Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Thanks to fertile new procedure, once-childless Las Vegas couple finds family life twice as nice

Tom and Monica Bean were ready to have children. They had their master's degrees locked up, they owned a house and their cars were paid for.

But biology wasn't on their side.

After trying for four months to get pregnant, Monica thought something had to be wrong. Her suspicions proved true when tests showed Tom had a low sperm count. Monica also learned she had blocked fallopian tubes.

Until 1993, couples like the Beans had to accept that they would be childless. Adoption was their only option.

Today, such physical abnormalities are less of a barrier thanks to intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

The process, first developed in Belgium, involves taking a woman's egg and injecting it with sperm using a needle whose tip is undetectable to the human eye. The fertilized egg is then replaced in the uterus to see if pregnancy develops.

"We obtain about a 60 percent fertilization rate on each egg," said Dr. Bruce Shapiro, medical director of The Fertility Center of Las Vegas. Success "also depends on the quality of the egg."

The procedure, which requires about 30 injections altogether, takes four weeks to complete. On the 21st day of a woman's menstrual cycle, medication is administered to stop the pituitary gland from causing ovulation. Further medication is given a few days later to stimulate the ovaries to release eggs.

A woman usually produces one egg a month, Shapiro said, but this procedure stimulates her to make 10 or more. Eleven days after the medications have started, the eggs are retrieved during a 45-minute office visit and injected with sperm. Not all the eggs survive fertilization, but those that do are placed back into the uterus.

For a woman 34 or younger, Shapiro said he will put up to four eggs back into the uterus. There's a slight chance all four will develop, creating the possibility of quadruplets, but Shapiro said that likelihood is slim. Usually, only one egg will nurture.

Dr. Rachael McConnell, the only other fertility specialist in Las Vegas, said ICSI is the best option for men with a low sperm count. She said there is only a 20 percent chance for multiple births.

Of the 18 eggs taken from Monica, six were acceptable for injection. Four disintegrated within three days of fertilization, and the remaining two were placed back in her uterus.

As luck and nature would have it, the Beans were two for two. George and Carl were born Feb. 28 -- one at 12:50 p.m. and the other 10 minutes later. The babies were named after the parents' fathers.

"I had a feeling that it would be twins," Tom said, beaming with pride.

"We found out we were pregnant nine days after the egg was transferred," Monica said.

The ICSI technique costs around $8,500, Shapiro's office manager said. This includes blood tests, ultrasounds, medications, anesthesia and the harvesting and implanting of fertilized eggs.

Monica's desire to have children outweighed the financial gamble. "I was prepared to sell my house," she said. "As it turned out, we only had enough money for one cycle."

Shapiro estimates that 20 to 35 percent of women who undergo ICSI get pregnant the first time. After age 45, the eggs cease to be of good quality, he said.

"For a large group of people, this enables some men to become fathers who otherwise couldn't," Shapiro said. "As a male gets older, he may make fewer sperm. But for the person who remains in better health, more organs (including reproductive organs) will remain in better shape, too."

"I would consider ICSI a significant breakthrough in fertility," said Dr. Robert Visscher, executive director of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. "We were concerned about children conceived through ICSI, but they seem to have turned out normal."

Now that the Beans have two sons, they've decided that's all they want. The stress of taking so many shots during weeks of anticipation is just too much to undergo again, Monica said.

Besides ICSI, Shapiro said there are two other ways couples can conceive children. With in-vitro fertilization, an egg is fertilized in a Petrie dish. This procedure usually costs between $6,000 and $8,000.

In artificial insemination, sperm is placed in a woman's uterus. It is less expensive, costing about $300 per procedure, Visscher said.

"I go with in-vitro unless there's a severe male sperm factor," McConnell said. In this method, she said women 35 years of age and younger stand a 30 to 35 percent chance of getting pregnant. With those 40 years old and above, the possibility drops down to 17 percent.

ICSI is mainly used when males have low sperm counts, Visscher emphasized. It won't help older women seeking to get pregnant because pregnancy also depends on the quality of a woman's eggs.

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