Can someone stop me losing my mind?!

[Confused865]

Eek. I'm sorry for the drama but just don't know where to go with this one.

We had a miscarriage last year after finding ourselves pregnant. We didn't know if wanted to have children - but found ourselves v happy with this news and realised this is something we very much wanted. Sadly, we lost the baby a few weeks in.

We've been trying since, and have recently had fertility tests. All my bloods have come back fine, however, my husbands sample has not.

The nurse who gave me the results was well-meaning but flippant and said we need to wait for our infertility clinic referral and it probably means IVF but she couldn't really understand the results.

All I can see from the printed results that I have is that his viscosity is abnormal and lots of other medical information. I've googled viscosity and it seems to be quite serious and in one report looks like even if we got pregnant again it could mean chromosome issues (which might explain the miscarriage).

I'm feeling pretty anxious and to be honest - blindsided.

If anyone can help me understand this stuff, I'd really appreciate it.

Hello, sorry you're going through this. Can you write out all the results along with the normal ranges from the report? I'll try and make sense of them for you (I have expertise in this area)

Thank you SO much. I really appreciate it - I’ll send them over in the morning x

I seem to have two usernames - confused by name and confused by nature 😆

So - reading into it, I think it's a low morphology issue. Which I think means his sperm is not the right shape? What I'm most confused about is whether we should keep trying...in case that might lead to problems with the baby i.e chromosomal etc?

Here are his results:

Ejaculation volume (ml) 4.74
PH 8
Viscosity = abnormal
Appearance = normal
Liquefaction = complete
Progressive motility 32.960
Non-progressive motility 4.260
Immotile 62.780
Normal forms 1.4
Abnormal forms 98.6
Sperm concentration (million/ml) 26.20
Total sperm count (million/specimen) 124.19
Alive 66.01%

Haha don't worry about it! Ok so:

Ejaculation volume- absolutely fine nothing to worry about here
PH- 8 is absolutely fine as well all good here
Viscosity- abnormal is not ideal. This is often caused by an infection or perhaps inflammation/ oxidative stress which is causing the fluid not to be as clear and swimmable as we'd like it to be
Appearance- all good!
Liquefaction- this is good, means the sperm is able to become more watery after ejaculation which is needed for it to move through the uterus
Progressive motility- This is JUST in the normal range, we'd like to see a bit more motility here
Non-progressive motility- means sperm is moving but not necessarily in a straight forward direction. The WHO reference range for total motility lower limit is 40, when we add your husband's together it is 36 which is low
Immotile- Again this shows that there's more immobile sperm than we'd like to see in this sample
Normal forms- This is low, we want to see this at least 4.
Abnormal forms- this is higher than we'd like
Sperm concentration- This is good, well above average!
Total sperm count- This is good as well
Alive- Again this is good, we want to see above 54%

Ok based on the above it's the movement and the shape of the sperm that are the issue along with the fluid being less 'moveable' for the sperm. This could also be contributing to the lower movement of sperm in this sample. When sperm is abnormally shaped, the issue isn't necessarily that it'll cause a chromosomal issue for the resulting embryo, it's more that it won't be able to fertilise the egg. The sperm have a unique shape that helps them burrow into the egg and if the sperm is abnormally shaped, it can't do this.

Alongside this you then have not the lower than ideal progressive motility which means less of the sperm is able to travel in a forward direction to the tubes.

However all of this is not the end of the road for you! There's lots your husband can do!
Firstly does he smoke or drink? Anything that causes oxidative stress he needs to cut out so that's excess alcohol, smoking, putting laptop on lap, taking lots of hot baths, intense exercise with tight pants/ boxers on. That sort of thing.

Then dietary wise, start increasing your intake in anti-oxidant rich foods, such as fruits like blueberries, kiwis, oranges etc.
You can also both try adding flax seed & maca root to your diets

Then I'd highly recommend he takes a pre-natal but also co-enzyme Q10 in the form of ubiquinol. Ideally 2 x 600mg a day after food. This will help with the cellular energy in both the production of sperm but also at the time of fertilisation to increase your chances of a good quality embryo.

And then when it comes to BDing, you'll want to try and hit it as much as you can in your fertile window to increase the chance of normal progressive sperm being able to reach your fallopian tubes & hopefully fertilising an egg.

I hope that helps :)

Oh and I'd also recommend using Pre-seed lubrication during your fertile window to help the sperm swim

I cannot tell you how grateful I am! Seeing those results yesterday with no information to help me/us understand them was tough.

So - when the (ahem) sample was taken he had just got over a virus, so that might have something to do with the viscosity.

So, we can keep trying until we have the fertility appointment? When you see abnormal sperm it's a bit scary.

We can definitely improve lifestyle. We have agreed today after the news that we're going to take a break from alcohol. We were just weekend drinkers but regularly, and I expect way over our recommended limits.

In your experience (no pressure at all - just grateful for some advice) do you think we have hope, and this doesn't necessarily mean lots of medical intervention?

You have honestly lifted a weight for me - it's been such a worry. Thank you so, so much.

If it helps my DH had two awful sperm sample results (although one was analysed well after one hour after it was provided to the hospital), I can't remember the details as it was 9 years ago, but we thought IVF was a definite, but we went on to successfully conceive twice and now have an 8 year old and a 5 year old!

That's amazing - and what a wonderful outcome! Thank you - that's giving me some hope 😊

@Confused865 No worries! The virus could definitely explain the viscosity so hopefully that will clear up.

You absolutely can keep trying, I'm honestly so surprised the nurse was so negative. I'd just ignore her comment if I were you.

Make those dietary & lifestyle changes and keep trying until your appointment. Fingers crossed for you both and sending lots of BD :)

Have you looked st impryl for your husband?

Thank you so much - @LacedBouquet 💓

Thank you @MotherOfShihTzus! He's been (not consistently - but now is!) taking these that my acupuncturist recommended. Are they similar?

https://www.cytoplan.co.uk/male-fertility-support

Sorry, in case it was unclear, we conceived naturally twice! So, I think although crap sperm results can feel awful when you see the readings, some of the issues end up fixing themselves.

@curliegirlie - ahh that is giving me hope! You’re so right, it feels awful. We are full on with the lifestyle changes this month! Really hoping that helps ♥️