Dealing with azoospermia?

[snd80]

Thanks girls for all your support! I called them this morning and left a msg, and low and behold the SAME girl called me back! I told her no offense, but I wanted to talk to the other lady, to which she asked "can I help you with something?" I told her no, that I felt the other lady knew me and my situation better and I wanted to talk to her. She acted like it made her mad, but OH WELL!!!!!

And I never did welcome esuzzy!!!!! I'm sorry!!! I hope you get some answers this afternoon and good luck!

I know when I first joined this thread, I talked about dumping my very best friend when I found out she was pg cause it was too painful to see her and her bump. Well, that has been a year ago and her baby is now 8 months old, but for the past week I have been dreaming of her and her baby. She keeps asking me to make amends and be friends again in my dream. Maybe it is a sign?

Hope everyone has a great day!

 

[Deb111]

Candian - I'm so sorry I missed your last post - I hope it's not too late, but I found this article

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21651602

 

[snd80]

Thought I'd update: They caved in and upped my clomid! Taking 2 x 50mg pills at once cd5-9. to GOD this works! And they will have me on Prometrium progesterone support vaginally during the 2ww, so I am slowly getting everything on track! Whew! That makes me feel SO much better!!!! Come on AF! If all goes to plan and my "good" side works, IUI should be either June 30 or July 1!!!! I can hold out til then!

 

[deafgal01]

Snd That sounds great!

 

[Deb111]

Great news snd

 

[silverbell]

Sorry I've been AWOL girls. Just been taking a step back and not been on as much and sticking mostly to my journal.

Just want to say I think of all of you all the time.

snd - I'm so sorry this cycle was cancelled, but I'm so chuffed for you to hear that they're taking it all so seriously and making huge steps to get you pregnant next time around Come on AF!

 

[MrsC8776]

raelynn~ That makes sense. Fx they let you know what they can do.

deafgal01~ Fx for a good SA

esuzanne~ I hope everything went well today!

stinas~ Sounds like things are moving right along. I'm glad everyone was so nice at the clinic. I always hated going in and wondering if they were going to be nice people or not.

snd~ Yay for them listening and giving you a bigger dose of clomid! I'm thinking you and I will have the same dates for IUI. Possible cycle buddies?

Canadian~ I hope your appointment went well today and you guys got some good news.

 

[CanadianMaple]

Hi girls,
My appointment went well. He took a long time talking with us and we have a good idea of what each procedure entails. He told us every risk and at first I thought he was trying to talk us out of mTESE. I think he knew that we wanted it straight and told us about how exactly the surgery would look, right down to the possible complications.

We talked about his low testosterone. DH was so upset when he told him that his low T would have to be treated for life. He talked about how it puts DH at a slightly higher rate for prostate cancer, but he said that the research is starting to show it makes the cancer grow but it doesn't necessarily cause cancer. I didn't have anything to back myself went I asked if there was an option to treat the testosterone during this period, while we were deciding if we wanted to do surgery. He said no, we would have to use testosterone and wait until after we make our decisions about fertility.

They told me they would have to coordinate the mTESE with my ER. I'm really not feeling good about that. If we have to go the donor route, the compromise in my head was that we would do IUI and save the money and it would be less invasive. To think that we would both get procedures on the same day and have to use DS because of a failed mTESE would be hard on the head. Especially since we only have a 35-45% of finding sperm. I'm pretty caught up on that.

DH sounds like he may consider mTESE but it terrifies me that we to think we could easily drop $16,000 on mTESE, IVF and ICSI and walk away with nothing but debt.

There is more, but I don't want to hijack the thread. I just feel like we are boxed into a corner. I don't want to have to do mTESE at the same time as the ER. I want to know if he has sperm before I put my body through anything.

So, the appointment was good. He did a good job answering our questions and have more information.

 

[CanadianMaple]

snd- I'm so happy to hear they caved!

 

[raelynn]

Canadian - The plan with the mTESE with donor backup sounds like the exact plan we were going for until we found out our insurance would cover nothing once we included donor. I know it is kind of scarey thinking about having both your and DH's procedure the same day...we're faced with that possibility too but you can get through it! Glad that your meeting was so informative and you have some options now.

As for me - No update call on the decision for our IVF dates today. This has made me a crazy person. All day I've been waiting for the phone to ring or to get an email and now I have to go through it again tomorrow. I just want to know one way or the other. I told hubby if they say we can't do it now and have to wait until August that we're booking fabulous cruise excursions that night that I wouldn't be able to do if pregnant.

 

[SunUp]

Yay SND. Canadian, your plan sounds so similar to what we were told... if we went through the mTESE we would have done the same thing, but we decided against it. Good luck with the decisions, its tough.

 

[CanadianMaple]

I wondered if it was normal that they would do both procedures the same day. He only has OR time on Fridays, there is no way to time an ER for one day, right? Would we really lose 50% of the sperm if we froze it?

