Tag: insemination

The Egg Freezing process

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There are so many things couples faced with infertility have to consider, also single women and those undergoing chemotherapy also have to consider how to deal with their verity. 

Freezing one’s eggs is the best option to secure ones future as parents or to at least keep one’s hope of being a parent alive.

 

UK law allows you to store your eggs for up to 10 years.

In the UK, egg freezing costs on average between £3,500 and £4,500 for one cycle of treatment. In addition to this price, you’ll have to pay an annual fee to keep your eggs stored (from £200 to £360).

What is Egg Freezing?

Egg freezing is a method of preserving a woman’s fertility so she can try and have children at a later date.it involved collecting a woman’s egg, freezing them to allow her to have a baby later on when she’s ready. 

With marriage at an all time low and women finding the right partner much later it makes sense to freeze one’s eggs to ensure that when the time comes one can still have a baby. 

There are other medical reasons for freezing one’s eggs.

To embark on chemotherapy or If a woman  is due to undergo other medical treatment involving some potent drugs.

Also a woman’s chances of conceiving naturally falls as she gets older, becomes the egg quality decreases egg freezing ensures that the best quality eggs are frozen and preserved which can be thawed at a later date.

Key facts:

In 2017, 19% of IVF treatments using a patient’s own frozen eggs were successful.

It’s becoming more successful but by no means a guarantee of having a baby.

Funding may be available if you’re having treatment that affects your fertility. (Source hfea.co.uk)

Is egg freezing for you?

You might be wondering if egg freezing is for you. 

It may be, if you fall into any of the following.

  1. You currently have a medical condition or intend to undergo a treatment for a medical condition which can affect your fertility. 

  2. You are getting on in age and have not met the right partner to start a family with and worried about your quality of egg decking as you get older 

  3. Members of the armed forces who bring deployed to a war zone.

Process. 

Before egg freezing, you will be tested for HIV and Hepatitis, to ensure that affected samples are stored separately from unaffected samples. 

Once collected the eggs will  a crypto protectant which is a freezing solutions will be added to the eggs. The eggs will be frozen either by cooking them down slowly or by fast freezing called vitrification. 

The fast freezing is regarded as the best methods to adopt for preservation given its success rate. 

When you are ready to use your eggs, they will be thawed and fertilised with the sperm. 

THE COST 

The process of freezing eggs is expensive. On average the cost of having the eggs collected is about £3,350.

Egg storage cost between £125 and £350 per year. 

There maybe unexpected cost added in by the clinic, so It is important to get a full cost of the treatment plan.

Thawing eggs and transferring them to the womb costs an average of £2,500. So, the whole process for egg freezing and thawing costs an average of £7,000-£8,000.

Egg freezing is becoming more popular as more people are freezing their eggs.

In 2017, there were 1,463 egg freezing cycles (in comparison to almost 70,000 IVF treatment cycles overall). Between 2010 and 2017, around 700 babies were born through frozen eggs in the UK.

If you do decided to freeze your eggs be sure to carry out some background checks on the clinic before embarking on the process. Be sure to check out the success rate for women in your age bracket.

Summary.

Eggs can only be kept for 10 years unless exceptional medical circumstances, where you can be allowed to store the eggs up to 55 years. 

To use frozen eggs for fertility process it has to be thawed, the eggs are fertilised via a fertility treatment proves known as ICSI. 

This is because the freezing process makes the outer coating around the egg tougher making fertilisation via turn normal IVF process harder. 

You must update your records at the clinic they do change. This is so that you can be contacted before the 10 years limit for destroying the eggs. 

Your Partner In Hope 

D’Ebi

Related links

https://faithfulwait.com/2019/09/27/ivf-process-step-by-step/

https://faithfulwait.com/2018/08/13/single-women-and-ivf/

https://faithfulwait.com/2018/04/15/exploring-other-options-icsi/

Sources

NHS

HFEA

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A Painful Decision

D'EbiLeave a comment

I love doing this, bringing awareness and hope to those on this journey.

