IVF w/ ICSI - how long did you abstain?

[Anonymous]

For those of you with a BFP after IVF w/ ICSI, how long did you abstain before providing the sample? We may trigger tonight and it's been over a week. Should we have sex today? Or is it cutting it too close? ER will be Tuesday!

Please help!

[Anonymous]

Your doctor should have told you the parameters (which I believe may vary depending on your particular male factor issue). I do recall that abstaining for a long time is NOT good for sperm count. I would call your nurse and ask. Of course, with ICSI, since they are injecting the sperm, rather than regular IVF where they are just placed with the egg, it may not make any real difference, unless you have a really, really, really low count.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

With ICSI you really only need one sperm per egg so it shouldn't matter one way or another. We've done 2 successful ICSI cycles. The first one I think we had sex the recommended 2-3 days beforehand. The second we hadn't for a week or more. Both worked.

If I were you, I would go ahead and do the deed tonight. It can't hurt and will replenish the sperm in time for Tuesday.

[Anonymous]

It probably doesn't matter, but the studies suggest that having sex more often results in better sperm. I would have sex tonight, just in case.

[Anonymous]

OP here - Thanks for all of your replies. We did the deed a couple of hours ago and had a nurse come do our HCG trigger. She told us it was good that we did it tonight and that she would have told us to do it had we not.