IVF

I have been a very, very bad blogger. My apologies to anyone who is still out there attempting to read me.

Once again, my wife and I find ourselves at a crossroads of sort in this crazy land of infertility.

After another unsuccessful dIUI in April/May, we took a month off and travelled to Florida. Our first real vacation in a very long time. It was amazing. It was equally amazing not to have to think about early morning appointments, late night injections, IUIs and more.

When we got back, my wife met with the RE to discuss our next steps. Our last three dIUIs went well inasmuch as she responded well to the injections, multiple follicles were triggered, but alas, no pregnancy.

So, it was suggested we start considering IVF. And that's where we're at. Financially it will be a struggle so yet again we are on a break from treatments as we try and figure out funds to make this happen. My wife has also decided she wants to take this time to focus on weight loss and her overall health in the hopes of giving us an even greater chance of conceiving when the time comes.

Being the supportive guy that I am, I too am working right alongside her to exercise and lose a bit of weight. The fact that I was convinced to make a trip to the Dairy Queen last night not withstanding, we're doing pretty well. Can someone tell me how to resist when she bats those blue eyes at me? Anyone?!

So that's where we're at. While there won't be much going on in terms of treatments over these next few months, I hope to start blogging a little more and hope that you still want to follow our journey.

Hope that all of you out there in blogland are well.

Cheers to you.

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Answers

Somehow I managed to survive my "no sex" weekend and made it to the SA on Monday.

That alone was a feat in itself! Pat on the back for me.

Was able to do the deed in the lab. Again. It's still awkward and somewhat embarrassing but dare I say it feels somewhat routine since I've had to do so many of these now?

Dr. Balls (my urologist) emailed me with the results the next day. He's good that way since it's a good hour drive for me to get to his office.

Unfortunately, my SA shows no real change from the last post-surgery test. I still only have rare non-motile sperm showing up.

My FSH and testosterone levels are better but Dr. Balls feels that at this stage, this is as good as it's going to get for me.

He recommends me going into the lab once or twice a month over the next little while so that they can freeze any possible sperm that show up in the samples. He also recommends that I arrange for a small testicular tissue sample to be taken as a back up in case there are not enough sperm in the ejaculate. There is a possibility that this could be used with IVF via ICSI should we end up going that route.

Testicular tissue sample? Umm...OUCH!

Even with all of that, it is recommended that we continue with donor sperm as back up. Even if we do move on to IVF.

So that's where we're at. I know it's not exactly great news, but we're actually doing okay with this.

As I've said from day one, my particular case made it pretty rare for any of this to make a big difference for me.

But we've got the answers we need now to move forward and there is still the slight hope that I might be able to take part in biologically creating our child.

No matter what though, I am confident that some day we will have our baby. And sperm or no sperm, I like to think that I'll have a good hand in creating it. Maybe not the biological way. Or even the "traditional" way. But love has got to count for something in all of this.

And that's enough for me.

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