If you did NOT use ICSI how many eggs fertilized 'naturally' and made it to 3 and 5 day blasts.

[Anonymous]

We are chosing not to use ICSI b/c we have conceived naturally 4 years ago when I was 27. Now at 32 I have blocked tubes from a ruptured appendix two years ago and TTC naturally for a year. We are in the middle of our first IVF treatment. My husbands sperm have tested very well with no known issues at all and he's 34.

Anyway, we have made the decision to not use ICSI since there are higher incidences of problems (although small) and I guess since we conceived naturally and so easily in the past we thought to skip it. My clinic is heavily reliant on ICSI and it's used in about 90% of patients.

Anyway, as a result the stats on success without ICSI are low. I was therefore, wondering if you didn't use ICSI did you have good results and what were they? Ie/ if you had say 12 eggs, how many fertilized?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

We had 12 eggs and 10 fertilized naturally. Unfortunately, only 2 made it to 5 day blasts, but we learned yesterday that we're pregnant with one of those blasts with identical twins! FYI - it has nothing to do with IVF or family genetics. Identical twins are totally sporadic in nature. Dr. hadn't seen identical twins in 2 years and we're at a large DC clinic.

[Anonymous]

I know that some people have split their embryos and did half with ICSI and half without. Does anyone know what the cost of that procedure is compared to doing ICSI on all embryos?

[Anonymous]

To the PP: I think if you do even just some of the eggs with ICSI, you're paying the full cost of ICSI. It's not prorated for number of eggs attempted that way - at least at Columbia Fertility. That makes sense since some egg retrievals yield 1-2 eggs, and some can yield well into the double digits. The women who yield a high number of eggs are not charged grossly more for ICSI/IVF charges. My understanding is that some people split the treatments (some ICSI, some without) to sort of get a read on where an issue may be: is it an egg issue, a sperm fertilizing the egg issue, etc., rather than a cost saving technique.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PP: I think if you do even just some of the eggs with ICSI, you're paying the full cost of ICSI. It's not prorated for number of eggs attempted that way - at least at Columbia Fertility. That makes sense since some egg retrievals yield 1-2 eggs, and some can yield well into the double digits. The women who yield a high number of eggs are not charged grossly more for ICSI/IVF charges. My understanding is that some people split the treatments (some ICSI, some without) to sort of get a read on where an issue may be: is it an egg issue, a sperm fertilizing the egg issue, etc., rather than a cost saving technique.

Thanks for the quick reply. I didn't expect a discount - in fact, I was kind of worried it might be more expensive given that it maybe complicates the process. This was very helpful, not least because I am at CFA. Thanks a lot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had 12 eggs and 10 fertilized naturally. Unfortunately, only 2 made it to 5 day blasts, but we learned yesterday that we're pregnant with one of those blasts with identical twins! FYI - it has nothing to do with IVF or family genetics. Identical twins are totally sporadic in nature. Dr. hadn't seen identical twins in 2 years and we're at a large DC clinic.

While it's true that identical twins, for all we know, have nothing to do with genetics, blastocyst transfer is actually associated with a higher risk of identical twins:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12620430

[Anonymous]

Newer research has been negating this and the bulk of research does not show this. But, not the point of this thread....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Newer research has been negating this and the bulk of research does not show this. But, not the point of this thread....

I know it's not this thread's topic, but could you reference the newer research you are mentioning? I am curious about this.

[Anonymous]

OP here....is it normal for when you have 12 only 2 to make it to 5 days? Did you end up freezing the last one? Anyone else with their stats?

[Anonymous]

Saw a physician and he was referencing the new research. He had recently finished a journal "study group" (like book club; they weren't the researchers) with other physicians and this was their topic. He said it's quite interesting research and the twinning happens very rarely. As mentioned, it had been a good two years since he's seen it. Pretty wild! We did not do ICSI or assisted hatching. Froze the other blast - we were not wanting twins with a toddler at home.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any more input on this....we just got one relevant reply....curious since we're doing this in aout 1.5 weeks...thanks!

[Anonymous]

I don't have any relevant information here, but am interested as well. Have a retrieval coming up in a couple of days and are considering splitting icsi and non. In a past cycle, we had 15 eggs retrieved, all icsi, based on clinic suggestion, 11 fertilize and all made it to grade a or b for day 3 freezing. Upon thaw, only 2 made it to day 5.

[Anonymous]

14:24 here....only froze 8. Put in 3 day 3s, resulting in my DC.

[Anonymous]

can you see if the fertilize naturally and if they don't use rescue icsi?

[Anonymous]

OP here....

What's rescue ICSI?

My RE said if I chose one way, then I can't reverse my decision for that cycle....