[nething4mybaby]

My husband loves to read the posts with me. He always remembers whats going on. We would love to "meet" your wife. She's lucky to have a husband who is so concerned that he would go to a forum of primarily women to get an unbiased point of view! BTW~ Who's your fball team?

[Chi]

Originally Posted by Dwayne

Hi all,

Confused and slightly upset trying to be DH here. Just need a place to vent and get unbiased feedback and not a subject I feel comfortable talking to friends about so thought I might try here.

My wife went off of birth control roughly nine months ago and we went to see a fertility specialist mainly to be proactive as a lot of people we know have had problems. All of her tests came back fine but my morphology came back 0% first test then 2% second test two weeks later (strict Kruger). Sperm count and motility fine.

Our doctor recommended IVF which my wife wants to try immediately because of time (she is 34). I want to try some things like putting away the laptop, vitamins, and trying naturally for a while longer while she wants to do the IVF now.

Am I being unreasonable? I know all the books/articles say men often get angry etc... when they are the problem. I just feel my wife is pushing IVF too much (even misled doctor slightly saying we had been trying hard for over a year). Keep seeing stories where men have improved their results with various remedies. I keep thinking doctors recommendation might have been different if we had been totally honest with him from the start.

Hey,

Me and my husband are having infertility treatment, and have just had our 2nd IUI treatment.
When we first had a morphology test done my husbands was only 7% good, since then (that was about 2 years ago) i have had alots of treatment and my husband has had none, on our last IUI he had 80% normal sperm!!!! all he has done is cut out any alcohol, he doesnt smoke, but has changed his eating habits aswell to make it all better!! i think this is an amzing change, but he did it all himself no drugs form the doctor.

im sure you will be fine. i have my fingers crosseed for you!!

[Wanderlust4Me]

I underestimated how personal male factor is to men. My husband refused treatments for several months until he could prove to himself and me that he could "fix it" (my words not his). We ordered fertility vitamins, ate almonds, wore boxers, etc... and his counts never improved. After the 3rd SA he said he would admit there was a problem permanently but was certain the counts would be normal (as in not 20mil baseline normal but much more) well it was 11 mil and he was visible shaken.

I, like your wife, wanted to go straight to IVF- yeah it's costly but I am all about statistics and I like 60% a lot more than 15%! But we agreed to try IUI for just 3 months ( he still didn't want to and wanted more time to work on it) and we got pregnant on the 1st go!!

I would go ahead and take the precautionary measures you suggest and get your wife to agree to 3 months of IUI (or whatever you are comfortable with but if they don't work within 4 the odds lower that it will ever work though many on this site have become pregnant after 7 or 8).

If they don't work, then understand that to your wife, this is a major deal and repsect the urgency she is feeling. You spend so much time in your twenties trying to NOT get pregnant you don't think that you will have to TRY someday. Also, to be honest, because the problem lies with you, she is bound to feel a little resentful. If she was with someone else, maybe this wouldn't be a problem and you may feel the same way too if it were the other way around. So though this is a burden for you and I am profoundly sorry you have to bear it, try to be sympathetic and maybe even apologetic. My husband was so defensive and determined it was fixable that he ignored my feelings because he was feeling so bad about his own issues he felt like I was adding insult to injury by wanting to go straight to the big guns.

In the end, it was all for not and we will have a baby with very little effort and expense. Take a deep breath, take care of yourselves and compromise on a plan while respecting each other's position.

All the luck to you and your wife!!!

[aredfroginaz]

Good luck! I support you trying to conceive naturally... but don't wait too long. Each month that a "mom at heart" waits to become a mom is very painful. - However, if your insurance covers IVF wait until then to start. Coming from someone that just paid out of pocket IVF expenses, the cost can be daunting.

[AzooDude]

Originally Posted by Dwayne

I expected everyone to gang up on me as it seemed to be majority female here.

As long as you don't make the mistake I did of opining "out loud" that pets are only like babies metaphorically, and not literally, you should be okay.

As you note, it's mostly women here, but there are a few of us guys scattered here and there, and I suspect many more who occasionally lurk or stay informed through their DW's but never post. Welcome to the club. We're kind of like that small cluster of men holding purses near the fitting room in stores, except here, we can always open a new tab and surf for porn to recharge (discharge?) the testosterone.

You've gotten lots of good feedback already - pretty common on this board - but I'll throw in a few cents worth from another dude's perspective. Dealing with infertility is never easy, and deciding what options to pursue and when is a very personal thing, with no perfect one-size-fits-all kind of plan to recommend. I think in most cases, though, including yours from the sound of it, the decisions boil down to three main things: emotion, statistics, and cost. (Not necessarily in that order.)