 

[MrsC8776]

raelynn~ Sorry to hear they never called. Stuff like that drives me crazy!

Canadian~ Did they say 50% would be lost? That doesn't seem right. I understand a few not making it but not 50%. I just did some searching but couldn't find anything.

 

[wibble wobble]

MJ glad you got some answers hope you can manage to work out the rest in time

Snd yay to getting your own way... it's worth being firm with people

 

[raelynn]

raelynn~ Sorry to hear they never called. Stuff like that drives me crazy!

Canadian~ Did they say 50% would be lost? That doesn't seem right. I understand a few not making it but not 50%. I just did some searching but couldn't find anything.

I'm assuming they're still waiting on a response from the urologists office. The fertility center nurse has been amazing so I'm sure if she had news to share, she would have let me know. Hopefully we'll hear tomorrow because I don't know if I can wait the whole weekend My patience has diminished to pretty much nothing, so sad.

 

[MJ73]

I wondered if it was normal that they would do both procedures the same day. He only has OR time on Fridays, there is no way to time an ER for one day, right? Would we really lose 50% of the sperm if we froze it?

Our testicular sperm didn't survive thaw. The way the scientist explained it to us is that when defrosting a normal sperm sample about 50% won't survive thaw. The problem when dealing with testicular sperm, they are dealing with way smaller numbers (in our case 32 sperm were frozen in three different straws) than a normal sample & often testicular sperm is arrested; not as developed as semen sample sperm. My specialist always prefers to use fresh. In the end though, they still have more success freezing defrosting sperm than eggs so I can understand you really wanting them to do a TESE first, to establish that DH is producing some sperm. Mind you for us on our exploratory TESE they found sperm on the 1st needle biopsy. On the 2nd one that was time with my egg retrieval they did 16 needle biopsies then had to cut him open to find sperm. So finding it in one TESE does not guarrantee that it will be found next time. I really feel for you guys, (it sounds like DH has been through so much already) this whole experience just sucks

 

[MJ73]

SND, great news that your clinic listened to you. FX for you that this next cycle is it for you.

DG, good luck with DH's SA. Hoping that they find some lovely sperm. Your DH is on clomid, right?

raelynn, hope you hear something soon.

stinas, so happy for you that everyone at the clinic was so nice, it makes all the difference to your IVF experience.

SB, great to see you hun, hoping that this cycle is the one for you (damn it would be good if we could be bump buddies!!!) Don't worry about having a break, we all go through stages like that.

WibbleWobble, how are you going hun? With all the injections etc

Esuzanne, Welcome to the group no-one wants to be a member of But like the other girls said, you are in good company. You will find a safe place here where you can not only get loads of information, but also loads of care & support. The girls on this thread ROCK

AFM, we have a blood test tomorrow morning to make sure that everything is on track, then I have a nice relaxing massage planned tomorrow afternoon, then we will be sending out loads of lovely defrosting vibes to our little frosty, then if everything goes according to plan we will meet our little frosty blast on Sunday We can't wait.

Anyone I've forgotten I send all the love & baby vibes I can muster xx

 

[MJ73]

I forgot to send some to Sun, keeping everything crossed for you (TMI; except my legs, they'll be wide open on sunday)...

 

[Deb111]

CM - we had our ER and mTESE on the same day. He said he would advise a donor back-up, but the fact that we'd had 3 sperm retrieved in the NHS procedure meant that he wouldn't (and never does apparently) insist on it. In terms of having the procedures done on the same day, the only issue we had was needing to find someone to get us both the 2 and a half hour journey home as neither of us could drive afterwards. However, we were both fine physically afterwards - although I have to admit, the waiting for 2 and a half hours to go for ER after hubby went down for his op was nerve-wracking as they woulnd't take me down until they knew they had sperm.

I do however understand you not wanting to put your body through the IVF process and getting eggs, including the expense, to find you have no sperm to work with. IF it's what you decided to do, you could always freeze your eggs to use with donor sperm later if that was what you decided. I know it's not ideal, but would stop your side of things being wasted.

 

[esuzanne]

Hi ladies! We had our first urologist appt yesterday and we loved him!! He was able to examine DH and told us that he does have the Vas Def which if not could have been one of the issues haha...we told him that we want to be pretty aggressive about this. We have scheduled a biopsy for DH on June 20 and then I guess we will have our answer! The fertility clinic will also be there so they can examine and see if they find any. They said they will check one testicle and then if there are none, they will check the other. If they do find some, it will be frozen. Of course I know using fresh is always better but if it able to survive then that would be great and if not, well guess he will be under the knife again .

Have any of your DH had this? I am just glad that we will finally have an answer on if there are any in there at all!! I mean maybe you girls can help me, this will be the ultimate test, right? The dr also took blood for these tests...FSH, LH, Prolactin, and Testosterone.



Canadian--I can understand the concern...having to take in the fact that its either him or donor and having the procedure actually done, it alot to take in! Good luck!!