ici coming soon-- advice please !!

Courtpen20

My wife and I will be ordering in September. We will be tracking these next 3 months. We plan on ordering 3 vials. We also plan on doing everything at home. I've read so many things about taking vitamins and Mucinex to loosen the mucus. I've read so many articles and everyone seems to keep saying don't stress that it's super easy. Does anyone have any advice on the at home process. Or their own experience help. I'm mostly wondering about the times and how many hours apart to do each vial. Thanks in advance. - Courtney.

bluelinemomma

Hi Courtney!! My wife and I did our insemination at home in March so I understand how difficult it can be to find information. I think I spent months reading anything and everything I could find on the at home process and there wasn't a lot.

Now that I've been through the process I agree that the best thing to do is not to stress. Stressing out doesn't make the process any easier and it can even lower your chances of getting pregnant. Stress causes physiological changes that are not ideal when trying to conceive and the symptoms of stress can block important signals from your body.

You guys are already ahead of the game and getting a plan together which is very important in lowering that stress level and increasing your chances.

I also agree that starting on prenatal vitamins as well as tracking ovulation is very important. Prenatal vitamins are good because they provide important nutrients that help prepare your body for the "work" of pregnancy and strengthen the uterus and womb environment. A healthy body is a happy body and a happy body is more likely to conceive.

Knowing your cycle is probably the best way to get the timing for the insemination right and that's where tracking your ovulation comes in handy. That will tell you if your cycle is regular or not and when you are likely to ovulate. All of the test kits come with directions on how to use them and read the results. It is also very important to trust your body as well. My wife is very in tune with her body and always knows when she ovulates so she didn't want to do the ovulation tests and just wanted to trust herself and her body. So, don't let the tests make you question what you're feeling because you are the expert on your body.

One thing we did when looking for a donor was try to find one whose blood type matched my wife's. There's not any research or anything to back up our thoughts on this, but I thought I would share it anyway. I think something like 50% of pregnancies end as "chemical pregnancies" or before the woman even knows they are pregnant and we thought that some of those might be the woman's body rejecting a clump of cells with a different blood type and spontaneously aborting the pregnancy. Like I said I've got nothing to back that up, so take it with a grain of salt.

As for our process, the vials are good for seven days in the cryobank container so we ordered our vial so that it would be here the day before my wife would ovulate. California Cryobank has all of their shipping info on the website, but basically you can do one or two day shipping. We chose the two day because it was cheaper. When we did our insemination we only used one vial and inseminated approximately 12 hours after my wife ovulated. The sperm is only viable for about 12 hours so that's why timing is important and most people choose to do 2 vials for two separate inseminations. When my wife gave the green light, she laid down on our bed with her hips slightly elevated and we placed pre-seed lubricant into her following the package directions. Pre-seed is a really cool goop that mimics the fluid naturally created by the body during ovulation and it's supposed to help lubricate the vagina and make the journey easier for the sperm. It is not a lubricant for sexy times. Once the pre-seed was in there, I started thawing the vial following the directions provided by CCB (10 minutes in room temperature water). While the little guys thawed we fooled around until our sperm timer went off. I removed it from the water and inverted the vial a couple times to mix the stuff (per CCB instructions) and then had my wife hold it while I opened it and used a 1cc syringe (ordered like 20 or so on Amazon for like $6. I would suggest the same kind we got where the plunger has a tip on it that forces all of the liquid out of the syringe tip unlike regular ones. I can look up the exact ones we used if you want) to suck up all the liquid. She continued to hold the vial while I slowly (according to other things I read it's very important that it be done slowly) expelled the sperm into her. I then took her diva cup (silicone menstrual cup) and rubbed pre-seed inside it and sat it in a bowl with the vial, cap, and syringe in it to catch any stray liquid. Then we did the dirty (no touching the lower lady bits for obvious reasons) and after the big O my wife inserted the diva cup and laid on the bed with her hips elevated for about two hours (it was a bit shy because she had to pee) She then kept the diva cup inside her until the next morning. Had we done two vials we would have done the second one following the same process the next morning approximately 12 hours after the first one or 24 hours post ovulation. Another woman I spoke with in another thread did two vials and did the first at 12 hours post ovulation and the second 24 hours post. From what I've read on the website two is the recommended number of vials to use, but like I said before trust yourself. If you feel three is the best thing for you guys then I say go for it!!

I don't know how much you've explored the website, but they provide a lot of information on here (not about the home process, but other important stuff) and they have an ask CCB bulletin board where a CCB employee answers questions.

I hope this information helps you guys. If you have any other questions, just want to talk about the whole process, or anything I'm happy to help.

Good luck on ya'll's journey!!

Karen

prbs2002

Oh, I'm so happy this appeared! I am considering doing an at home ICI in a few weeks, perhaps in addition to an IUI, so this is all really useful thank you Karen! Can I ask which syringes you used please?
Thanks!
Julie

bluelinemomma

Hi Julie! I'm so glad if our experience can be helpful for someone else. When we started there was just not a lot of readily available information so I want to make it easier for others to find. We ordered our syringes on Amazon and they were the 1cc luer slip tip sterile pack of 10 syringes. Just make sure to look at the picture to make sure it shows the plunger with the tip. Just let me know if you have any other questions. :)
Karen