Hello and welcome to the Fairfax Cryobank Family Forum!
The forum has a new look and the Fairfax Team is so excited to create the best experience for our users.
To Note:
Private Donor Groups and Private Sibling Connection Groups are now located under the category "Groups". Search the donor number in the search box and you should find exactly what you're looking for!
Questions about your forum access? Email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com
Follow these steps to join a private donor group:
1) Press "Join" at the right of the group
2) Once prompted to confirm your request please list this information so we can verify your information:
Name (under which the vial was purchased)
Email
Clinic Name
Donor number
Child Date of Birth
*If you are looking to start a private group for a PRS donor please email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com with the above information and that you are looking for a PRS group*
If you have any questions about the verification process please email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com
The forum has a new look and the Fairfax Team is so excited to create the best experience for our users.
To Note:
Private Donor Groups and Private Sibling Connection Groups are now located under the category "Groups". Search the donor number in the search box and you should find exactly what you're looking for!
Questions about your forum access? Email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com
Follow these steps to join a private donor group:
1) Press "Join" at the right of the group
2) Once prompted to confirm your request please list this information so we can verify your information:
Name (under which the vial was purchased)
Clinic Name
Donor number
Child Date of Birth
*If you are looking to start a private group for a PRS donor please email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com with the above information and that you are looking for a PRS group*
If you have any questions about the verification process please email forum@fairfaxcryobank.com
Donor Sperm/ IUI
maria_cc79
Junior Member Junior Member
Hello,
I am going to be doing IUI with donor sperm in the near future. My husband and I chose this route after he had 2 failed vasectomy reversals. We hope to conceive this winter with a donor from CLI. I would love to connect and share my journey with others that are going through a similar situation.
:0) Maria
I am going to be doing IUI with donor sperm in the near future. My husband and I chose this route after he had 2 failed vasectomy reversals. We hope to conceive this winter with a donor from CLI. I would love to connect and share my journey with others that are going through a similar situation.
:0) Maria
Comments
Best Wishes to all!
Jill
I agree that picking a donor can be overwhelming. My husband and I had an anonymous donor picked out from another bank that matched him and his family background extremely well but after some discussion this summer we decided to look for an ID options/release/consent donor instead. We found one that we really like here at Cryolab. He doesn't match DH as well as the anonymous donor but we liked his audio interview and family health history and we got to see a childhood photo which is neat. So, I called them to ask if there were pregnancies reported for this donor and there are. I also ended up finding a Yahoo Group that is made up of other women who have conceived or are trying to conceive with the same donor. Knowing that other women have conceived with this donor makes us feel better about using him. However, currently there is a waitlist for the donor we want to use so we put our name on the list and have to wait to cycle. I hope to cycle by Dec. or Jan. but I have no clue how long it will take for them to call me back. I plan to have an HSG done before we start the IUIs. Anyways, with picking a donor, we just wanted to make sure that we picked a donor that has been proven. I hope you are able to find a donor that you like and that you will have quick success. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to help answer them if I can. Please keep us posted on your journey!
:0) Maria
P.S. Anyone else want to join our discussion? I would love to hear from you?
My best advice is to make a list of important physical features that you and your husband /partner absolutely want (husband and I both have blue eyes, so we wanted a blue eyed donor) or any other features you deem important (CMV status, Identity release, pregnancy reported, etc), then go from there. This is how we started. Once we had our some-what shortened list, we went through and read each summary profile and staff impressions. This helped shorten the list even further. At this point, we only had about four donors left. We then listened to the full audio interviews. The interview is what helped us make up our minds (I guess it also helped that the donor was a cute baby!
Well, I wish everyone good luck!
Thanks....
Jen
:0) Maria
Jen
Jill: How is your process going? Have you been able to find a donor that you like? Please keep me updated. I hope you have quick success!
Becca: How are you doing? DId you pick a donor yet? Just wondering where you are at with all of this. Please keep in touch and let me know how you are doing.
firstandformostmom: Thanks for sharing your story and process with us! Congrats on your daughter! We also thought that picking an ID release donor was more important than having the donor match all of my husband's features. I just hope that the donor we picked gets us pregnant. Have you been able to conceive #2 yet? I hope you get your 2nd little miracle soon! Please keep me posted.
nnegaard: Thanks for sharing your success story! Congrats on your little boy! I am so happy that you got your little miracle! Keep in touch with us!
As for me: I'm still waiting for my Aunt Flow to come visit me but she should be here by next week. Then I will be doing 5mgs of Femara and having an IUI 24hrs after a +OPK. Does this sound like good timing to you all? For those of you who have been through this, what was your protocol for IUI? Just curious because I worry about timing because I've been told that thawed sperm doesn't live as long as fresh sperm. Any thoughts anyone?
P.S. Does anyone else want to join our discussion? Anyone else that has gone through this process or going through it currently?
Good luck to you all!
That said, price wise, unless your insurance covers part of it you might want to figure way higher! Of coarse it also depends on what clinic you are going to. I would recommend Diamonds Women Center in Edina.