This post will feature the story of a dear friend and their painful infertility journey.

Infertility is a destroyer of relationships, love and happiness.

A once happy vibrant couple can become bitter resentful and sometimes split as a result of the intensity brought on by infertility. The inability to conceive or birth a child can take away one’s hopes and dreams.

Izzy was once a vibrant, happy go lucky woman, she loves life, her job and her faith. She was 26 when she met David a simple happy guy, they were perfect for each other. After dating for one year they decided to tie the knot.

Before their wedding they made a private vow to never ever allow anything to change who they are. They love their carefree happy life and vowed to do everything to make sure it stayed that way.

They even wrote a poem to emphasis the point.

Our love will grow and may slow,

We may sail down paths unknown and encounter scenes unseen

But we will keep in view the picture of love that keeps us bound and sane.

And should we tread the path of pain

May we anchor to you our source of strength and eternal hope.

this was printed and placed in their living room. Wedding was celebrate in the simplest way possible and a year later they decided to try for baby. Little did they know fate had other plans waiting for them.

This decision changed the course of their lives and relationships. After a year of trying without success they sought help. By now Izzy was 28 and David 30.

Low sperm count how is that possible? David mused, why me, how how can it be. Several options for conception were presented to them, donor sperm, IVF, ISCI, AI.

David was not an excessive drinker, never smoked, never used drugs, he lived a healthy life. How is that possible? turns out he may have been born that way.

They decided to explore other options. They embraced all treatments option wholeheartedly, still nothing. Izzy was very supportive and finally  David agreed they should go for IVF Using a donor sperm.

THE PROCESS

The process was successful and implantation took place, then pregnancy.. they remained hopeful but were cautious, this was their first conception. Please Lord they prayed, may nothing go wrong.

But 2 month in, disaster struck, suddenly all symptoms stopped and she immediately knew something was wrong.

A scan confirmed their worst fear, no heartbeat was detected. They had suffered a miscarriage.

This loss was very difficult  particularly given their situation, needless to say they were both heart broken. David more so as he felt helpless and guilty, how is he supposed to help his wife, he is the cause yet he can’t do anything about it.

It was an intense period of grief for them. How can they come so close only to be still so far.

It was too painful and this led them to take the painful decision not to go down the IVF rout again.

Their Decision?

If it happens so be it. But they will not put themselves, their happiness, well being and relationship on the line.

This was by no means an easy decision for the couple mainly because David  has a low spent count.

Sadly I have met quite a few couples who have decided not to pursue their dream of being parents via IVF as a result of the intense pain and heartbreak suffered from miscarriage or failure.

We came close to making that choice as each miscarriage and failed IVF becomes more lingual than the last.

I found the pain of another failure more intense than the last.

THE FUTURE

Well 3 years down the line Izzy and David  have somehow rebuilt their lives again and are well on their way to the coupe they were before IVF.

How did they do it? Find our in the next article. Ways to come back from a failed treatment.

Related post

https://faithfulwait.com/2016/09/22/exploring-other-options/

It Only Takes One Egg

D'EbiLeave a comment

I had to share this story with you, because I can identify with it. After several failed IUI they decided to try IVF and now have a baby.

Parents celebrate getting through a three year infertility struggle with a photo of their baby boy surrounded by IVF needles

The process though was not without uncertainty.

The most difficult part of trying for a baby for me was not knowing when. The uncertainties and the endless questions of when and how were often unbearable.

I remembered the 3rd IVF treatment that gave me my little girl. We were excited to learn that 12 eggs were retrieved, but on a follow up call the next day only 5 were viable and fertilised. Out of those, only one developed enough to be transferred back.

I recall our disappointments at this news, we had little hope of any outcome from this egg.

The thought that this egg might not develop was enough to cause me to fret..

My previous treatments were similar to this but each time the eggs fragment before

Fertilisation. So I was not particularly hopeful or expecting anything to come out of this. My only consolation was that this time around at least they got a decent egg that fertilised and implanted

My husband reminded me that we only needed one egg and that kept me going.

