each time we did a 'harvest'....Rebecca, what state are you in?

[Wondercat]

We also have a similar situation. My husband had a zero sperm count due to the fact that he was born without vas deferens - nature's vasectomy! In our case they did an extraction at the urologist's office, which was what we used for our first round of ICSI IVF and one FET with no success. Next time around our doctors advised doing a more invasive surgery to retrieve higher quality sperm, which meant going to the hospital and general anesthesia though it was still an outpatient procedure. My husband did say that this was more painful than the first extraction and required a longer recovery. I'm no expert on what constitutes a good sperm or embryo, but the doctors were able to see a significant improvement in quality and we ended up with our beautiful boy on the fresh transfer. Can't argue with success!

As for insurance, ours was completely covered and because there is literally no other way for us to conceive other than with ICSI/IVF it cut through a lot of the red tape.

If you are just starting, I suggest "shopping around" for a clinic you really feel comfortable with. There are a LOT of clinics out there, and this is such an emotionally and physically difficult and personal journey you want to make sure that you have the right people to help guide you through it. Besides all of us here, I mean!

We are thinking of trying for a second one in September or October, so maybe I will see you on one of the fall cycle boards. Good luck!