Intrauterine Insemination With Sperm Donation

One of the first steps is to perform tests and exams. Your physician needs them to assess your clinical status. These may include a gynaecological ultrasound, hormone tests or infectious disease screening. After assessing them, your physician will decide which treatment is most appropriate to your diagnosis.

Before you go ahead with a treatment with donated sperm, you will be asked to attend a psychological counselling appointment at our clinic (with your partner, if applicable). Although it is compulsory, it is just a counselling session to discuss the legal, emotional and social implications of this type of treatment.

In this phase of your treatment, you will be contacted by a member of our team of embryologists for the selection of the most appropriate sperm donor for your treatment. In addition to its own sperm bank, AVA Clinic also has agreements with international sperm banks that meet all the quality and safety standards required by our own National Medically Assisted Procreation Council (CNPMA). This offers a wide range of possibilities for anyone wishing to use donated sperm.

After the sperm donor has been selected, we will be able to start your treatment at any time suitable to you. If you undergo IUI with donated sperm, there will be a four-to-five-week period between the start of treatment and your pregnancy test.

The treatment begins with mild ovarian stimulation to make your ovaries produce more than one egg. Without medication, a woman’s ovary releases one egg (a potential embryo) in each cycle. In IUI, the idea is to develop more than one egg in order to increase your chance of conceiving.

You will take hormone medication, possibly by injection, to stimulate your ovaries. There are different protocols for ovarian stimulation and your physician will decide which one is best for you.

During ovarian stimulation (lasting an average of 10 days) we will need you to visit our clinic two or three times so that the growth of your follicles (small sacs where your eggs grow) can be monitored by ultrasound. Your protocol may be adjusted at any time and your hormone dosages may be changed. This ultrasound monitoring is therefore essential to the success of your treatment.

As soon as your follicles reach the ideal size, your IUI will be scheduled.

We will thaw the sperm of the selected donor on the day of your IUI. Our team of embryologists will use laboratory techniques to select the sperm with the best motility and morphology. There are a number of techniques to improve sperm samples and our embryologists will make sure that they choose the most appropriate one for you.

After lab sperm optimisation, a slim, malleable catheter will be used to deliver the sperm directly into your uterus. This procedure is performed in an operating theatre but does not require any anaesthesia as it is not painful.

After the insemination, your physician will prescribe medication to help prepare your uterus for a possible pregnancy. It is important for you to keep taking this medication until your physician or one of our nurses tells you otherwise.

Today’s the day! After what we know is a difficult wait, it’s time to do the long-awaited pregnancy test. The test is normally conducted about two weeks after your insemination. You will have to take a blood test to confirm your pregnancy. You can take the test in the comfort of our clinic though, if this is not convenient, you can do it at any lab testing facility.

The AVA Clinic team wishes you the best of luck with your treatment. And don’t forget that you can contact us at any time if you have any questions.