# Frozen Sperm - ICSI - money making or necessary??



## Pinktink (Dec 17, 2008)

Hi girls!

Right our question is prompted by discussions we were having anyway and something lisa said on another thread. 

When we had our initial (very bad) first consultation the guy told us that the LWC always do ICSI as it is the preference of the embryologist there - regardless of quality of sperm as he believes you risk no fertilisation without it.

Our second consultation we questioned this as I have read some research about ICSI possibly damaging eggs and increased birth defects in ICSI conceived children caused by it no longer being survival of the fittest sperm because the lcinic just have to pick a normal looking sperm but that might not have been the champion one which would have one the race so to speak.. anyway the clinical director who we were seeing said that ICSI was our choice but did admit that their head of embryo guy does tend to prefer it - we expressed our wish to discuss the quality of the sperm before any icsi/egg shaving takes place.

So we were after some advice - the more we think about this the more nervous we get - if they tell us our sperm defrosts well we had every intention of refusing ICSI but what if they dont fertilise - are we taking too big of a risk - can we trust their report of the sperm if they like to do ICSI regardless and also a factor which has to be taken into account - they get £750 if they do it - now we will pay this if we need it - otherwise we might as well have just thrown all the other money away but how do we know??

          

You see the dilemma 

The other thing that really pees me off is that we have to pay for repeat HIV/Hep results as this is part of the egg sharing protocol - we have provided them proof that amber is immune to hep b but we still have to retest to make sure she hasnt caught it - dont they get what immune means??   They say it is a HFEA rule - if it is then they are muppets.

pah 

on the flip side we have spent time researching our follie count and are now very happy with our initial little 9 as it seems this is actually very good - never been so nervous/excited/clueless about anything.

I can't wait until she's pregnant and I'm the one with the answers  

Lynn xx


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

If you ask the girls on the singles thread many of the LWC ladies have been told to do ICSI
L x


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2009)

Hi girls,

We have been on the 'baby making' road for 3 years and have always felt totally comfortable and supported by our clinic and I know that if that had changed at any point that we would have had to sort it out before going any further. I think you should always trust your gut instinct about things especially something so important as bringing your LO into the world. We have always been advised that ICSI is prefered when the male has poor sperm or IVF keeps failing and our clinic is very up to date in what they do and they are very advanced in the research they are involved in. There is always a risk of no fertilisation but if you have a good amount of eggs and the sperm is good then surely the chances of fertilisation are high. We had 13 eggs and 8 fertilised. I hope all goes well for you


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## rosypie (Feb 1, 2007)

i think if a clinic do it by default then it's a money making exercise if you ask me. best thing would be to ask what their minimum requirements are for plain ivf (sperm count, motility etc.) then ask what the sample produces. we were always told at our clinic (and lwc when we did iui) how many millions there were, and all the other stats. that way if they're going to lie (which i'm sure they wouldn't) it would have to be an out and out lie rather than the rather more vague "not very good".

it's a pain that they insist though, most other clinics only do it if the sperm is crap. good luck anyway


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## Steph29 (Apr 28, 2009)

We paid for our treatment a while ago but obviously not for ICSI, We were told that that dicision will be made on the day depending on the sperm,We will just make the dicision when the time comes for the best result.

Pinktink: Does your sperm donor have known fertility?

Stephx


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## Pinktink (Dec 17, 2008)

Hey steph - yeah thats what we've agreed too... just wish there was some definite parameters for this is the levels you need for normal IVF anything less and its ICSI - at least then we'll know that the decision is made by the sperm not the clinic if that makes sense.

yep our donor has proven fertility  

hope you are alright steph and not too nervous 

 

xx


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## lmb15 (Jun 12, 2009)

*Lynn* - i had 13 eggs retrieved. I kept 7 and 6 went to the recipient. Out my 7, 5 fertilised. The embryologist told me after egg collection that they defrosted the sperm and about 50% were swimming well. They removed as many crap ones as they could, and by then i had over 80% good looking spermies swimming around in the dish. There's still millions of sperm, so there should be at least a handful capable of fertilising an egg!!!
Out of your eggs that are collected, they expect about 70% to be mature ie that will get fertilised. So if you have 10 eggs, in theory 7 should fertilise. Obviously it can be more or less, dependent on your egg quality.
Even ICSI doesn't guarantee embryos though - on other forums there are girls who've had ICSI and on day 2 the embryos have stopped growing so there's nothing to transfer.

There was a couple of people at my clinic who were told they'd probably need ICSI cos there husband's sperm was crap (hence their infertility), but when it came to the egg collection day, the sperm looked ok, and the clinic told them they didn't need ICSI after all, so they got refunded!!

I personally would be very wary of a clinic that insists on doing ICSI routinely, especially when it incurs an extra charge. And a hefty charge at that. Some clinics only charge £350 for ICSI!!! And it's been proven to massively increase the risk of genetic problems (though the overall risk is still very low, about 3% - depending on what research you look at). I'd rather let the decent sperm fertilise my eggs than some lame one that the embryologist thought looked good at the time!!!