I was so stressed during the two weeks Wait I was convinced the procedure had failed.

To say I was elated was an understatement I was shocked and not excited, nervous at was was to come..

it really does take one. It is only normal human emotion for our past experiences to influence our way of thinking..

Being hopeful requires conscious effort on my part. So today if you are in that place where your Hope reservoir is pretty low and almost ran out.. just remember it only takes one egg and as long as you are here and trying who knows you too may welcome your own little miracle..

Your Partner in Hope

D’Ebi

Exploring Treatment Options. 

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The issues faced by couples or anyone suffering infertility are made worse when you have no idea where and when to seek help.

I have spoken with several women who all agree that they took to seek help as they had no idea where or when to ask for help. Dealing with the emotional roller coaster that comes with infertility is no small feat, it is therefore important to know when to seek help and where to go.

Find out when to seek help in this post: Infertility: When to seek help.

Today’s post explores the various treatment options available to anyone who has been diagnose with the dreaded disease.

First step is to book an appointment with your family doctor.

Based your circumstances and the test results your doctor will then be able to recommend the next step to take.

Treatments for different age group:  There is no one size fit all, when it comes to treatments. Medical evidence shows that a woman’s age affects her ability to get pregnant. Women are Built differently; we have finite number of eggs. The chances of A woman over 35 years getting pregnant are reduced at that age and if she does become pregnant, her risk of miscarriages goes up.

Depending on your age, your doctor may recommend that you skip some of the steps taken by younger couples, and get you on the treatment ladder as quickly as possible.

It is important to know that no treatment will guarantee a positive result. However due to advances in technology, millions of couples like us have gone on to have babies via fertility treatment.

First steps: diagnosis, we explore the possible causes of infertility in both men and women: read it here.

Treating problems with Ovulation: a woman releases eggs once a month, if test shows that you do not ovulate or release enough eggs clomiphene will be given to stimulate your ovaries to release some eggs.

Unexplained infertility: where test shows there is no reason a woman can’t fall pregnant; several options can be exploring. Like, administering clomiphene, hormone injection and Insemination.

Hormone Injections and Insemination. (An insemination procedure uses a thin, flexible tube (catheter) to put sperm into the woman’s reproductive tract, to improve the chances of pregnancy.

Intrauterine insemination: Intrauterine insemination is placing the sperm into a woman’s uterus when she is ovulating, using a catheter, passed into the vagina, through the cervix to the uterus.

Artificial insemination (AI): Artificial insemination is another name for intrauterine insemination but can also refer to placing sperm in a woman’s vagina or cervix when she is ovulating. The sperm is expected to travel into the fallopian tubes, where they can fertilize the woman’s egg or eggs

Blocked or damaged tubes: if your fallopian tubes are blocked, possible treatment may include tubal surgery:

Endometriosis treatment may include laparoscopic surgery to remove endometrial tissue growth. For more severe endometriosis, other treatment options will be exploring.

IVF: In Vitro fertilisation is one of the treatment options available to anyone finding it difficult to fall pregnant: During IVF an egg is removed from the woman’s ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory: The fertilised egg, (embryo), is put back into the woman’s won to grow and develop into a baby.

IVF can be done using the eggs and sperm of both couples or eggs and sperm of donors.

Conclusion:

If you have been trying to conceive without success, please consult your doctor in the first instance and talk through the various treatment options available to you. There are no one size fits all when it comes to treatment for infertility.

My wish for you is that you will find peace through this process as you wait for your special miracle of a child. As you wait in faith, keep your hopes alive, because nothing is impossible to him who believes.

We would love to hear from you, please comment and share on social media.

 

 

Sources: We seek to bring you up to date information and have complied information from the following health site , NHS choices, Nice websites and HFEA.

Disclaimer: the content of this blog are not intended to treat or diagnose, please consult your doctor in first instance to discuss the choices available to you.