The Eternal Guest Room

I spent all of Monday and Tuesday with my phone in my hand, waiting for the office to call with the results of D’s test. I finally called 40 minutes before they closed on Tuesday – and after leaving a message, I called back 10 minutes later, politely demanding to speak with a nurse right away. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all these years, it’s that you have to be your own advocate; no one else will watch out for you. You have to do it yourself.

D posted a while back (about a year ago, actually) about the status of his…you know…reproductive material…here’s the chart, for quick viewing:

At our last IUI (in December) the numbers were dismal: volume was only .2ml (that’s POINT two, not 2) and total motile count was 1.4 (one point four) million; normal count is 16 (sixteen) million. Motility and morphology have stayed around the same numbers for a long time, so we haven’t worried too much about those numbers. It’s interesting to note that while those parameters have improved, the count consistently decreased over time over the course of the past 2 years.

Since that last awful sample, when we were told that we’d have to do IVF with ICSI because the count was so low, D has been going to acupuncture, taking herbs, getting back on special fertility supplements (FertilAid), and eating less crappy foods and more cooked veggies, beans, etc. I worried that it was all for nothing and I spent the two days waiting for results in an anxious state, worrying that the count would go from one million to zero, or something like that.

But I finally got the results; I had to go in the next day to pick them up because the nurse wouldn’t give me the details and I was desperate to see all the numbers on paper.

Motility & morphology are about the same (41% and 7%). Those seem to be ok – on the low end of normal (40% and 4%), but still above the minimum. Volume went from .2ml to 2ml. And the total motile sperm count went from 1.4 million to 18.9 million. Normal is above 16 million.

Something worked. We’ll never know for sure if it was the diet changes, acupuncture, herbs, supplements, or just random, but I feel like it was really a mixture of everything we tried. Our acupuncturist doesn’t think we need IVF. D doesn’t think we need IVF. I am willing to wait a little longer before we jump into IVF as well; I can think of a lot better things to do with $13,000.

We’re going to push IVF back a little longer; at this point, what’s another 3 months? We wouldn’t be able to start until June anyway, but because of several factors we’re going to wait to start in August or September. We booked a trip to Mexico for our 9-year anniversary. My three best friends are coming to visit in July. We might have some other things going on as well. And we have a little shred of hope that we won’t need it after all. And if we do, we will absolutely, definitely be ready.

We are relieved that we are seeing some improvement; even if we do get to IVF, that will help us out tremendously. Yay for good news!