My Story

Our Wedding Day 2004

The Story
Whenever I find a new infertility (IF) blog, I like to read the summary or start with the 1st months postings to find out what the IF background story is. Here's my story.

Hubbs and I married in March 2004. I had been on BCP for almost 10 years and stopped taking them in May 2004. Almost immediately I felt like something was off. I went to see my GYN and she sent me for a vaginal US which showed 2-very, very small fibroids. My doc said it was nothing and the pinches and pain/fullness I was feeling couldn't be from the fibroids. I disagreed and that was the last time I saw her. The fibroids totally freaked me out. My mom had a big fibroid problem when I was younger and ended up having a hysterectomy. INSERT total panic and obsession--->here<---. I read everything I could on infertility and fertility. I started charting and temping and joined message boards and made cyber-friends. I bought books and all kinds of herbs. I learned that an RE was an IF specialist and I looked for one in my area. He ordered blood tests to check my hormone levels and an HSG to make sure my tubes weren't blocked. After months of being on the herbs--my fibroids actually disappeared. I seriously think this stuff is a miracle in a bottle. Balanced out my system and even got rid of my cramps!

Anyway, my tests were normal so hubbs and I met with the RE and he ordered a semen analysis (SA). Wham! There's the problem. Count was 300,000 post wash. Motility was good and morphology couldn't be determined b/c of the low count. I become obsessed with getting his numbers up. Again, here I go with the reading and the posting and the vitamins and evening testicle icing. He had another SA in three months and it was the same. Vitamins hadn't helped a lick.

At this point I'm totally educated thanks to Internet U, and I think he must have a varicocele. So off we go to the urologist. Nope. Damn. I also found a message board for male IF and I learned about hypogonadism and pituitary tumors and hubby has an MRI. No problem there. Doc tests his hormones and determines his testosterone is very low--201--and he wants to put him on testosterone. Thanks to my stellar education from Net U, I know this would do the exact opposite of what we want. I suggest that the doc look into to some Net U courses for himself and that's the last time we see him. I find another urologist (#2) who is suppose to be a fertility expert. Well she orders more blood tests, and as we already know, hubbs has low T. Are you ready for this one--she says she thinks he has sleep apnea and that it's what could be causing his low T and count. Ummmm...thanks, but no.

By now we're 2-years into this and totally deflated and tired and fighting all the time. We stop vitamins and herbs and I just basically give up. But not really though b/c I'm still hoping for a miracle each and every month. After temping and charting and examining cervical mucus for so long, it's hard to ignore--even when you stop actively trying. Every month gets harder and the tears keep coming. I find ways to blame myself and wonder did it not work this month because I had too much wine or didn't stay in bed long enough after or exercised or was too stressed. Hubbs had no idea how much I torture myself even though I knew the odds all too well. Thanks again to Internet U.

Hubbs decided in September 2006 to start going to the gym after being rushed to the hospital for a panic attack. He thought he was having a heart attack. In February of 2007--I don't know why, but I decided to start looking for a fertility urologist (#3) again and I found one and really easily this time. I made an appointment and off we went. More blood work and another SA. The SA comes back with numbers that we and the doc couldn't believe. 25 million total and 14 million per mil. Wow! All because of the gym we suspect. The morphology is not good though with only 1% normal forms and 77% with heads too small. Insert-->obsession<--here...again. Vitamins and Arimidex are the solution we all hope and pray.

I have found other bloggers with hubby's on the meds too, but no one has said "oh yeah, it worked for us."

The meds didn't change his semen analysis results, but they did bring his T back to a normal level. I had a sonohystogram and all is normal.

Right now I don't know what to do next. Our options are IVF, adoption or a miracle. Morphology is the toughest of the three (count, motility and morph) to improve--but really is the most important. If you don't have normally formed sperm, you're screwed. Even with IVF and ICSI. So here we are. I have a wealth of knowledge on Male Infertility and I'm a pro at interpreting semen analysis results. If you have a question, leave me a comment or email me. I'm happy to help!

Hawaii 2008