ICSI was first demonstrated to produce live births as recently as 1993 (Palermo et al.) It has been incredibly successful in cases of male factor infertility (and others) bringing joy and hope where previously there has been none.

It works so well because they only have to find one healthy sperm for each egg, but what happens if they can’t even find that many?
Men can give up all manner of things to improve sperm counts and take so many tablets they rattle. They can even go under the knife in the hope of finding a bare handful of sperm with the right shape. But what do you do if you simply can’t find enough?
We turned to ‘donor back-up’.

To be fair ‘our’ sperm count is good, it's the morphology that’s poor and the first time they tried to fertilize our eggs nothing happened. Going through IVF/ICSI is never easy but it felt so cruel that even with a good crop of eggs we had no embryos to transfer back in. And it all seemed to come down to the fact that the sperm weren’t quite the right shape so for our next cycle it was suggested that we attempt to fertilize half our eggs using our own sperm and half using donor sperm.

(I realise it may seem a bit false using the terms ‘our sperm’ and ‘our egg’, but it was an important part of coming to terms with using donor sperm to make our baby.)

For us this 50% spilt was a great option, not least because it was giving our sperm another go, if we had just been unlucky last time then this time, by the law of averages it would work. If it was a male factor or a compatibility issue then the donor inseminated eggs would do fine and if nothing fertilized then at least we would know it was an egg issue.  Either way we felt this would enable us to go onto further treatment with donor eggs or embryos in the knowledge we had given it our best shot.

Going half and half also gave us the advantage of being prepared, knowing this was going to happen. In many instances of ‘donor back-up’ the patients chose a donor and reserve a sample still hoping that on the day of egg collection there will be enough sperm (either collected in a standard sample of through surgical methods) – I imagine that must be very nerve wracking. In particular my heart goes out to those patients who were expecting to find enough sperm but didn’t and then have to grope through the shock and mourning and find a donor on the same day.

It is important to note that ‘donor back-up’ patients are often offered, sometimes even advised, to freeze all the embryos and decide what to do later when they have had sufficient time and counselling to come to terms with the situation. (FET, donating the embryos or even letting the embryos perish are all valid options.)

‘Donor back-up’, whether planned or emergency is not for everyone, for some having a child that is 100% genetically theirs is of the utmost importance. However we feel it has spared us the anguish of multiple negative cycles as I am now pregnant with our ‘donor back-up’ baby. My husband talks to it, kisses the bump and talks about 'his baby'. Sure there are still occasionally tears that this baby has not been made with my husband’s sperm but it is OUR baby and we would not change it now for the world.