Some insurance covers nothing, others cover part, and yet other cover all but the sperm. My insurance covers everthing but the insemination, any medication and the sperm. So with that figured in, my total for just those 3 things is around $800 a try. Depending on the process you used, if its medicated and monitored or if you just track yourself will determine cost. My is fully watched, medicated and triggered at the right time. So in my case there is a min of 2 ultrasounds, extensive blood work, and fertility drugs. If you need a cost estimate I can tell you part of it.
Well, I'm still figuring about $1,000 an attempt, which includes any miscellaneous medical costs. I am a member of Kaiser Permanente in Denver, Colorado, so unfortunately I don't think I could visit your clinc.
Thanks for the words!
Clara
Blue: Sometimes you can talk with the lab and see if they can contact the donor personally and request more samples just for you. I read about that SOMEwhere on the website, not extirely sure where. Good luck with your next attempt though!
An update on myself: I had a very promising, clean HSG (?) about two weeks ago... You know, the awkward x-ray. Now it's just a waiting game... Apparently when I get my next mens. I go in for an ultrasound, if that looks good then they put me on Clomid and I get my first attempt! It's getting close to the line now, if everything comes on time. My husband still hasn't chosen his favorite donor! And of course of our top choices is on "special" this month, so I hope there's still a few vials left for me when we get around to purchasing. My doctor will only hold 4 vials at a time anyway, and that was how many I was planning on purchasing, so I hope it takes within said 4!
Its very very expensive to get a donor to donate again. I do have another picked out just incase this next one dont take. If I dont take after 3 I am not trying anymore anyway.
As far as selecting a donor I think we're fairly atypical. We've never tried to find one who looks just like either of us. We will be disclosing the use of the donor to our child as well as close family and friends. But since there are thousands of donors to choose from we narrowed the selection down by using my husband's two most noticeable traits - hair color and height. It just seems to make selection easier. We also discussed CMV, family health, blood type and other medical issues with our RE and the three of us agree it's mostly insignificant. We didn't pick one another as partners or decide to have children based on our blood type or what illnesses our mothers had. As scientific as all the ART we've gone through and will go through we are trying to remain as natural about the donor process as possible. Going to lengths to find the perfect donor felt too much like trying to get a warranty on a used car! What's important to us is just having a child and we will later deal with what may come as any parent would. There are never any guarantees with any way you decide to build a family.
We definitely like Cryogenics. We've not ordered yet but this company has the best methods of selection available to customers. It baffles me how other labs want to charge you for viewing information about the donors before you buy. It's almost insulting! Can you imagine being charged by Target to shop in their store to see if there's anything there you actually want to purchase? It's ridiculous! Cryogenics offers information other labs are charging in excess of $145 for. I'm not trying to be cheap about the situation but when you add these fees plus the vials and storage and the actual inseminations, one cycle can be right expensive. We've picked a donor that just popped out to us and seems "right". Being able to view his baby photo was an added bonus! We just feel some connection seeing that photo and it feels more real to us, that we might actually be parents afterall. We're still trying to decide to do the IUI right away or later this summer but I'm definitely getting excited about the prospect of becoming pregnant. It's something I never thought would be possible for us.
Our RE ran full diagnostics on me (HSG, FSH, bloodwork, ultrasounds, you name it) and everything looks perfect. I am relatively young (but turning the dreaded 3-0 in April). At this point we have gone through 5 unmedicated cycles without success (all with the same donor - we bought 6 vials up front). Our RE is having us come in next week (2/1/11) for a consultation - I'm sure she's ready to discuss some fertility meds, which have us a bit nervous since everything 'seems' to be working fine already. We certainly don't want to keep wasting our resources, but personally I'd rather try a few more natural cycles with a new donor before switching to meds.
It's nice to know other ladies that are going through the same process right now.
Thanks,
Rebecca from FL
:0) Maria
I want to wish you the best of luck in conceiving a baby very soon! My husband had 2 vasectomy reversal surgeries but neither worked so we decided to move on to IUI with donor sperm. We both wanted to use an ID options/consent donor so we wanted to use a bank that offered that option. We loved that CLI offered free online profiles, childhood photos, and audio interviews. We found a donor we both really liked here at Cryolab so we decided to buy 8 vials to start because CLI offers 2 years free storage when you purchase 8 vials or more. Getting those 8 vials all at once was kind of hard since he had a wait list all the time but we were able to do it because someone else on his wait list decided not to purchase the vials offered to them. I ended up getting pregnant after the first IUI with our donor. We were so shocked! I'm now 27 weeks pregnant with a baby girl and we are so excited to meet her! Anyways, we plan to have 2, maybe 3 children using the same donor so we are on the wait list again to buy a few more vials to put into storage just to be safe. I hope you and your husband are able to agree on a donor soon and have quick success! Please keep us posted on your progress and keep us posted on when you start your IUI cycle! It's nice to have others to connect with and cheer on during this process.
:0) Maria