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Originally Posted by jcox90  I have a couple of shipping questions about sperm shipping.
1) If the sperm stays cold from a cold pack and we receive it within 24 hours do we need to add the buffer that comes in the shipping kit? What is the purpose of that? We will be doing IUI unwashed, the Physician said if it's unwashed it will just cause a little cramping. We have a friend that is a donor and was trying to save some money so we would be doing fresh sample in cold pack and going directly to IUI Dr.
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I do not know anything about shipping sperm, besides, yes, you need to use the kit for best results, you can just ship it with a cold pack and hope, but you won't get the best results that way.
However, I do know a lot about shipping things (used to work in shipping and receiving):
- Send it FedEx overnight, guaranteed 9:00 AM delivery. You will have better luck if you send it for pick up at your local depot, if you have a business address you can use, and if you live in a major city. FedEx can be late, and that sucks. Keep in mind that guaranteed delivery will not be possible on Sundays, likely not possible on Saturdays. So, basically, you can ship on Monday, unless it's a holiday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. (And watch out for Thanksgiving and local holidays.)
- Have your donor produce the sample and send it at the last possible minute. That means dropping it off at the nearest depot (not a store with a FedEx counter or *worse* a drop box) and that means calling ahead to find out what time the last possible minute is. Depending on where he is, that may be 2:00 PM or 6:00 PM or it may not even be possible to get next day delivery. Again, being in a major city helps, as does having a friend who does s/r for a big company wtih a $$$$ corporate account.
- Look into everything ahead of time. And then double check it. Fed Ex will be reluctant to give you this, but see if you can track down the local depot's phone number, at his end and yours. Having this is the difference between talking to someone in a call center who-knows-where and talking to someone who can say "Yup, I'm looking right at your package now." The best way to get these numbers is to go into your local depot and casually ask to get their direct line.
- One tip to save shipping charges: Have the company you order the kit from send it to him...why ship it to you and then reship it? Makes no sense!
Ok, enough about shippping....
I am typically pretty blunt, so don't be put off by my manner. You need a new doctor.
Your doctor is wrong. The advice you were given is not only misleading, but potentially extremely dangerous. I'm not being overly alarmist when I say that you could die and you have a much higher likelihood of serious pain and infection than you do of pregnancy with an unwashed sample that is placed into your uterus via IUI.
Briefly, the role of the cervix and the cervical mucus is to filter out impurities, bacteria, and everything else from the semen and only let the sperm pass through. Bypassing the cervix with an IUI eliminates this function, so it needs to be done through mechanical means before the insemination, i.e. the "washing" of the sperm - which really involves separating the sperm from the semen and everything else.
Secondly, you'll be using the buffer kit, and you do not want to inject the buffer directly into your uterus. The buffer is designed to help preserve the sperm, and it is not designed to be placed inside your uterus. Also, in terms of volume, the amount of sperm that passes through the cervix is quite small. Your uterus is not designed to have the semen and the sperm and the buffer solution inside it. At a minimum, most of it will leak out through the cervix or fall into the abdominal cavity through the fallopian tubes.
So, the consequences of this are:
1. You will end up with *severe* cramping, that I know. Someone on here was accidentally inseminated with unwashed sperm at a fertility clinic, check the infertility forum for her account of that ordeal. This is my guess: the pain and the cramping will potentially cause your uterus to reject the embryo, if an egg fertilizes.
The cramping is caused by prostaglandins, which are a chemicals in the semen which causes uterine contractions.
2. You could end up with an infection caused by placing the semen into the uterus. Keep in mind that a uterine infection could lead to infertility or at minimum, sitting a cycle or two out while it gets resolved.
3. Potential toxicity from the buffer solution. It's designed to be separated from the sperm before insemination. It is not designed to be used internally. Who knows what could happen? Perhaps call Overnight Male's customer service line and find out.
All that said, here's a link that explains it. You should show this to your doctor if you ever see hir again:
http://www.womens-health.co.uk/why-s...y-for-iui.html
Now, all that said, as stridently as I did, you could find out if you even need to do an IUI. It's possible that the cold-pack approach without the buffer kit would work, and then you can do an IVI at home.
You'll still be spending a lot of money on shipping, with unknown outcomes. If you do that route, maybe try it once and get a kit to do a sperm motility and count analysis yourself (you can get that online for a couple hundred bucks). There's no point in wasting your money fedexing dead sperm around.
Alternately, you might want to consider finding a local donor, or doing an insemination only every second cycle so that you can save up the $$$ to do it safely. Good luck!
Added:
Oh, and when Twylight above says "we don't wash it" she's not doing IUI with unwashed sperm, she's doing an IVI, or intravaginal insem. I am 99.99999%certain of that.
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