By emotion, I'm talking mostly about things like accepting the diagnosis of infertility (whatever type it happens to be), and wrapping your head around what you may have to do to be a parent that you never thought would happen to you. (That diagnosis sometimes evolves as the docs discover or suspect additional problems, so you can never count on being "done" with the shocking diagnoses.) Regardless of whether you're a man or woman, finding out that you're infertile or sub-fertile can be a pretty big blow to your sense of feeling like a "real" or "complete" man or woman. Even if your rational self is quick to accept the medical reality of the situation, it's often appealing emotionally to hope that vitamins, a change in lifestyle, or God will overcome whatever's going on and get your wife pregnant without medical assistance. There's nothing wrong with such hopes, and occasionally people who thought they couldn't conceive naturally do in fact manage to, but it's not that common, which leads to...

Statistics. As you're already finding out, fertility treatments never come with guarantees, but what they often come with are statistics like the success rate of a particular type of procedure, and those stats are broken down further by age groups and underlying cause and such, and by the time you actually are doing something, it can feel like those stats are meaningless because to you and your wife, you either 100% got pregnant or 100% didn't. Before you're at that point, though, those bigger stats seem to mean something, and as others have already pointed out, your wife's age puts her close to that threshold of 35 where the stats get a lot more pessimistic. That's not to say it's impossible to get pregnant through IVF or IUI or any other way after 35, because obviously it happens quite a bit, but it's one of those things where if you two are starting fertility treatments a couple years from now after conceiving naturally didn't work, those stats tend to scream in your face that you should have started sooner. On the other hand, if you do manage to conceive naturally, everyone's happy and you save a bunch of money, which leads to...

Cost. Fertility treatments ain't cheap. Actual costs vary a lot depending on your insurance coverage and what procedures you need, whether you end up needing donors, etc., but one way or another, it's probably going to cost you. No one wants to feel like their chances at getting pregnant are limited by budget, and to some extent I think most of us would agree that "it's worth whatever it costs if we can become parents", but the reality is that none of the spending guarantees the desired result, and most people don't have deep enough pockets to just pay and pay indefinitely.

Combining those things to your situation... It's an easy decision on the statistical front - since you have a diagnosis and not just a suspicion that something might be wrong, the sooner you try fertility treatments, the better your chances. Financially, starting soon may or may not be possible depending on your circumstances, and it sounds like insurance hasn't kicked in yet. Definitely look in to what they cover fertility-wise, because that varies from plan to plan and state to state, so some coverage is pretty good and other times it'll cover practically none of this stuff.

The emotional aspect is the hardest to decide because it's complicated and you can't really control it the way you wish you could. There have been several mentions of how you really need to understand and support your wife, and that's true, but as one DH to another, it's not *all* about her. It's not all about you, either, but this isn't just about her getting pregnant, it's about both of you becoming parents. Whatever roads you have to travel to get there, you'll be much better off if you can mutually choose the way, and not just suppress your own needs or opinions because DH is supposed to follow whatever road DW told him to while holding her hand (and purse). Even if the stats and cost are "all systems go", it's a pretty emotionally intense journey no matter what the circumstances, so I wouldn't recommend going into it while still harboring deep reservations.

Infertility treatments are an up and down roller coaster for sure (even more so for the women when they're shooting themselves full of hormones), but the initial shock and weirdness of it all does wear off. If you're struggling with it, then at a minimum I recommend talking about it with your wife and actively thinking and reading about it for yourself, rather than burying it. Burying it feels better temporarily, but doesn't actually move you toward making peace with it. I know this board has been a great resource for me, and it sounds like you plan to at least lurk for a while, and that's a good idea. Besides being a great resource for all things fertility-rated, the mostly-female membership often improves your understanding of what your wife might be going through. If you've talked and read and still can't find a comfort level you want to have - or even if you just want a little extra help along the way - there are counselors who specialize in this kind of thing, and you won't be the first person they've seen struggling with these issues. If you don't know how to find them, look up a local RE (a.k.a. fertility doctor) and they can almost certainly give you some referrals.

Good luck to you and your wife whatever you decide.

[CryingInside]

I think you have gotten a ton of good advice already and definately stick around and tell your dw to come on board too!

In all honesty, the first step I would take if I were you is to call your insurance company and find out if IVF or IUI is covered. That may or may not affect your decision. If IUI's are covered I would suggest trying those without meds before moving to IVF. That way you satisfy your need to try naturally and your wife satisfies her need to feel that you are at least doing something.

[Pennycuff]

I totally agree with CryingInside, if your insurance covers IUI or IVF, then go for it....don't waste time.

Trust me, I am 37 years old, my DH is 38 with a sperm morphology of 15% (Krueger) and we tried naturally for 10 months to conceive....I have had 2 Dr.s tell us that it will likey take us YEARS to conceive on our own and then there is a likelihood of miscarriages....and honestly....there is nothing they can do about poor morphology...unfortunately.

I don't know what your counts are but DH had 55 million sperm, 45% mobility but the morphology is our factor.

We are now on our first IUI, to see if it works....and our insurance covers zero! Ugh!

If anything, if your insurance covers it, I would go straight IUI to try and then if that fails, on to IVF if you can afford it and your insurance helps (which most do not cover it...but a lot depends on the state you live in and your companies insurance.).

Best of luck to you both!