Thanks for letting me tell you about our big life events. Looking back now, there really was a lot going on for us, and I think it provides some context into our mindset (and stress levels) throughout this whole fertility journey.
Which, speaking of, let’s get back to it.
After the frustration of missing a family wedding and then not being allowed to try a third round of IUI, our infertility journey continued. As Dr. G. recommended, we scheduled an appointment with a urology specialist.
We went to the appointment together, and Dr. M. was really great. We chatted about our infertility journey and Nick’s semen analysis results, and he did a quick exam on Nick.
Dr. M. was encouraging. He said Nick’s numbers weren’t all that bad, and he’d worked with men who were much worse off. He thought we could try bumping up Nick’s hormone levels (even though they were all within the normal range), and that might improve his sperm count and motility/morphology numbers as well.
During the exam, he did say that Nick had a varicocele (essentially a varicose vein), but that it wasn’t large enough to be causing the lower-than-average counts. He mentioned a procedure to fix it but, again, didn’t think it was worth pursuing.
(Amusing side note, there were definitely some funny comments made on the way home about how awkward it is to be in the room while another dude feels up your husband…)
Dr. M. reminded us that for IVF, all you need is one good sperm per egg, so if we went that route, the count numbers shouldn’t be an issue.
We left feeling encouraged, and we sensed much less doom and gloom about Nick’s numbers than Dr. G. portrayed.
Nick went on the various hormones, and then we just had to wait three months to do another analysis. (Fun fact: It takes a man’s body about three months to make a new batch of sperm.)
The day of the analysis arrived, and the results came back later that afternoon. No change. We were pretty bummed.
It looked like IVF was going to be our best shot, so we started preparing ourselves for that journey.
IVF That 