Basically, if you've got a good number of eggs (at least 5) there's no reason why about 3 or 4 shouldn't fertilise by being mixed with millions of sperm in a petri dish!! Just make sure that your clinic use decent sperm (some were found to be taking sperm samples and diluting them down so that they could fill more tubes with them, resulting in crap samples when they were defrosted, hence the need for ICSI). If you think about it, a man has to have a "normal" sperm sample to be accepted as a donor ie normal number of sperm and normal amount of mobile and non-deformed sperm. You obviously can't guarantee that all of the sperm will survive the freezing/thawing process, but there's MILLIONS of them in there so they shouldn't all die!!!

Don't get me wrong, ICSI has it's place, but only for crap sperm, or where there's been failure of any eggs to fertilise on previous IVF cycles.

Sorry, that was a bit of a long post wasn't it?!! Rant over!

Lisa x


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## lesbo_mum (Dec 22, 2008)

this is really interesting i didnt know about the possibility of damaging eggs and increased birth defects in ICSI conceived children caused by it no longer being survival of the fittest sperm.

I dont know much about ICSI but i think what Rosiepie said "i think if a clinic do it by default then it's a money making exercise if you ask me" sounds very true to me.... 

Is there anything on the net about definite parameters for normal IVF anything less and its ICSI 

Lots of clinics do IVF using donor sperm and dont make you do ICSI... either LWC are trying to get a few extra quid out of you or there speam is cr*p if they do it for every client! 

Hope you find your answers. Hows Amber's stimming going?

Em x


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## Pinktink (Dec 17, 2008)

Thank you for all your feedback - I am feeling a bit better about it all today - I don't think it helps that I work in healthcare and am not used to not knowing the answers.

With regards to the clinic I do actually trust them - I was having a bit of a meltdown yesterday to be honest - I have done a lot of research about icsi and the research linking it to increased birth defects was actually fairly flawed as they weren't considering the reason why people had their treatment ie: the people having icsi were likely to be people with crap sperm so the genetic/birth problems may well have been down to the sperm not the icsi so I am a little reassured by that - it's my fault I should know better than to read the headlines rather than the research. There is a slight chance of egg damage though but I am almost reassured by the fact that the embryologists at the LWC do it so often as they have a lower damage rate! 

I still think if our sperm thaws well we will not go with icsi but I feel much better about going for it now if we need it. We spoke to the clinic and they have reassured us that they do judge it on the sperm sample at the time although they admit they would rather go with icsi on borderline samples that other clinics might not as they would rather this than risk no fertilisation.

we will have to see eh? 

god this ttc lark isn't as easy as you think is it   can't believe some people can just do it by accident


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

My friend had a cycle at LWC and they never told her that they were going to ICSI them till they had done as a compromise they only made her pay half the price.  With DS it should be top quality, but LWC seems to be one of the few clinics in UK who frequently do ICSI with DS.  Saying that abroad some clinics do ICSI routinely. 
I have to have ICSI as my friends sperm has a low count.

I agreed the birth defects research is flawed and so open to interpretation.

Good Luck
L x


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## candygirl (Aug 1, 2006)

We went to the bridge clinic and they never even mentioned the possibility of ICSI to us.  I've had 2 rounds of IVF - the first time 3 out of 5 eggs fertilised and the second time 4 out of 4 eggs fertilised, and obviously that was with frozen sperm.  I've always understood that ICSI would only be a last resort for people who's sperm is very poor quality to begin with, or who have had an IVF cycle where none of the eggs fertilised.

And even without all of that, I'd be wary of a clinic automatically doing a procedure for everyone that is so expensive - it just smacks of a money making exercise.

Candy x


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## Charlie_girl (Apr 30, 2009)

What an interesting thread.

I Egg Shared at the Lister with frozen donor sperm, and although they explained ICSI to us, it never crossed my mind that we'd need it    as my interpretation was that ICSI was used for people with low quality sperm. Ours was sourced from a company in the US that the lister recommend. 

Anyway, the embryologist rang through to my room just after I had EC and said that our sperm was borderline after thawing, therefore ICSI was recommended but ultimately our choice. I've always felt its best to go on recommendation so we went for it. At the time we just thought that we had an "unlucky" batch. I didn't even think about the money-making side of things...   

OK, its not cheap, in fact at £1255 its the most expensive i've seen, but it worked for us. Out of the 8 eggs I had, 6 were mature enough for ICSI, 4 fertilised and 2 were top grade and transfered at day 3, resulting in a lovely BFP. Now i'm not saying that the outcome would have been different with IVF, but I felt that we'd done all we could to get our BFP. If we'd said no to ICSI and got a BFN i'd always wonder....

I still think its best to go on recommendation, after all they know what they're doing don't they? Maybe some clinics have such a high success rate of ICSI over IVF, thats just what they prefer to do? Its important to trust your clinic and you have to put yourself in their hands and hope for the best  

Charlie x


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