Chefy, my parents and I had been planning on a two-week late January trip to the Phillipines next year. As of a few weeks ago, these plans seem to be kind of out of the question, according to the %80 of Manila that is under water. Our timing is horrible, and after talking with my folks last night, we cancelled the trip. :(. My heart goes out to all of those affected by the typhoons.
As Chefy and I are planning on beginning to inseminate that month (not sure how we were going to work that out logistically, good one, Libby), we now obviously have more flexibility in our timing for try #1. That makes me happy. So out of this bad news comes some good. Chefy and I are going back and forth on how we want to start out; ICI or an IUI. I say do a couple at home and see how it goes, she is more of the "why waste our time, go straight to the professionals" variety. So I'm fishing for some advice on this one. Does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on starting off with either choice? Pros, cons, opinions?
12 years ago
Not saying this is right for you, but I just turned 37, and with that in mind I headed straight to the pros. I have to say, although there have been no fruits of this effort yet, I am glad I did because I had an issue with my uterus (a huge septum, requiring surgical removal) that would have either precluded pregnancy OR caused miscarriage after miscarriage had I gone the ICI route.
ReplyDeleteThere is no harm in going in for testing and pre-game blood-work etc., if your ins. covers it, just to see if anything comes up-- then you can always opt for at home if all systems are clear.
Oh, by the way- sorry you had to cancel your trip :( I hope you get to reschedule it soon!
ReplyDeleteThanks Keely for both comments. I do have my first appointment to check everything out scheduled in a couple of weeks. I am so anxious to get this process started, but I also know I need to go into this thing with a colossal amount of patience. I am leaning towards just going the IUI route, but there is a big what if in the back of my mind about ICI.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a very personal decision, but we felt very strongly that we wanted to start out inseminating at home. We really wanted our first insemination to be a sweet, intimate experience in the comfort of our own bed. Although we planned on doing at home ICIs, our donor only had IUI sperm left which was almost a deal breaker, instead we just decided to do at home IUIs!
ReplyDeleteSorry you had to cancel the vacation. I hope everyone you know in Manila is safe.
ReplyDeleteWhen we first started the TTC process, I imagined us doing it at home and everything being candlelight and rose petals. We did end up doing a few home insems, and they were not as romantic as I had envisioned. I'll spare you the details, but will say that it was an evening of logistics and not an evening of romance.
Deciding between home insem vs. the doctors office is a very personal choice. If you feel very strongly about doing this at home, you should do what makes you most comfortable. That said, if you haven't had any sort of testing done yet, it's probably worth it to get checked out by a fertility specialist before you start. Sperm is maddeningly expensive, and donors do sell out. I know you mentioned that your donor pool is much smaller, because there are not very many Filipino donors out there. I think it makes sense to give yourself the best possible odds with the limited amount of sperm available to you. If you get checked out and everything looks good, you can always alternate and do some home ICIs and some IUIs with a doctor. Of course I hope you won't need more than one insem!
My situation is a bit different than yours. In Ontario we were (at the time) not allowed to bring home donor sperm so ICI was never an option. What we had decided going in was that we were going to do "natural" cycles - AKA - monitoring only, no meds.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trade anyting for the child I am now carrying (after 9 cycles) however I do know that starting out more aggressively would have made more sense for us. Next time there will be no &%$#ing around.
Pretty much it comes down to the success rate with frozen sperm being fairly low and timing being crucial. If I were you, I'd go straight to IUI and include monitoring/ fertility testing.
However... that being said, on my second try my "cycle buddy" got pregnant on an at home ICI (her first try) so it does happen.
This is a hard one, and it is of course a decision you'll have to come to on your own. That said, imagine looking back at this decision from the future if you go with either option. The process can take time. I would imagine that if you go straight to IUIs and get success that way, there's little chance you'd look back and think, "what if I'd tried ICIs first?" If you do ICIs and then wind up going to IUIs later, you may wind up kicking yourself for not doing them from the get-go. That's my (probably not very helpful) two cents.
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