How many vials to prepurchase?

[Monkeylove]

First I want to thank you guys for the welcome!
Second, I had my consult yesterday. They are recommending that I prepurchase some vials for a number of reasons also becuase the cost are going up from 250 to 320 per vial. How many vials are usually needed? Or do you usually purchase as you go? It makes sense but I have no idea how many.
Also she thought I would be a good candidate for a home insemination and she will teach us how. Does anyone have any info on home inseminations. All legal stuff is still handled through the clinic we would just do the actual insem ourselves.

[50/50]

Hi Monkeylove,

When I was going through DIUIs I would have at least 3-4 vials for a given cycle. Most of the vials we purchased had about 3-5 mil count which is really low, but we wanted to use this donor. Sometimes they had to combine 2 vials for one insemnation. There are some banks that guarantee a certain count and will send you another vial if yours does not make their count. Our RE would also do 2 insemenations per cycle.

I don't know anything about doing them at home. Good luck on your cycles!

41andhopeful

[Danasingle]

Hi!

This is a tough question that probably know one knows the 'correct' answer to!

I tried several times to answer you, but couldn't come up with clear answer.

You will either:

Buy too many----and not be able to return them (then consider the extra expense as insurance); or
Buy too few and need to change donors for siblings.

Good luck!

Dana Single, DI Mom

(PS, I have used 7 units so far and from those have two dd's and three m/c's, plus one m/c with my EX) I have three units left. My donor was 'retired' AND 'quit' the program when I was only a few month's pregnant and I did not know if I would m/c or not---so did not order more units. Luckily, I was able to buy three extra units later that someone had 'returned'.)

[Danasingle]

PS. Hi again!

With the US exchange and shipping charge, my last unit was about $600. Canadian, so you can see why I did not want to buy too many extras, eh?
Dana

[Monkeylove]

41andhopeful, thank you this helps alot. I'm pretty sure this clinic offers a guarantee (I will find out for sure though) Last nigh DH said he would rather buy as we go. I have to call on cd1 so I guess I'll order then each month. I guess if its not working and the supply is getting low than I will have to buy some in advance. Did this procedure work for you?

Danasingle, wow and I was complaining about it going up to $320! I guess I should be thankful...What part of Canada, I'm originally from Toronto. I too do not want to buy more than needed, I guess I'll wait and see. I'm thinking that I should buy at least a couple of months but DH wants to buy as we go. The clinic said that since he's a fairly new donor he would have plenty right now. Sorry for you loses, I hadn't really thought about m/c I guess I should though.
Congrats on your dds.

Thanks to both of you
Bren

[50/50]

Unfortunately it didn't work for us. We are moving on to doing a donor egg and donor sperm cycle now. One more thing I wanted to tell you is that you can call them to see how many vials are left and when that specific donor will have more released. The only prob with this is that someone else may purchase that donor before you do. We actually had to switch to diff donors 3 times while doing this cuz either the donor was on hold or all out. Hopefully you will get preg on your first cycle! I'm crossing my fingers for you!

[Monkeylove]

I'm sorry to here that it didn't work, but it sounds like you have a good plan. Best of luck on you next try!!
That would suck, we have our hearts set on this donor, his baby picture is DH double. We went with this clinic because of this donor. They made it sound like he had a large supply but I will deffinatly did deaper to find out. Thanks for the advise!
Again Good luck!
Bren

[maria2]

As someone that had to go through the difficult process of chosing a NEW donor for a sibling, I recommend you buy enough for 12 - a year's worth - of inseminations. A nice, round number to heighten the odds once you've chosen to cover you if you want at least one sibling. But that's really expensive if you do two insems each time.

We adore our two children, of course, but chosing a second donor was just excrutiatingly difficult. And I can't help but wish they could be full blood siblings, even though we do believe this was all meant to be, and these are the right children we were ever meant to have!.
-maria 2
mom to David, 3, and Katie, 5 mo.
two different di donors

[mmi]

Our RE had us ship 3-4 vials at a time(only did one iui each cycle).... as the shipping is what is very expensive.(same price to ship 1 or 10).... also, if you think you may ever go for a second child... order more. We didn't think we would go for another baby(we had already spent over $25,000 ttc with dh).... so didn't get any vials and when we wanted them, our donor was no longer in the program AND had had a vasectomy, ho hum. We did get lucky and someone released some vials back. Some banks if you buy them and store them there(dont' ship)... even though you pay a monthly storage fee, if you dont' use them and they will buy them back at half cost. good luck.

[Monkeylove]

Thanks for all the freat responses, it gives me more to think about. I'm not sure if we're going to try for more than one child together but you have a great point. I would want to use the same donor. I'm sure.....Good luck too all of you