I am new, and looking for support as my partner and I are preparing for our first child. We are 3 months away from when we will begin our first at home insemination. We will use frozen donor sperm, and have done all of the research on that part of the process.

I have several questions, but I will limit myself to just a few. Is there anything we should be doing right now to get ourselves and her body (she will carry this time around) prepared? Any tips on what we can do to increase our chances of a successful conception? Any advice is welcomed and very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Alex (and Lara)

Alex- I would start by making sure that DP is on prenatals. A prescription kind I've heard is best, but there are many OTC kinds that are good too. Make sure whatever you choose has folic acid. I've been on a generic prescription brand for about 3 years now- they're great for nails and hair! My copay is only $5 for 30 of them so this is actually much cheaper than buying them OTC.

Also if you are going to use OPKs for home insemination, I would start trying to pinpoint when DP ovulates in the months before you try--if you haven't already started this. You'll know her cycle better before the time gets there.

When we did home insems, our RE suggested doing 2 per month if we could afford it. We would do one on the day of the surge (evening) and one the day after (evening again). This may have been successful, if my eggs weren't so bad!!

I also made sure that I stopped drinking any sort of caffeine before we started TTC. I didn't eliminate chocolate (this would KILL me)- but no soda, coffee, tea. I also tried to get off any artificial types of food/drink. I eliminated aspartame (NutraSweet) and Splenda from my diet, and actually I started drinking only organic milk and eating much more organic foods avoiding white flour and corn syrup. Again, I don't know that this helped but at least it made me feel like I was doing everything possible on my end.

When we moved on to IVF after 1 1/2 years, I did start acupuncture which I still enjoy. I don't know if it would have helped earlier on- but maybe.

Good luck!

__________________
Carrie/Care75 (32)
DP- Suz (35)
Together 7 years!

TTC #1 since 04/05
9 home inseminations (5 with clomid)- BFN
6 injectable/IUI cycles- BFN
IVF November 2006- ET cancelled due to extensive fragmentation and poor development. Diagnosed with poor egg quality (poor cytoplasm)

DEFET- June 2007- 2 blasts transferred.
Beta #1 (6/22/07)- 65 (8dp5dt) !
Beta #2 (6/25/07)- 215 (11dp5dt)
Beta #3 (7/2/07)- 3904 (18dp5dt)

It's BOY/GIRL TWINS!!!

Carrie,

Thank you so much for all of your guidance and advice. We will make sure that Lara is on prenatals by the end of the week. Yes, you are correct, we started charting her cycles a few months ago and we are going to use the help of an ovulation monitor. We will now make sure to purchase at least two vials each month. We are in the process of quitting smoking because we refuse to raise our child in a smoking household, not to mention all of the harmful effects of smoking during the pregnancy. I didn't know when she should stop drinking caffeine (now or when we start insem), so thanks for that clerification. Thank you so much for all of your help !! I'm so glad I joined this board.

Caffeine's an interesting one. I'm doing my best to avoid it (although, I also cannot give up chocolate altogether), but, my doctor says that it's okay to have 2 servings per day. I looked up the research because I wanted to understand it better. They have proven that caffeine definitely crosses the placental barrier (meaning that if you consume it so does your baby) but a study in Europe showed that 3 cups of coffee a day did not affect rates of birth defects. But, they've really only looked at birth--there's no conclusive evidence that caffeine doesn't have later implications. There are also studies that have shown that caffeine can disrupt brain development in children until about the age of 16. So, I figure I'd rather avoid it.

As for the smoking issue--congratulations on trying to stop. I know that it is tough. Our clinic said that it was important to quit smoking at least 4 months before beginning TTC. I know that they were mostly concerned with sperm quality, so, it may not matter for you. But, you may want to check out whether you should wait an extra month or two after quitting.

hey alex. we are also three months away for attempting. i say "we" because both my partner and i are attempting at the same time. we couldn't decide who was going to go first, so we decided to try together.

i'm happy that we got started early in preparing. we are using a known donor, so we had to meet with an attorney. we also went for wellness check ups with the ob/gyn. we have started taking a multi vitamin, although we haven't exactly moved on to prenatal vitamin. we should make that step. the vitamin we are taking has folic acid, but perhaps a prenatal would still be better.

we also have been charting fertility using the clear blue easy monitor.

my partner is trying to cut back on the coffee... meanwhile, i think i have been consuming more.. we don't smoke and have cut out drinking, although we were only drinking smirnoff. we both have a low tolerance for anything stronger.

How do you decide home insemination vs going to the doctor's office for the insemination? I have tried to find a doctor in town that does inseminations with known donors and finally found one -- though b/c she is not on my insurance I will have to get my OB/GYN through another doctor or pay out of pocket... I am still looking for somewhere that I can both have the insemination done and OB/GYN care...

Does anyone know the statical success rate of at home vs. dr. office insemination?

Me 34 will carry
DP 35

you are using a known donor with fresh sperm? i would say that if you are sure your donor is healthy (disease and drug free) and has a good sperm count (you can buy a home test to see how good the sperm count is from walgreens), i would save some money and attempt at home first.

typically, people head to the doctor's office when they have fertility problems. if you don't expect that you have any, then try at home first for three months. if nothing happens, i would move to an RE.

my ob/gyn used to do inseminations in her office and said it was quite profitable. however, she stopped because she said it was too much to be on call to make babies and deliver babies. i can see how that can happen.

oh, and as far as the success rate, i think it depends on if you have fertility issues and what method your doctor is using in the office. if you are getting ici performed in an office, you could save yourself some money and do that at home. i would think the success rate would be about the same. you can't do iui or ivf at home, so all the sucess rates there would be in the doctor's office.