Infertility In Husband

by Meg
(Rocklin, CA US)

Hello! My husband and I knew right away that we wanted a family when we got married. So we began to try! We had been trying for fifteen months, during which time we had two miscarriages - one with a blighted ovum as twins. When we conceived our son who is now three.

After having our son in July of 2006 , we knew what it took to have a baby, so we decided to start trying again almost immediately after his birth.

Well, 2 and 1/2 years later we still haven't gotten pregnant! We had both gone through such a rollercoaster and were almost ready to give up...atleast for a while. We had gone from excited to over stressed with Clomid to arguing instead of making love to numbness and routine.

It was when my annual exam rolled around that changed our lives completely! I spoke to my OB/GYN about STILL not conceiving and she still insisted that I was too young for this (I was 22).

She suggested having my husband checked out which we should have done a long time ago, but she thought he was healthy as a horse.

Turned out that he had only 2% normal sperm (the average is 8-10%) and an incredibly low motility rate. We were told by the infertility specialist that our chance of conceiving was 10% in 3 years!

We were devastated and both cried that night. The infertility specialist said that our only chance was IVF, which I did not want to do just because of how invasive and unnatural it was and also because of the cost. So for another few months we sat thinking and trying to cope with the idea of our son never having a sibling.

I then went back to my OB/GYN and told her the news, and she immediately said to take everything the infertility specialist said and throw it down the drain! She said that my husband should go to a urologist and get checked out. So we did, and I thank God every day that we did!

The urologist informed us that my husband had what is called a varicocele (which is the case for about 40% of couples experiencing infertility), and he would need surgery to correct it. If corrected our odds of conceiving would increase by 60-70%! We cried again that night.

In May of 2009 my husband had the varicocele surgery, and we were told it would take about 75-90 days for a new batch sperm to produce. It is now almost August and he will be having his follow up semen analysis done soon. We are extremely excited and having a blast figuring out ways to make baby making fun!

So keep your fingers crossed for us!