wedding

wedding

Thursday, April 10, 2014

A Different Direction

We chose our sperm donor based on many traits, both ones that were desirable to us (good health, smart, productive adult) as well ones that we wanted to match Nicole (ethnic background, hair color, eye color). When naming these ideals to our friends A&A one night, they told us that everything we were saying matched the donor they used for their second child, and they offered to give us the donor number so we could use him as well. We immediately agreed, knowing that our preferences and requirements would only bring up a few options. It's difficult just to find a Jewish donor who is Open ID (willing to be contacted by the child when they turn 18), let alone the other, smaller details. We all checked in about whether it felt weird to any of us, and the immediate and unanimous reaction was that we felt it was a beautiful way to build families and connection.

We looked up his profile, listened to his audio interview, and looked at his baby picture. Then Nicole did some sleuthing with her genius detective brain and found his current Facebook and Linked In profiles so that we could see that he is a normal, successful adult. (Don't judge - this is a HUGE decision to make, choosing someone to provide half our child's DNA, and we also know our kid can meet this person someday without us there to protect them. This was the first tough decision that wasn't entirely clear or comfortable that we had to make in our child's best interest.) He is 5'11", brown hair and brown eyes, Jewish (Reform), of Ukrainian descent on one side and a Western European mix on the other, speaks three languages, went to a prestigious engineering school on scholarship, is athletic, loves to travel, is family-oriented, is easygoing, and most importantly, is in good health. He is also CMV negative, which is important since I am as well (which is pretty uncommon, apparently) and being exposed to the virus while pregnant could harm the baby. It also doesn't hurt that he helped make a super cute toddler whom we adore!

Our vial in the warmer, waiting patiently to fulfill its destiny.

Suffice it to say, we are completely sold on our donor and didn't anticipate any issues since our friend had gotten pregnant the first time using his sperm. During our first cycle, we were told the second day that the vial had 7 million, "which is a good number." It sounded a little low to us and we remembered the sperm bank telling us they guarantee 10 million motile sperm per vial. So when we went in for my progesterone check the next week, I saw the PA and asked her to look up how many were in the first day's vial because we hadn't been told. She said the first day was 10 million at 54% motility and the second was 7 million at 52% motility. She said the motility was on the low end of normal, but that anything over 50% is normal and good. I said, "So if we don't achieve pregnancy on the vials we have, should we be looking at another donor?" She said, "No, I don't think so. Those are still decent numbers, and you never know what will be compromised in freezing. It's not the donor's fault and it could happen to any specimen. These numbers are okay, I wouldn't switch."

We took that as some comfort, until we reached out to our friend who said she'd had 12 million!! What the heck?? Then yesterday, after getting the great news that my follicle was at 22mm (it went from 18mm the day before to 22mm the day of IUI, whereas last time it only went from 18mm to 19.5mm - optimal size at ovulation is 20-22) we were told there were only 8 million at 49% motility. Then today's vial had 8.3 million at 46% motility. What is going on here?? Why were three of our four vials below the guarantee of 10 million, and why did the last two have motility below 50%, putting them in the below normal range? The nurse practitioner doing my IUI today said that, while they like numbers to be a bit higher, these numbers are pretty typical for what they see with frozen specimens. I'm not sure if that's a comfort or not.

We're trying not to get too distressed, because if I'm pregnant it won't really matter. But if I'm not... I guess we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. We already knew we'd have to take a month off after two cycles to save up money for another two (we refuse to go into debt over this), so we could use that month to start over with a new donor and a new bank if we decide that's what's best. But before I jump that far, we're first sending in the specimen analyses to the bank we used so that they can look at it (they wouldn't tell me what they do if the specimen doesn't meet the guarantee, they just said to let them review it first) and we'll see what they offer. If they offered two vials for the price of one so that we can ensure we have enough sperm, then we'd keep using them. If they just refund us some of this, well that's nice, but we are also spending $2000 on each IUI itself, so we still wouldn't be using them again. I also want to talk to the PA and get her thoughts again now that she can see what's in the last two vials; maybe she won't be concerned. I'll wait til I hear back from the bank before I reach out to her so I'm armed with as much information as possible.

Here's hoping that I'm knocked up and won't have to worry about all this!

Update: Apparently the motility percentage is how much of the unwashed specimen is motile. So if the percentage was higher, then the number of sperm in the vial after washing would be higher since the washing separates out the motile sperm. Someone from the clinic told me that the bank might say they guarantee 10 million before washing. But I had specifically asked them what their guarantee was back when I first ordered, and I thought that was clear. Maybe I'm misremembering. But one vial had 29 million before washing, and another had 10.1 million. That's still a very alarming difference. And one vial only had .9mL when they're supposed to be 1.0mL, and the other three had 1.0mL. All questions for me to ask them...but it may not lead to us switching banks and donors if we can't guarantee getting anything better at another bank.

No comments:

Post a Comment