Male Factor Infertility

You need to first focus on getting his fertility up before jumping to IVF options. Male infertility is often treatable. He could be on a medication causing low sperm production or even something in his day-to-day activities could be the cause. The urologist will want to do a physical exam to make sure he doesn't have a varicocele or notice anything abnormal about his testicles or other productive organs. Blood work should also be checked to make sure he doesn't have a hormonal imbalance, see if the urologist will order the blood work before his appointment so the results are in and able to be discussed during his appointment. You can also see if Clomid or HCG are options to boost his sperm production.

Please keep us posted on your male factor infertility journey.

Amy Perkins, MS, TS
Laboratory Supervisor
Arizona Andrology Laboratory & Cryobank
International Center for Vasectomy Reversal

I highly recommend vitamins for your hubby if it's MFIF!!! We took them and this is his 2nd month on them and we are finally pregnant. It's been a long journey and I had surgery too so some could have also been me. But It's worth a shot. His urologist said he had borderline low motility and recommended them to us. He used vitamins C, E and zinc. I have the dosage info but you can probably google the mg to increase the motility of the sperm too. That is what I did and also gave hubby fertilaid and started on megamen vitamins too from GNC. They were worth trying. I would od that first he wanted hubby to do that first before starting the clomid too Good luck to you! Keep me posted ok I am also in the PAIF boards as well and clomid community and infertility communities as well if you want to join there for more support

Amy,
Thank you so much for your reply. It is good to know that there is a possibility that his infertility could be treated and that could make it possible to conceive a child without ART. He is not on any medications but a daily multivitamin and luckily we live a pretty healthy lifestyle (no smoking, regular exercise, healthy weight, healthy diet) so that may help to rule out some of the potential causes - right? I definitely agree with getting his blood work done prior to the appointment. The urologist's office said that they can't order anything for him since they have not seen him yet because he is not technically a patient there yet. I know his PCP would order the tests for him and have them sent to the urologist. What tests do you recommend? We are very hopeful that the urologist will find the cause for his low count, but 250,000 is so extremely low that we are concerned we may not have many options for conceiving if his count cannot be increased. If it was any lower would it be considered azoospermia? We have been doing research and were happy to find that if I join his insurance IVF would be covered with only a $500 deductible. It would cost us a lot of money to add me to his plan, but it would still save us thousands of dollars. This is great news because if his insurance didn't cover IVF then we could not even consider it as an option. Thanks again for your help and I'll keep you posted!
Beth

BabyParks,
Thank you for your support and Congratulations!! It is great to hear success stories and know that other couples are going through the same thing. As soon as we got the results of his SA he started taking a daily multivitamin with minerals. I know that he could take additional C, E, zinc and other vitamins/minerals as well, but since his urology appointment is in 4 days I figure we can find out if there is a clear cause to his low counts prior to buying more supplements. I'll keep you posted! Thanks again!

Amy,
We had my husband's appointment with the urologist a few days ago and found that there is a vericocele. We tried to get the blood work done prior to his appointment but were unsuccessful. They took blood while we were at the appointment and the results will be back be Monday. He is also scheduled to have an ultrasound to look at the vericocele on Monday as well, so we should have definitive answers that day.
The urologist said he will do surgery on the vericocele if necessary and may also start him on Clomid or HCG (just like you said!) if his testosterone is low. He did feel that he likely has low testosterone. Hopefully surgery and/or medication can correct the underlying issues that are causing his low sperm count and we will not need to use ART. I am trying to be patient, but if he needs Clomid or HCG will that take several months to improve his counts? Could surgery for the vericocele possibly increase his counts enough to conceive? I'll post again with the results of his blood work and sonogram after the next appointment!

Amy,
We had the second urologist appointment yesterday and he is scheduling my husband for surgery for the vericoceles and also started him on clomid and HCG injections. Hopefully these 3 treatments will successfully raise his sperm count and quality of motility enough to conceive. The doctor said that he would be happy with a count of 7 - 8 million and grade 3-4 quality of motility. His analysis from ealier in the month showed a count of 250,000 and grade 2 quality of motility. Do you think that his count and quality would be able to improve that much? If so, would a count of 7-8 million be enough to conceive without use of ART? He said we should know by March if the treatments were effective enough. Looking forward to hearing your input!
Thanks, BEH

That is great that his insurance will cover the IVF if needed. He has plenty of sperm for IVF.

Azoospermia is no sperm in the ejaculate. With his count only in the 250,000 range natural conception odds are very, very low.

Sounds like his lifestyle is on the right track and easy to rule out any of those causes to his low fertility. A hormone workup to make sure everything is in balance will be the next piece to the puzzle.

Good luck and thanks for keeping us up to date.

Amy

I'm glad to hear you are getting answers and moving forward with treatments to get fertility up. I think getting his numbers in the 7-8 million range with nice progressive to rapid motility is possible. It might take 3-6 months to get numbers up but just stay on top of getting analyses every 2-3 months to see how things are progressing.

Amy