I'm about 2 months (maybe) from my next IUI and soon, I'll have to make arrangements to ship my donors swimmers over to my new clinic. That brings me to an question that has been brewing in my head for almost a year now.
My second pregnancy loss was because my child had Turners Syndrome, she had only one X chromosome but lacked the other (either X or Y) which determined gender. Whether it was the egg that came without an X chromosome, or a sperm without an X (or Y) chromosome haunts me.
The genetics counselor I met with told me that in Turner's syndrome, 70 % of the time, its the sperm that turns out to be the culprit. Still you can't say. There are times I kick myself that I did not pursue this question further, I had the means, I could have probably sequenced my DNA and the baby's DNA, that might have provided the answer.
Give that in a healthy, fertile male, only 2 % of sperm have numerical chromosomal errors, if it had been a defective sperm, you can say it was either random, colossally bad luck, or the universe really, really did not want me to have a baby at that point.
What worries me is: what if it was from a bad day, where the frequency of chromosomal errors was higher that average? This fear is kind of baseless-- studies have compared aneuploidy rates in men with male infertility (which my donor has absolutely no risk of suffering from, he seems to be really good in this department)--- aneuploidy rates are about 18-24 % in men with different kinds of male infertility and 2 % in normal controls.
So though there is not much basis for it, I'm wondering whether I should check that all my donors vials are from the same day, and if possible, use a different day's lot, though a) this might require a lot of digging and b) might even mean added expense. Rationally, I know there is no real need for this, but the niggling fear remains. What would you do?
We know nothing and can control nothing-- the question is- to what degree do you make peace with that...or...how far do you go to try to control the uncontrollable?
My second pregnancy loss was because my child had Turners Syndrome, she had only one X chromosome but lacked the other (either X or Y) which determined gender. Whether it was the egg that came without an X chromosome, or a sperm without an X (or Y) chromosome haunts me.
The genetics counselor I met with told me that in Turner's syndrome, 70 % of the time, its the sperm that turns out to be the culprit. Still you can't say. There are times I kick myself that I did not pursue this question further, I had the means, I could have probably sequenced my DNA and the baby's DNA, that might have provided the answer.
Give that in a healthy, fertile male, only 2 % of sperm have numerical chromosomal errors, if it had been a defective sperm, you can say it was either random, colossally bad luck, or the universe really, really did not want me to have a baby at that point.
What worries me is: what if it was from a bad day, where the frequency of chromosomal errors was higher that average? This fear is kind of baseless-- studies have compared aneuploidy rates in men with male infertility (which my donor has absolutely no risk of suffering from, he seems to be really good in this department)--- aneuploidy rates are about 18-24 % in men with different kinds of male infertility and 2 % in normal controls.
So though there is not much basis for it, I'm wondering whether I should check that all my donors vials are from the same day, and if possible, use a different day's lot, though a) this might require a lot of digging and b) might even mean added expense. Rationally, I know there is no real need for this, but the niggling fear remains. What would you do?
We know nothing and can control nothing-- the question is- to what degree do you make peace with that...or...how far do you go to try to control the uncontrollable?
0 comments:
Post a Comment