How To Get Pregnant With A Sperm Donor | All You Need To Know About Sperm Donation

How To Get Pregnant With A Sperm Donor | All You Need To Know About Sperm Donation

Transcription :

Last week’s video and this week’s video are a first for me because, after 600 Fertility TV episodes since 2014, this hardly ever happens. I can’t believe it’s the first time I’m dedicating a Fertility TV episode to getting pregnant using, that’s right, donor sperm. These guys. So if you’re using a sperm donor, it doesn’t matter if you’re single, if you are LGBTQ couple, or heterosexual couple who need it, this video is for you. And if you’re going through this process and would like me and my team to support you, then I want to ask you to apply to qualify for the Hope program so I can be your fertility coach, and you can do that using the link in the description below.

Some of the women that join my program need to use sperm donors. You’d be surprised by this, but this is way more common than it actually seems because it’s really not talked about very much. During the last 20 years, I’ve been a fertility expert, I’ve seen this many, many times, and the first thing that comes up is, I have so many questions. Where do I start when I’m considering using a sperm donor? Well, today I’m going to address some of the most common questions that you are going to have when you use a sperm donor. Okay. So the first question that I often get is, can I buy sperm and inseminate myself? Well, the answer is yes, but it’s not so straightforward. So you can absolutely buy sperm, and typically when you do that, it’s going to be frozen. So you should not expect that to be a fresh sample. Okay. And yes, you can inseminate yourself. However, that’s not really what we’re thinking about in the traditional sense. So a traditional insemination is when you have the uterus and you are taking a catheter, and it goes all the way into the uterus, and you put the sperm through. You inject the sperm through that catheter all the way into the uterine cavity. Well, if you’re going to be doing this at home, odds are that you’re not going to get through the cervix, and what you’re really going to be doing is injecting the sperm into the vagina as close as you can to the cervix. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s actually called ICI, okay, intracervical insemination. Nothing, nothing wrong with that. And there are many tools on the market today that you can utilize for something like that. But it’s not the same thing, and I just don’t want there to be a misconception that you’re doing the same thing. Many women will call this a kind of turkey baster technique, which is exactly what that is. You’re just taking the sperm and putting it into the vagina and allowing nature to take over from there. The next question that I get is, is it difficult to get pregnant when we use a sperm donor? Well, I would say no. It’s really no different than if you had fresh sperm other than typically we would prefer fresh sperm ’cause the success rates are a little bit higher with fresh versus frozen sperm, but that question didn’t specify. It just said a sperm donor, and a sperm donor could be a friend who’s donating sperm, which could be used fresh, right? Or you can be getting it from a sperm donor agency which has already vetted those individuals, has tested the sperm for proper quality and any infections, and has done all the proper work to give you confidence that you have chosen a good agency and a good donor. So it’s not any more difficult to get pregnant using a sperm donor than without, other than any other underlying complications that might be there. Now, I will say that I do encourage you, if you are using a sperm donor, I do encourage you to do insemination or IVF with a clinic because I think the whole process will be managed better, and will be under much more control. It’s not to say that if you did ICI at home that you can’t get pregnant; you can, and I see this all the time. And quite frankly, that might be the place you want to start. But after three or four cycles, if that wasn’t successful, then I do think we need to take different steps and move forward to get additional support. If I do a sperm donor or use, excuse me, a sperm donor and do insemination (IUI), what is the success rate? The success rate is the same whether you do IUI with a partner and have a fresh sample versus a sperm donor, and it’s frozen. The success rates are relatively the same; they’re somewhere between 15 to 18%. They could, depending on some circumstances and depending on age and underlying conditions, be as high as 20 or 25%, but typically, the older we are, if we’re doing that, those numbers will just continue to go down. So the success rates don’t actually change if you are using a sperm donor. It’s more about your underlying issues, your hormonal issues or not. Is your cycle regular? Do you ovulate? What do your hormones look like? And, you know, what is your overall health? That’s really the most important thing because the assumption is that the sperm donor you’re choosing, all those parameters look healthy, right? That we’ve got good sperm, that they swim well, a good amount of count, and the morphology looks good. All of that’s taken care of. So the assumption is that the only other issue that might impact is if there’s anything going on with you as an individual that might impact the success of those cycles. This video is sponsored by the Fertile Mind app. Check the link in the description below for a 30-day access pass.

Another question I often get, I think I answered this, but I’m going to touch on it briefly, is: Is it safe to inject sperm into the uterus at home? Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with it as long as everything is clean, right? Like, you know the person that you got the sample from, or you got it from an agency and it’s frozen, you have clean products, right? Clean syringe that’s going to allow you to do that. There’s nothing wrong. It’s totally safe to do at home.

Another question I get, which is a really valid question, is: How long is sperm good for, fresh versus frozen? Well, you really want to use sperm as quickly as possible. The longer that it stays at room temperature, the more unstable it becomes. So if someone is donating a fresh sample, you want to use that ASAP. If you are getting frozen sperm, then you want to thaw that, and as soon as it’s thawed, you want to use it as soon as possible. I do not recommend that you get a friend’s sample and freeze it at home. That won’t work out well. You know, the preservation of sperm is done in a certain way in a lab and it’s controlled, so I don’t recommend doing it at home. If you’re going to have a friend donate sperm, then I recommend that that is used fresh.

How can I prepare my body when using a sperm donor? Well, you have to do everything that I normally talk about, really, which is addressing any underlying health issues that you may have first and foremost. So before you go out and get frozen sperm from an agency or you ask a friend to donate, I encourage all of you to take care of yourself, focus on you first, okay? So if your health is not right, if you know that there are some underlying issues, there are any health issues, hormonal issues, take care of all of those things first. Give yourself some time to do that so that you are ready to be successful when you do decide to move forward with that and don’t have to work backward, right? You already know that you want to have a child, but the potential to have to use a sperm donor might be there. So take care of you first and then you can move forward with the rest. Okay, give yourself some time. I’m not saying you need to use a lot of time unless you know that you have a lot of health issues that need it. I’m just saying give yourself a few months, somewhere between 3 to 6, to make sure you take care of your health issues and that you’re prepared to move forward.

Now I want to hear from you. What questions do you have about using a sperm donor? Comment below and let me know. And as I said, if you are serious about getting pregnant, head to marks.com, Discovery call. I’ll put that link in the description below as well to speak to a real human on my team so that we could find out if we can be of help to you and if it’s the right fit for us to be your fertility coaches. Now I want to make sure that you check out these stories of hope so that you can start to believe that it is possible for all of you. You can check that out using the links in the description below as well, and until the next video, stay fertile.