I have been hovering around this thread but haven't joined in before but thought I'd put my two bobs in re "special child's" question for her friend. Do you mean ICSI when you talk about microinjection? If so, we have just completed our second IVF round using ICSI for the first time, where they microinject the sperm into the eggs. Even though I had endometriosis removed a few years ago and DH and I had been on an all natural fertility diet for a year we still hadn't conceived, so we thought we'd give IVF a go. Because we were so healthy we were sure that IVF would be the answer to our prayers. However on our first round of the 15 eggs they extracted from me, absolutely none fertilized. Zip, zilch, zero... we couldn’t believe it. And to make matters worse they called it unexplained infertility - in others words, they could find nothing wrong with our eggs and sperm, they just didn't seem to like each other very much. Anyway, with much fear and trepidation we embarked on our second round of IVF and this time we used ISCI. Lo and behold of the 16 eggs they retrieved all of which were injected with a single sperm, eight fertilised. We were stoked. We had been given our hope back. Anyway, I am now in the TWW with two little embies hopefully burrowing away in side me. Hopefully it will be a BFP on Feb 17 but if not, I still have some little frozen embryos of hope awaiting my next round. So I would recommend ICSI to anyone because even though I can't vouch for the end result I feel SO much better than even a glimmer of hope has been restored.
In regards to statistics of success rates and abnormalities, the clinic I am with, Fertility First in Sydney say that the success rate is the same as with a normal IVF cycle and as these statistics all seems to differ from clinic to clinic and age group to age group, I have given up listening to statistics. I figure as long as there is hope it's worth a shot! The one thing you do tend to hear is that they can't confirm the reproducitive health of ICSI children but there is no conclusive evidence that it has anything to do with ICSI and it may just be a genetic thing that the child inherits from the parents, who are after all obviously infertile.
I hope this helps. I'm sure your friends clinic can give her more details on statistics etc but if she's anything like me she probably forgets to ask all the important questions when she's at the clinic and gets home and thinks, what about this? What about that? That's why I love bellybelly!
Anyway, with much fear and trepidation we embarked on our second round of IVF and this time we used ISCI. Lo and behold of the 16 eggs they retrieved all of which were injected with a single sperm, eight fertilised. We were stoked. We had been given our hope back. Anyway, I am now in the TWW with two little embies hopefully burrowing away in side me. Hopefully it will be a BFP on Feb 17 but if not, I still have some little frozen embryos of hope awaiting my next round. So I would recommend ICSI to anyone because even though I can't vouch for the end result I feel SO much better than even a glimmer of hope has been restored.
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