Advice

Sugars

Hello everyone! My partner and I are about to embark on the first attempt at starting our own family. We are super excited and are trying our best to remain positive as we step into the CC world. Does anyone have advice on the process? Was there something you did that you wish you would have done differently? Was there anything that you did that worked in your favor? We sincerly appreciate any advice you can offer.

Sweettheartt

I have two cents whenever anyone posts on this board a generalized question such as this. Think very carefully about how many vials you would like to purchase up front. Some people purchase ten thinking that they are very attached to the donor of choice. I would caution against that. I personally bought six of a donor and after he didn't get me pregnant a few times, I lost confidence in him and wished I wasn't stuck trying with this same donor over and over. Who by the way I didn't get pregnant with. Also there is a possiblility as the months tick by you see a donor you like more. Then I switched donors and got pregnant right away twice in a row but miscarried both times, so my dr wanted me to switch donors. Luckily I hadn't overpurchased this donor. Now this advice can be risky because if you want several children by the same donor he can sell out, however if you choose a newer donor they usually have several releases of vials over the course of a year, so there is a good chance you can pick up more at a later time.

am.brk

Hi @Brandy1118 (saw that you replied to me a different thread but figured I would chime in here). We're pretty new to the process too, but yes - figuring out how many vials to buy is definitely tricky because you don't know if you'll be successful ahead of time. There are discounts for buying in batches of 5 or 10 though, so we bought five right off the bat. It saved us on storage for a year and they waived the shipping cost to the NY office too. Those two discounts together added up to almost a free vial so we thought it was worth it. I just had my first IUI this week, though, so I really don't know if we'll end up sticking with this guy or not. I'm hoping we do, but so many of the donors would be good options so I'm not too worried about it. We'd like to use the same donor for me and my partner so we're buying more than we would for just me. CC will buy back vials from you I think, but at 50% of what you paid and it can't have left their offices. Once you ship to your Dr. they're all yours.. Supposedly it's good if your donor has reported pregnancies - they list that in his profile. I also did searches here in the bulletin boards to see if anyone had reported getting pregnant from our donor. It made me feel better that at least one woman had reported getting pregnant with him.

It's been really helpful for us to have a Dr. who's close by. I didn't realize how much I'd be going into the office - during this last cycle I probably went in 6 times. It depends on your Dr. and the process you're using (IUI, ICI, IVF, etc..) but at least for us I had to do a blood test and ultrasound every other day leading up to ovulation.. and then one the day after so it was really nice to be close. I also did a trigger shot so ended up going in twice on one of those days.

We picked a donor by getting the unlimited package for three months - we each narrowed down to our 5 favorites doing it once with the pictures showing and once without.. and then whittled down to our top favorites. We ended up having the same favorite out of all of them so that part was pretty easy for us. There are a couple of medical conditions in my family that I didn't want my donor to have also, so we threw out anyone with those things in their history.

Choosing the donor and buying vials was actually the easy part - it's just like shopping online ; ) For me the most challenging part has just been accepting that this could take three months or two years, or may not work at all.. I like to know what's happening and be able to schedule things and, well, this is just a bunch of unknowns. It's been challenging to be positive but also realistic at the same time. I try to just tell myself that we all got born, and so did billions of other people.. so.. hopefully I'll be able to be make it happen too.

Anyway, congrats on starting the process - that's super exciting. The folks who work at CC are helpful and you can call them if you have questions too.

Sugars

Thank you, Sweetheart. This is good advice. We agree and decided on multiple donors. I would however, like to understand CMV. Some donors say "yes", some say "positive" and others "negative". Of course negative seems more appealing. But, I am unclear on the other (2), yes and positive.

puppup613

Am.bk-That is really great advice and I couldn't agree more. Picking a donor was a thoughtful process for us, but a relatively seamless one. We narrowed down our favorites We had 2 of the same top 3 but our number 1 was the same. There are medical issues that are present in both my family and my wifes family that we didn't want in our donor's history. Since we have the option to choose! We are both carrying so this piece was critical to us. And finding a donor that was a good mix of our hair/eye color to try to get them to look like a mix of us since we can't combine our own genes :)

The "accepting that this can take 3 months or 2 years." I can't agree with that more and the hardest part is trying to stay positive. I like to plan in advance and be in the know to with everything that is happening so letting things go out of mine and my wifes hands is difficult.
I am in my 4th IUI cycle (should have my IUI next tuesday). My RE did all the prescreenings and everything looked excellent, like they were super impressed with my reserve and all my levels for my age (I'm 30) so I went in thinking oh this will take 1-3 times. And when it didn't I felt so defeated. Working on staying positive has been very hard but I know it's essential!
I have been doing acupuncture for a month now and I strongly recommend it. I have not seen my BFP from it yet, if nothing else it is relaxing which we all can use during this process!