[Moo point]

We needed ICSI due to male factor infertility. It was about $1500 more expensive on the initial outlay but we got a good portion back from Medicare (about $2.5k out of pocket per cycle).

From my understanding, it is more successful than conventional IVF for male factor, as the scientists are able to select the best looking (ie normal shape, normal movement) and inject one sperm into each egg. The downside to it is that it relies on them deciding out of a range of thousands or millions of sperm which few look the best. As PPs said, it is also good for issues such as low egg reserve or sperm binding or penetration issues.

We did two full stim cycles with ICSI, with an early loss on the second cycle, and were successful on our third cycle when we combined it with high digital magnification. This allowed the scientists to select only those sperm with no or small vacuoles (air bubbles in the head of the sperm) which cannot be seen on ordinary ICSI magnification and can indicate abnormality in the sperm/chromosomes. I am expecting a boy in 10 weeks

I have 3 sets of friends who conceived through conventional IVF for endometriosis/unexplained issues with no sperm issues, and another set who conceived through ICSI due to male factor. It is all dependent on your individual issues, and the first IVF cycle you do, whatever the recommendation, can be a learning curve for your specialists as they see how you respond to the treatment and how the sperm/eggs and embryos turn out. Best of luck, OP

[TinMan]

We did ICSI because of MFI <failed VR>.

We had success on the fourth full cycle.

Good luck, it can be information overload at first.

[Brodes]

My beautiful almost 4yr old daughter is a ICSI frozen blastocyst We had ICSI done because my husband had, had a vasectomy and his swimmers no longer swam

Good luck with your IVF journey!

[librablonde]

I've done ICSI since I started IVF, and am using frozen anon donor sperm.

[domestically~cha...]

We had female factor and male factor and used ICSI.

We used ICSI as my DH's results weren't high enough to do IVF alone.

As mentioned above IVF is the preference as it allows for natural selection.

We had good fert rates with ICSI 11/11 feritlising and then 14/15. Unfortunately we still had to transfer 13 embryos to have success and I do wonder if it would of been sooner had we used straight IVF - quality over quantity and all that.

Best of luck with everything.

[specialone]

Hi,

It only costs $300 for us to do ICSI through our fertility clinic (so not a lot of difference in cost).

We have male fertility problems (only small % mobile sperm).

My first IVF cycle we did a 50/50 split (something you could do?) - which is 50% ICSI and 50% standard IVF. We had 12 eggs to start with. With ICSI we got 4/6 eggs fertilised. With standard IVF we got 6/6 eggs fertlised.

For our second IVF cycle we decided not do do any ICSI as we had got such good fertilisation with standard IVF during our first cycle. Again had 12 eggs to start with. We got 4/12 eggs fertilised - a bit of a disaster... very disappointing. And none of the embryos were any good (none to freeze etc).

We are about to do third IVF cycle and specialist has recommended 100% ICSI which we are contemplating. We will definitely at least do 50/50 as had such low fertility rate for second cycle (only 33%).

Specialist said that on average you get about 60-70% fertilisation from ISCI. Which is better then the 33% we got last cycle without ICSI! We got 66% fertilisation from ISI during the first cycle we did.

I feel ICSI is a bit of a safety net.... makes me feel that we will at least get some embryos... We had such a bad cycle without ICSI in our second cycle that we aren't making that mistake again.

Good luck

[shells0701]

Thank you so much all for your advice and sharing your experiences. The whole process has been very overwhelming to say the least and I fear it's going to get more so!
Our fs suggested Icsi because my husband has sperm antibodies so it's a preferred method.
Thanks again for the info - have learnt quite a bit

[jm3]

Our FS prefers not to do ICSI unless really necessary because you are taking away the natural selection element of fertilisation.

I didn't think of this at all when the FS suggested that ICSI had a better success rate. My husband on the other hand said no way no how. He said IVF is 'artifical' enough without having someone in a lab coat pick the best of each to go together. Each to their own.

[specialone]

Hi,

Well, I don't think there is much natural about IVF anyway... and if ICSI increases chances of pregnancy then I will go that way. Paying way to much money to lose out due to lack of fertilisation of eggs (like I had last time without ICSI).

Not much natural about making your body produce tonnes of eggs etc. My DH lets me makes most of the choices with IVF (he's happy to do whatever) as he knows its me that ends up going through most of the agony (after EPU I swell up like a balloon etc).

Even if you do natural IVF they still select the best sperm to put with the eggs (and hope that does the trick)... so its not exactly fully natural selection even that way. They weed out the bad looking sperm.

It would have been nice to not do ICSI but I will do whatever it takes to give us the best chance at pregnancy. I think (but will have to check) that my current 2 year old daughter was via ICSI.

All the best - I would go with what your specialist recommends - they know lots of stuff!

[NotBitzerMaloney]

Our first cycle was straight IVF. I wasn't keen on ICSI .... Which changed rapidly when we only had a 20% fertilisation rate from round one (2/10)

Round two we did ICSI and had an 80% fertilization rate.

We ended up having two 5-days blasts from both stim cycles (1 fresh tfr and 1 to freeze), but I was still happy we went with ICSI for round 2 - especially as I got pregnant from that ICSI cycle.