Taking the Next Step??

After 2 failed IUI’s it was time to re-evaluate.  Maybe we should have listened to the fertility specialist who told us we had no chance of it being successful with it?? Nah, we needed to know for ourselves.  So, now what?  We wanted to figure out why his count was so low.  We decided to see a urologist that specializes more in the male reproductive side of things. My hubs shared with me that when he was a teenager he was diagnosed with a large Varicocele vein.  However, he did not think it would be a problem as far as reproduction goes, since the doctor he saw back then told him it wouldn’t be.

When we saw the urologist for the first time in 2012, he said otherwise.  He wanted to do a “Varicocele repair.”  The vein was so large that it was blocking some of his sperm from being released. The surgery entailed undergoing anesthesia and tying off the vein using silk fibers.  The chance of it improving his count was only 30% and it could take up to 2 years to see the complete improvement. 2 YEARS?! It had already been 2 years since we started all of this. And such a small chance of it helping. But, we discussed it, went back for a 2nd visit, found out our insurance covered it, and decided to move forward with it (even though we knew 2 different couples who did the surgery and ended up still needing IVF after).  Again, we were hopeful it might be different for us.

We did his first count 6 months post surgery and it showed no improvement.  Then 1 year after the surgery, still nothing.  During this year we tried on our own every month.  I ordered so many things online like FertilAid Count Boost, FertilAid vitamins, Pre-Seed, FertilFocus (when you test your saliva to see when you are ovulating!), etc.  I took my temperature everyday.  I peed on ovulation sticks every month.  We started juicing everyday and eating super foods like Maca Root, Flax Seeds, Goji Berries, and Acai.  Each of us took at least 3 supplements a day that year.  After we did the deed, I wouldn’t go to the bathroom for hours.  Instead, I’d lay upside down in hopes of 1 making it.  Starting to sound pathetic, I know.

Suddenly, I started to notice that we weren’t even us anymore.  We were barely talking about anything other than getting pregnant.  I was soooo sick of it, and come to find out, so was he.  I think what made it even harder was no one really knew what we were going through, except a few family members and close friends.  And by now, most of them had babies or were pregnant.  We hid it from everyone.  It was now late 2013, and we needed a break.  We decided to give it a year and see if it would just happen naturally when we stopped trying to make it happen (like people try to tell you all the time…so annoying!!). 

Well, that year came & went with no pregnancy.  We decided it was time to test his count again.  This time there was some improvement. Unfortunately, the improvement was so slight that we still fell into the terrible “1%.”