has anyone had or going through IVF with ICSI?

Hi Poppy,

Sperm problem. My husband's sperm motility is very unstable, poor most of the time. The process was easy and straight forward, don't worry about the injections, hurt very little just like insect bites. Only when you do the trigger injection and othe other ones with thicker needles, allow a small angle so the needle goes in a lot quicker, spare you from the screaming and tears. Good sleep, keep calm, do your best and the rest of it is luck

Hey lills22,
thanks so much for your reply. We are planning on doing acupuncture too and have our first consultation in september. Ive been recommended to go katrina gascoyne out in mana who specializes in infertility so we will how that goes. I totally understand about getting in the right mindset, this is also nothing I thought I'd have to do. Its mainly the antibodies that are affecting our fertility. Can I ask how old u are and where abouts in wellington are u? Im 28, and we are with mark stegman at wellington FA.

Hi ladies, I have been following this thread.
In Otago and currently on long protocol for ivf - CD1 having been on the pill and finished on Thursday, first blood test Tuesday and then into the good drugs
I'm 32 and after all the tests seem to only have pcos
I have been reading up on things that could help and something I will be doing is only eating and drinking warm or room temperature food and drinks and keeping my feet nice and warm! I am generally always cold and living down south is cold!
We have not told friends and family, some close friends knew about my lap but not details of everything else, after 4 years we are use to it

Hi ladies,
We have done three full ivf cycles over the past year and 2 frozen embryo transfers. The first 2 cycles were short, but the last one we did was long protocol and it went much much better for us (we had 5 embryos fertilise normally out of 9, and 4 of the 5 made it to blastocysts for freezing.) We have also been doing accupuncture and feel that this has helped hugely in the quality of our eggs - although it is quite pricey. We were recomended to do weekly accupuncture for at least 3 months before starting the ivf cycle. We havent needed to do ICSI, but the while process is the same up until the eggs go to the lab and they inject them with the sperm rather than let the sperm do their thing.
I agree with the other ladies that the injections etc aren't too bad, it's more the emotional roller coaster that is the problem (although i was very positive and optimistic the first time around, it gets harder to stay so positive!). We finally got a positive result last month, but have just found that we have had a missed miscarriage, so will be trying again in a month or so with another of our frozen embryos.
I would say be prepared to be moved up the list, on our first public funded cycle we had been given a date, but luckily got a space 8 months earlier than we originally thought! Sorry for the long post! Good luck to everyone x

Ours are unexplained - hubby has 'gold star sperm' apparently! I'm through FA Auckland, and and 29. We asked for 2 embryos to be transferred but they said no way! Even when we paid for a private cycle they would only transfer 1. I think it's normal to do the short protocol, which is what we did the first 2 times, but the cycles didn't go well for us, and the egg quality wasn't great, so he recomended trying a longer cycle and the results were dramatically better for us. We also got moved up the list a few months for our 2nd public funded cycle, so I'll keep my fingers crossed you get moved up too!

Hi Poppy. FAs "Pathways to a child" book (which you should get a copy of sometime before your cycle) says that single embryo transfer is mandatory for females under 35yrs on their first or second publicly funded cycle. (And strongly encouraged in most other situations).

Epic I am on the long protocol
Ava30 the pill for a cycle
During that I started 40ml of buresline a day
I am cd 1 today and due a blood test Tuesday,
Then Thursday (I think - can't reach my notes) I start gonal f at 225 and drop the buresline to 20ml

I think the long cycle just shuts everything down so you get a better baseline to build it back up

If you have been in the pill does that not mean the long protocol? As short is just starting in a normal day 1?

I am not 100% sure why I am in the long one, I know I am getting a higher does of gonal f (think this is to ensure my eggs respond?)

Just a waiting game I guess

Hi Poppy

I've only met him once. Yes, I found him a bit blunt too but more warm as the appointment progressed. As we're going private, I'm hoping I will get a BFP on my first cycle.

There isn't anything wrong with me just sperm issues.

All we can do is stay positive. Kind of kicking myself for being so upset about it for so long so really making sure I stay positive till I'm due for treatment.

It's good you have till February. Lots of time to work on your diet and prepare your body

Hey lills and charlie,
yeah guess starting in feb does give me time to get organised and prep my body. Lills, im sure your treatment will go well and everything will work out good for you. I know its stressful to think about what if it doesn't work, that is my biggest fear in all of this.. of it not working.
Charlie, I can understand why they'd only put one embryo in, I just thought if they'd put 2 in I'd have a better chance of success, but guess it doesn't work that way.

So true Charlie! Ice cream I only had tiny doses of Gonal F, 150 on my last one! I have never done buseline though. We gave four weeks till our next appointment with them and we need to decide what to do, I don't want to spend $10k on a cycle that only gets one embryo again!