Round up your ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties, the BESH are going to scare out the BFPs!

Thanks Euro! Well, we've improved diet and exercise since it was last done and he now takes a multivitamin too so hopefully that helps. It's all to complicated for me.... its frustrating too because the first time he had it done the GP said the results came back normal and the consultant then said it was low!

Actually I boobed - that was the first results, the second were: 5.8ml 26 million per ml, 38% progressive, 48% total and 8% normal forms. So I'm guessing he has a low sperm count but the ones that are there aren't too unhealthy?

Nah, Dot, kittens are awesome. I'd have one if OldCat could cope with it, but she's a bit angry and way too doddery to deal with a kitten charging around.

Frankel - I have emailed MIL with questions :)

HOTB was bang on 2ml for his test - you'd think they'd make him do it again in case that's abnormally large volume for him, but apparently not.

What's the different between progressive and total motility? Is total the number of moving sperm and progressive the number of moving sperm that are actually getting anywhere? In which case total is irrelevant if progressive is high? Or is progressive a percentage OF the total moving?

I'll have a go raspberry but it has been a while since I looked at this.

Volume is good. I think over 2ml is normal (this is where KFZK falls down - it's always under 1ml).

Count is decent. I think anything over 15 or 20 million per ml is considered normal. So he's at the low end of normal, but normal (like KFZK).

8% normal is good. I think anything over 4% is considered normal. Basically, men produce an awful lot of sh1t sperm.

Total motility is the one parameter I think looks below normal there. I think 30% progressive motility is okish, but total motility should be over 50%.

I love Maine Coons. I am looking forward to getting kittenz almost as much as getting a house and baby. That's sad innit?

I was looking at MATV's two results last night as we're seeing the consultant tomorrow so I had a look through the letters we've had and can honestly say I've no idea what they mean. Apparently his second lot were better but the first lot had more volume 5.8ml and 26 million per mil, and the first lot had 4mls with 36 million per ml. The improvement was in the second lot of 8% normal forms, 30% progressive motility and 36% total motility. Can anyone translate?

I wanna cat too. I have a thing about British shorthairs
I think they are gorgeous. The whiskas cats are the tabby variety but I would love a plain blue one.

Rie and draf KFZK is the opposite - low numbers but good at swimming, apparently. I am certain they are just getting lost though. KFZK has a terrible sense of direction and they are part of him.

apparently it pops out then down into the tube so the hairs in the tubes are necessarily needed. I have to confess that I'm not an expert but I have been assured that they shouldn't affect fertility but again, as I say, having had no success I'm not sure how right they are about the whole thing

What about the hairs which grab the egg when you've laid it?

Girls re little wafty hairs - I have some insider knowledge on these bloody things as I have a stupid genetic condition that stops all the little wafty hairs in my body working (they are also in your lungs/guts and nose). Apparently, the little wafty hairs do not play a massive role although there is a lot of mixed science about that. I have spoken to a few consultants about it now and they all seem to think that if the hairs dont work it shouldn't make too much difference as the tubes get the egg to where it should be by contracting or moving anyway. However, as I have not diffed in three years I am blaming wafty hairs.

When I had my HSG I assumed my tubes would be blocked as essentially what the hairs do is keep the path they line clean but they were not blocked at all so I dont know what's going on in there

Ooo, that would be kind of you evil. HWHNN has his heart set on a tabby (aka "a stripey one")

Oh, CUTE!

StupidCat has not thrown up anything except hairballs unless she steals biscuits from the neighbours since we stopped feeding her biscuits, so we figure it must be pretty straightforward cause and effect.

Frankel - I can ask the ILs which breeders they got their Maine Coons from, if you like? They got the first two from one place and the third from another so have done a bit of shopping around.

Fluffy

He looks like my darling fluffy boy, aries! Except mine is a moggy, obviously.

Oh the dear little thing!

Oh FatCat throws up regularly, usually on the bedroom rug. She does it out of spite.

at the lesbian differ.

Oh my little fluffy darlings!

ariel, a lesbian friend did artificial insemination. Pregnant with one plunge of the syringe. Twice.

We want to get a Maine Coon kitten as company for our moggy. She's an only child and can be a bit odd. We figure getting a kitten will be easier for her to adjust to, as a result I am currently spending a lot of time on this page

OldCat also has a heart murmur! We really ARE twins

We can't feed ours biscuits any more, StupidCat seems to have developed an affliction where if she eats biscuits she throws up. No idea why, but it's easy enough to only feed them meat instead.

I wish my cat was skinnier! Every time we go to the vet, I am treated like a Bad Owner who feeds her double cream for every meal. She has a heart murmer, apparently because of her fatness, though she seems in rude health to me and only acts ill when there's someone there to give her sympathy and make me look bad. She eats those highly expensive crunchy biscuits which are made from pure peacock and venison, at least they should be for the price. Apparently she needs it for weight management .

They're the biggest domestic cats in the world, according to The Encyclopedia of Cats, which is sitting on my shelf. I get it out occasionally to squee at the kittens, sad barren that I am.

I wish my cats had obese tendencies. As it is they're so very old and so very thin. Our oldest has, in the vet's words, "nothing left to lose". They get breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and second dinner every day and still she's so bony. It'd help if they thought people food was edible, as then I could feed them fattening stuff, but they refuse to touch anything except cat food and the occasional bit of milk or cheese.

Frankel, those are GORGEOUS. My ILs have three of them, they were so much fun as tinies. Now they're big they're more aloof but so beautiful. I think it was one of that breed that was used as Mrs Norris in the Harry Potter films.

Oh I LOVE Maine Coons!

We bought my cat one of those in an effort to combat her increasing girth. She took one of two lame swipes at it, worked out very quickly that it wasn't a real thing, and from then on ignored it. She is an obesity statistic.

I sometimes wonder if I should just succumb to the barren cliche and get myself a whole bunch of