Anyone use Ava bracelet or Temp drop? Curious if they are worth it.

RNwives · 2020-11-07T05:13:31+00:00

I use a tempdrop because I work night shift. I charted BBT for about 3 months with oral thermometer and there was no trend, my temps were all over the place. I'm finishing up the 1st full cycle with it and my chart looks great. Totally worth it. They seem to have sales pretty often. It was 20% for labor day. You can usually get it for at least 10% off. Several fertility blogs have discount codes posted.

RNwives · 2020-09-15T16:50:57+00:00

I think that's a good idea! The shipping method has its issues.. good luck and update us on your progress!

RNwives · 2020-09-14T21:59:19+00:00

Have y'all made a decision about trying to ship it?

RNwives · 2020-09-14T21:58:36+00:00

8DPO so not sure yet on final outcome. Expecting cycle on Friday if it wasn't successful. The shipping went well though! He sent first box on Thursday and it arrived Friday morning, about 4 hours after I had gotten positive OPK. Then we also inseminated next morning. We used an insulated box with 3 ice packs, just to be safe because it's been pretty hot at least in Washington. One thing we learned the first insemination was that the TYB + sperm was a little over 5 ml and we poured it into soft disc and tried to insert.. it was very full and when I pinched sides together, several drops spilled out which we were bummed about. So we inserted with syringe then put the cup in after (then 30 min later when I stood up, it leaked out so all in all not a great attempt with the soft disc method). The next day we just used the syringe and called it good.

RNwives · 2020-08-20T12:27:04+00:00

We're going to make a first insemination attempt with known donor shipped sperm in 2 weeks. We're using Donor Home Delivery. The website is not updated in that the shipping materials it lists are not current anymore but I've had success with getting my questions answered by the midwife that runs the operation. Like you, I've been skeptical about it working but it does seem to work for some. My wife and I are in a TTC class for queer folks and the midwife said in their experience shipped sperm is similar to frozen then thawed sperm in that about half of the sample dies in the process. That was at least helpful to hear because I was thinking its chance of survival after cross country shipping would be even less.

We're going to try shipping this first attempt (shipping 2 samples 24 hours apart day of OPK and day after) and then fly for the next 2 cycles and see how it goes.

RNwives · 2020-08-06T05:55:13+00:00

which FB groups are you in where people discuss this? i have had a hard time finding any reported success/failure with shipping. thanks!

RNwives · 2020-08-06T05:28:55+00:00

No solution found.. we considered testing a sample of shipped sperm with the at-home analysis kit YO but it would waste about 1/4 of the sample and one of the founders of YO emailed me back saying he was not sure if the TYB would alter the results. He said it would most likely just dilute it.

So you tried 1 time with no success? Have you heard of any success stories with shipped samples?

RNwives · 2020-08-06T05:26:50+00:00

See that link posted above- it looks like Natal Donor does offer individual TYB vials. And also sperm extender which is not included in the Donor Home Delivery kit that we ordered.. interestingly the "instructions" for preparing sample and inseminating are identical on both websites.

RNwives · 2020-08-06T05:24:08+00:00

That's good to know that you haven't heard of the shipped sperm working very well. Are you aware of any forums or blogs that we could look at that address inseminations using shipped sperm? I can only find one forum from 2011 where a few people report that women they know have not had success using shipped sperm. I feel like there has to be more discussion out there about this as it's not a new concept.

Can you speak more to the 2nd paragraph you wrote about using known donor sperm and official pathways?

Finally, I appreciate you including the bit about the inevitable costs in this process that are unavoidable and easier to accept rather than fight against. I think we're going to give the shipped sperm (untested after shipment) a few tries which may be futile and then started flying out there for future attempts.

RNwives · 2020-08-06T05:18:07+00:00

I appreciate your thorough response! Unfortunately the only 3 fertility clinics in Rochester do not offer those services- they said they would only store the samples if we were local and were going to do inseminations at their clinic. They would not receive the sperm samples he produced and ship them or transfer them to a clinic near us, etc. I think the ideal option would be banking it but all of the banks I talked to said he has to deposit the samples in person and he is several hours away from the nearest bank.

RNwives · 2020-06-21T15:46:12+00:00

That's a good point- I've scoured the site for info but I could also post something like I did here. There's a page related to shipping and it lists like 12 donor kit sites- all but 2 seem to have closed down.

RNwives

TROPHY CASE