Long Intro/Male Issues (dd ment'd)
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| Thu, 12-20-2007 - 9:24pm |
Hello!
My name is Callie (36) and I used to lurk on this board for awhile. I have a very long intro, if you'll bear with me. This will all lead to a question I have regarding male factor infertility. Dh (42) and I have been TTC#2 for about 1 1/2 years now. Dd was conceived via IUI due to a relatively low sperm count. I, too, have PCOS, and have developed, since dd's birth, hypothyroid.
Fast forward about 3 years, and we are ready to contemplate #2. After, haphazardly trying on our own for about 6 months, we decide to contact our re who helped us with dd. Since it had been a few years since our last visits with him, we went through the whole battery of tests again. It was discovered that dh's sperm count is 0. He was tested 2 more times. All 0. We were referred to a urologist who insulted my husband's anatomy, and told him that he should just tell me "Sorry, honey". We went back to re and demanded another referral. We were sent to an outstanding urologist who ordered her own tests. Again, sperm count is 0.
We are now up to May 2007. After discussions with her and our re as to how this could possibly be when we were able to conceive dd (albeit artificially), we are forced into the conclusion that it must be some genetic "time bomb" that "shut down the sperm factory". B/c he wanted closure on this issue, dh ordered a testicular biopsy to determine the cause. While we wait for the pathology report to come in, we both are working on ourselves to deal with the fact that we are done having children, and that our dd will not have any brothers or sisters. We are at relative peace with this when we get the results that the "factory" is working just fine! I should say here that through physical examination and u/s, there were no varicoceles (sp?)or blockages immediately visible. We were then offered two options from his urologist. Either microsurgery to correct whatever the problem is that is preventing his sperm from ejaculating or IVF with ICSI. We had hope again! We opted for IVF.
This brings us to today and my question. I am due to have my official b/w done tomorrow to see if I am pg from the ET which was done on 12/10. I can feel AF knocking at the door, and have had 2 BFNs on POAS. I will POAS again tomorrow morning before going in for the b/w, but of course, it will be the same answer. Due to insurance, we could only do IVF once. Since this option looks like it will be a bust for us, we are looking into the reconstructive/microsurgery next. Does anyone know anything about this? I suppose it would help if I knew exactly where dh's problem lay, but I hope to have those answers when we see her on Jan. 3. I've heard that it could take up to 18 months for "things" to start working again. I'll be 38 and dh will be 44 by then! Has anyone had any experience with this? Any info would be appreciated. :)
Callie

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One thing is for sure. When you're on this message board you know that people completely understand what you're going through. Unless someone has gone through what we are going through, they don't have a clue how to respond and can be quite insensitive. The same can be said for my own dh. He is really quite ambivalent about this whole thing. I know exactly how you feel. This situation that we have been put in is so unfair. Why is it that there are women who can get pregnant every time they turn around, and then there are women like us. Why? We have done nothing to deserve this fate.
I know this is a hard time for you. The waiting is unbearable, I'm sure, and you don't want to get your hopes up. When will you know if the embies made it? I know this is something you don't want to think about, but have you thought about what you will do if you find out they don't make it? I know for me, if I know I already have a plan in place to fall back on, it's slightly easier to take bad news. Even if the plan is just to take a hot bath with a glass (or bottle) of wine. Then I don't feel like I'm totally spinning out of control.
You're right. If the situation was reversed, I would go through the surgery in a heartbeat.
Keep taking it a day at a time. That's all we can do.
you're so right about taking it 1 day at a time. we should find out wed afternoon if the embies have made it. i have no plan in case this doesn't work. i know we can't afford an egg donor, so i don't know what we'll do. i feel like a failure that i can't make this work, but i know that it's not true. i'm going back to work tomorrow, and am starting to feel better physically. it will be nice to be distracted during the day as i wait for news. i've been taking sleeping pills at night to get a break from all this pain. i just hurt so much emotionally.
i knew that you would do the surgery yourself if you could. i think dh would do this instead of me if he could, but can't. it's been hard for him to see me in such emotional pain, and on the one hand it's hard for me that it's not so hard on him, but also good that at least 1 of us is keeping it all together.
take care, you're on my mind!
-anna.
ana
mom to beautiful baby lia.Callie
Anna,
I wanted to share this with you. A lady I know at work has a friend who has tried and failed at IVF. She's 40 and they were only able to get 1 egg. They are now going to ADOPT an EMBRYO. It's funny b/c I never considered the other side of IVF when you may put your unwanted embryos up for adoption. The way this lady talked about it, it sounded like a really great option! You can pick hair color, eye color, etc. You know that it is healthy b/c the donor parents were healthy when going into IVF and were taking their vits. You get to experience pregnancy and childbirth, and it's cheap! She said it was only costing her friend $2300!
I hope this gives you another option to consider. I know today was a day that you were anticipating with anxiety, and since I haven't seen a post, I'm fearing the worst. I hope this gives you some hope.
Callie
thanks so much for your posts. the news is not the worst, but we don't really know what it is. after a day of feeling so anxious i felt like i was going to have a heart attack, i finally heard from the nurse (at 4:45, 45 mins later than we had arranged; i spent 30 mins parked in a grocery store parking lot waiting for the call and then just decided to drive home, so i was on the highway when she called!) who said that we have 1 very good and 2 good embies, all w/ donor sperm. none w/ dh's made it really much past day 3 (so 0/7). and 3 others w/ donor sperm did not make it. they were letting them go to blast, so this was a day 6 report. so we have 3 that are frozen. so i didn't really know what to make of this, and the nurse i was speaking to is incredibly condescending and power-hungry (the rest of the practice is so nice, and the er is just exceptional in the way he treats you, but this one nurse that we always end up with has no humanity) just said "i only expected to give you the information, i can't interpret it. i will try to speak w/ the er tomorrow, but we have a busy day and then i'm off friday." this after the reason we did ivf instead of going straight to iui was to get a diagnosis of whether or not my eggs are ok. i got a little hysterical, and told her that this is life and death for me, and that i understand they're busy, but i can't eat or sleep until i have this information. anyway, we ended up being able to speak to the top nurse there (via calling our therapist who called the nurse who called us back) and she said she's going to try to find a time for the er to speak w/ us directly, but that from what she knows, only 50% of embies make it to blast so this seems to follow a normal pattern so far. that made me feel a lot better. but i guess i thought the waiting and worrying would all be over yesterday, w/ either good or bad news, and once again i feel like i'm just hanging. the nurse did calm me down though; i think also my anxiety was so high all day that i wore myself out. so now i'm just feeling numb and tired and am just waiting for the phone to ring. hopefully we'll be able to talk w/ the er today and he'll have some kind of answer for us. i have complete trust in him, and his stats certainly back that up. until then, i'm just passing my time.
thanks so much for the info about embie adoption. i didn't know about that, and it sounds much more affordable than donor eggs.
how are things going with you?
-anna.
ana
mom to beautiful baby lia.dear callie,
hi! how are you doing? i wanted to let you know that we spoke w/ our re, who said that we have some nice embies w/ donor sperm, and from what he sees, there is no oocyte problem!!!!!!! so, the plan is to do a transfer. if it doesn't work (he thinks our chances, given that they are blasts, is about 55%), we will go to IUI w/ clomid (because my cycles are 35 days and i have pcos-like ovaries). i'm glad to have a plan. the good news has helped some, but he still can't promise this is going to work. it was great to get some good news!
best,
anna.
ana
mom to beautiful baby lia.sorry.
ana
mom to beautiful baby lia.Thanks!
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