ICSI

[Sturdy123]

Hi can somebody help me? Anyone been through the ICSI ivf? How successful is it? Thanks in advance I eally need some guidance x

[aamiller405]

Were waiting to start ICSI IVF... were using that route because of azoospermia so we have to wait and see if they can extract sperm from my husband..if that goes well because I have no issues with my fertility our consultant has suggested a 50% chance of success x

[Angharad24]

Hi

I’m currently going through ICSI

We had to pause half way through so my eggs are frozen ready to be defrosted in a few weeks, so at the moment I can only comment up to there

The ICSI part worked well for us with fertilising the eggs. We had ten eggs and 8 ended up surviving being fertilised.

Sorry I can’t be much more help, but I can let you know more as time goes on if you want

Good luck on your journey x

[Sturdy123 in reply to Angharad24]

Awww Thankyou I would love to hear about the journey and hope it all goes well for you xx

[Niki_B]

Hi yes I have, I currently have 8 embryos cooking in a dish through ICSI (out if 11 eggs 8 fertilised via ICSI) 😊😉 I'd say it's just as successful as normal ivf if that's what you mean? But of course all things need to be considered, age, any sperm issues etc etc. But just as successful as normal ivf 😊

[Sturdy123 in reply to Niki_B]

Thanks for the reply guys. It’s very nerve wrecking as I haven’t yet agreed to go ahead with it. Could someone tell me how long the actual start of the process is from referral to actual implantation? Or does that vary from person to person? As the fertility clinic who are referring me and my husband said 18 weeks average? X

[LegoBatgirl in reply to Sturdy123]

From my experience the timeline varies from person to person or clinic to clinic. It's almost exactly the same success rates as conventional IVF but the technicians select the best sperm to put into the egg rather than it happening by natural selection in the petri dish like during IVF.

Best of luck with your treatment x

[Niki_B in reply to Sturdy123]

It really all depends. And whether you do short protocol or long protocol. That sounds like a very long protocol! I just did a short protocol round i started my injections on the 17th September...im due to have my embryo transferred on 3rd october. So thats start to finish from injections to embryo transfer so not long at all. But it really depends from person to person. And I'm not sure on referral times as im in new zealand 😊 x

[Sturdy123 in reply to Niki_B]

Hey so when did you first attend the clinic. I’m sorry for the 20 questions I’m just so confused and intrigued and scared at the same time x

[Tugsgirl]

We did ICSI this time but ivf first time. We’ve got some really good blasts from it, we ended up with 5, same as with the ivf. I believe in some countries only ICSI is used because they get better fertilisation rates versus ivf fertilisation xx

[Sturdy123 in reply to Tugsgirl]

Hey was it successful the first time around? When you had ICSI? I’m so scared of being disappointed x

[Tugsgirl in reply to Sturdy123]

Yes and no. ICSI is our second time around. We had two blasts put back and a bfn but we have three more top quality left. You have to be prepared for disappointment in this game, unfortunately. Fertility treatment isn’t guaranteed but you have to look at it like this, it’s your best shot and it can work, and does work, sometimes xx

[Cinderella5]

We have done ICSI in all of our cycles. There really isn't much difference in how it affects you. The only differences in IVF they leave the sperm to swim to the eggs in the hope they'll fertilise. In ICSI they embryologist injects each egg with a single sperm....manually putting them together in the hope they fertilise. It's all in done in the background so doesn't affect the patient really. Good luck with it all when it comes around!xx

[Hidden]

We had icsi and ivf. 6 eggs were injected and 7 were left to fertilise. Our ivf eggs had a slightly better fertilisation rate (5 to 4) but it was the icsi embryos that came out on top in the end. By transfer day we had 2 icsi embryos as front runners so 1 was implanted and the other frozen. The remaining 5 were left to go to day 6 and we ended up with 1 more to freeze, however, I'm not sure which batch this was from. I was very lucky that my transfer worked. We didn't have sperm issues but the clinic thought it would be better to hedge our bets given the length of time trying and our ages (35 & 36), but it obviously paid off. Good luck xx

[lucylob]

Hi, I have had ICSI.... we only had two eggs collected and had a fresh transfer which unfortunately wasn’t successful so we had anothef attempt with the frozen egg and this round was successful! I am now currently 14 weeks pregnant and touch wood all is OK 💗💙 I wish you all the luck in the world xxxxxxx

[Sturdy123 in reply to lucylob]

So happy for you! Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy hope it all goes well. How long after the first cycle did you go for the second one? And could you please tell me what the process involves as I’m quite ignorant to it Thankyou xxx

[lucylob in reply to Sturdy123]

My fresh cycled failed, I had a bleed a few days after and my frozen cycle started as soon as I cAme on which was 3 weeks later. Xx

[Lynnr54]

We had ICSI due to sperm issues. Never did traditional IVF so have no comparison but with our ICSI we got 4 viable embryos from 9 fertilised eggs which I think is a good rate. Of those 4, 2 have become BFPs. The other 2 were a chemical and a BFN. My sense is that if your only issue is a sperm issue then ICSI has a good chance of success - although there will inevitably be a number of embryos don’t make it - which is the same for anyone trying to get pregnant even without fertility issues. Good luck with your round!

[Billywhizz10]

We did ICSI a few times.

I know you're scared and worried, but our doctor once said, asking others how successful it is, is a bit like asking someone if they passed their driving test and how many times did they take it and using that info for yourself.

Everybody who ends up using ICSI will have a million different reasons, so your age comes into it, your health, your partners, what the clinic chooses for you, long protocol, short protocol, natural even. If you're using NHS versus Private your wait times will be different and some clinics have better results than others, but even that's a grey area as some private clinics might help older women more than others or only count pregnancy test to advertise their results instead of live birth rates ( all this info is available from HFEA website for stats)

So in answer to your question how successful it is completely depends on the woman's situation. What is for sure, its no miracle cure and its more likely to not work than work with one cycle, no matter what your situation is. Please don't take this the wrong way, but me and my wife really built ourselves up with our first IVF cycle (which was with ICSI ) that we would beat the 30% odds and it will work for sure, when it didn't it really broke us. Looking back I wish we had been more realistic and simply hoped for the best, but make a solid plan in case it didn't.

Best of luck xx

[missbrightside]

Hi, this is our third attempt of ICSI and IVF, and although we are still to get a positive test, it has been a real blessing, as when we first went for tests with our GP a few years ago, we were told that because my DH's sperm had zero motility, parenthood would be impossible without donor sperm. After a referral to our clinic, we were told about ICSI and how it completely overcomes this issue, by injecting the egg with the sperm. Whilst the outcome is still not guaranteed we have managed to get fertilised eggs in every cycle so far, and with the help of the embryologist and other extras such as Sperm Mobil (which allows an embryologist to see which sperm are alive- essential when none of them move!) we have got much further in this journey that we ever expected, giving us the opportunity to become biological parents, which we wouldn't have had without ICSI. I know it is scary at the beginning, but as a technology we are very lucky to have it, as there are so many people who wouldn't be the parents they are today without it. Good luck in your journey x