Freezing sperm before starting Chemo

[Holly5633]

Hi ladies,

I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this - if anyone can guide me to a better board for questions like this then please do!

In 2018 my DH and I had 3 early miscarriages (all on or just before 6 weeks).

At Christmas my DH was taken unwell and is undergoing further tests but there is a quite high possibility that he will need to have chemotherapy.

We don't have any children yet and obviously we want to keep the option as open as possible for when he is better again. We have been sent some info on sperm banking/freezing.

Late last year we paid to have some testing done privately to see if we could find the reason behind the three early miscarriages. We get the results of those tests tonight.

My question is this - if DH sperm results aren't good (potentially us not know he is was unwell could have affected his sperm and caused the miscarriages) does anyone know if we can bank/freeze his sperm even if it isn't top quality at the moment?

@Holly5633 Sorry to hear what you are going through.

You may want to join us over on the infertility board as you may find more of us with experience on this.

The hospital may suggest and arrange sperm banking before starting chemo - the DH of a friend was diagnosed with a form of cancer and he was given an appointment to bank before starting.

It would depend how the sperm is. I am not sure how it works on the NHS (as we are having private treatment), but for us we had the appointment for banking and as part of that they did a sperm analysis (so DH gave a sample and they then checked the sample. If the sample is good enough (so there are some good sperm there) they will freeze the sample. If it is not good enough then they may ask for another sample.

I was offered collection and storage of endometrial tissue when I had cancer, they referred me urgently to fertility ( so I could crack on with chemo) I guess it depends on the chemo regime, poor quality sperm is better than very poor sperm due to chemo, ask for an urgent referral, best wishes to you both x