We used Donor Home Delivery, shipping from the upper midwest to northern California. We were doing one or two shipments per cycle, usually two days apart, and successfully conceived that way maybe the third or fourth time we used it (with a few in person inseminations and a few months off in between).
After the first time the sperm arrived I had major doubts that any sperm had survived (and our donor packed the stuff wrong--with the icepack directly against the vial and not separated by a layer of foam), so I compulsively bought a high powered microscope on amazon that happened to arrive the same day as our next sperm delivery. We had done the insemination hours before, and the semen and "buffer solution" that was left in the bottom of the jar was almost all dried up. However, there was one damp little part, and I was able to use that to make a slide. It took me a while to successfully focus the microscope, but when I did I was blown away that there was still sperm swimming around. This sperm had left the donor's body more than 24 hours before, had survived a cross country overnight flight, and had be left to dry in the open air in the 7 hours since the insemination, and there were still some that were alive and kicking. This made me feel much, much better about our chances of conceiving, and it was always fun to look at a drop or two of leftover sperm in the hours after the insemination.
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