Any morphology 1% success stories?

[ali2021]

Hi there! TTC for 13 mths. My husband's SA came back very good, apart from his morphology, which was 1%. Our doctor was happy with everything else. She has suggested a repeated test in 2 months, but said that ICSI/IVF might be our route. I am so upset and worried, but equally I don't want to wait around another year or two and hope that in the hope that it might happen naturally. I suppose I'm just looking for a success story of any kind, be it via IVF or naturally. Thanks in advance!

Hi! My DP’s SA came back as fine apart from morphology which was 1%. He’d had chemo in the past so we never knew if it was linked. Anyway we conceived naturally on our 13th cycle and have a two year old now. Now TTC our second, have had two chemicals and I’m now pregnant again. So it’s definitely not held us back!

he takes the Pregnacare for him vitamins which I think have helped though no way of knowing for sure and this time around I got him on COQ10.

apparnetly average morphology is only 4% anyway and if his count etc is all good then you’ve definitely still got a chance. Good luck!

Oh wow!!! That is so so reassuring! Thank you for taking the time to post 🙂 Congratulations on your rainbow baby. Wishing you a happy and healthy pregnancy and delivery 😍

Same here, conceived twins with a morphology of 1%

Hi @ali2021 , my DH was put on proxeed by a urologist and it worked well www.logixxfertility.com/proxeed

It will take longer with low morphology- how long is the hard bit. My OH upped his morphology from results around the 0-1% to 9%. As the other person said, he took Proxeed, 2 sachets a day. Our fertility consultant says it's the easiest area to fix quickly. He also takes ubiquinol, pycnogenol and omega 3. Going for ICSI in a month or 2 but we have borderline count as the morphology should now not be an issue. X

@ali2021 Thank you but I’ve had another chemical pregnancy. I don’t think it’s linked to DP’s morphology but we are getting the ball rolling on more tests for us both to see what’s going on.

Thank you everybody so much for taking the time to reply. I feel a lot more positive having read all your messages! ❤️

@Charl881, I am so so sorry to hear about your news. I hope that you and your DP get the answers you need and that you're taking time for yourselves to process everything you're going through.

@FlyOnTheWall89, very best of luck with your ICSI appointments! Sending all the positive energy your way!! 🌟🌟How long does a round of ICSI take approximately, out of interest? I assume it's a good bit longer than standard IVF? That is an incredibly impressive jump with your DP's morphology! Wow!

@ProclivityForPyrotechnics twins; wow!!! I'd imagine that's a very very busy but loving household!!

@Teakind, thank you so much for your message. I will note that supplements name down for our fertility appointment!!

@ali2021 no it's just IVF with an add on... in IVF they just put the sperm in with the eggs and let the sperm natural meet the egg. ICSI is just a process of selecting the best looking sperm and planting it into the egg basically. Short protocol takes about 2ish weeks and then it's egg collection, I think long protocol is more like 3-4ish weeks. Thank you! Tomorrow is our big nurse appointment which is actually super exciting x

@FlyOnTheWall89 ahhhh, very best of luck with it!! I'll be keeping everything crossed for you. Hope all goes well xx

Knowing what I know now - not that IVF is easy or guaranteed but I wouldn't wait around. People will say morphology doesn't count for much I had more than one Dr say this, it isn't true and can be linked to chemicals and miscarriages. I would get him on the supplements as that is the main treamtment outside of ICSI/IMSI. I would also do further tests specifically DNA frag and I'd get the process moving with IVF. Time is of the essence and I have heard so many people who say they wish when the option was first presented to them that they had gone forward to make use of that time in the way that had the best chance of success for them.

Our Dr fobbed us off on the morpholgy front several times, turns out he had higher DNA frag. I was mad as they put me through procedure after procedure but NHS refused to do a simple DNA frag test.

Anyway best of luck to you, I'd ask myself why the focus on success stories I hope it does work that way for you but it might not. If that is the case, what set of decisions or choices do you think you will feel most at peace with? That is how I have navigated IVF decisions and feel it's the best way for me. If that end call is to keep trying without assistance great but if not, then that also gives you a clear cut answer.

@Hoping4baby21 i didn’t realise morphology could be linked to chemicals! My DO hasn’t had a SA since we had my DS but might be worth him getting one to see if morphology is still low as we’ve had two consecutive chemicals now.

@ali2021 just to add something to what the previous poster wrote. I asked these questions about DNA frag and the answer was there is no reason to test because ICSI is the treatment... you can improve using Proxeed or Impryl but there is no guarantee at all and some don't see any movement on the numbers. I think that's why the NHS don't offer it up .... some then say well I've had IVF and then we found out that the frag was high, but if your treatment would be IVF with ICSI then no point!

I also recommend looking in to DNA fragmentation. ICSI/IMSI isn’t a miracle cure if levels are really high. With my DH, despite his normal sperm results being ok, his DNA fragmentation results were really high and he was labelled as ‘infertile’. Amazingly it was fixed by some antibiotics!

We did have successful IMSI after sorting out the the DNA fragmentation and have since had two more DC naturally and quickly. Makes me wonder if we needed IVF in the first place but I don’t regret it for a moment as I wouldn’t have my DD without it.

@Charl881 he deffo needs at least another SA then at a minimum of it has been that long. Issues can be 50/50 all the testing shouldn't only sit with you, you could waste a ton of time not the mention the mental impact month after month.

You will probably have to go private for DNA frag test or if you find a clinic willing to give you ICSI after supplements you could forgo the test as that's the suggestion anyway. Like someone said it isn't a guarantee but at this point those are the options available. Yes there's no NEED to test but I found it helpful to know and so did my Husband. It also helped him stick to the recommendations for supplement and regular ejaculation (every 2-3 days). So that's another perspective to consider but you could totally forgo the test. For me also if that came back normal I might have insisted on some other tests, it was part of an elimination for me.

NHS won't do it and even when we had the results they still were like if sperm is ok on the day then we will just do normal IVF. We already have normal and had an ok feet rate so we didn't want that again. We decided not to proceed.

Well we’re only 8 cycles in to trying and I’ve conceived in two of those so we’re not in any rush, we were going to wait until Sept/ October for any tests when it would have been a year (it took 13 cycles to conceive DS) but I mentioned it to the GP and they said they’d do some initial bloods for me. Definitely something to bear in mind though if we aren’t having any luck, we got his SA done privately pre DS so I guess we’d just do that again and ask for the DNA Frag thing as well.