Really low sperm count - what to do

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My husband and I have been ttc for a few years now and have started our ivf journey. We have just found out that he has a really low sperm count. About 10% of what it should be. This is on top of my low egg reserve. We are devastated and feel so helpless. He has been referred for further tests but I do not know what for and if there is anything that can be done to help us. The hospital seemed more concerned with pushing us to start paying rather than actually trying to uncover what the problem is. Has anyone else had a similar experience or have any advice? Thank you so much kind people

Ours was very low. They couldnt do the morphology measures etc. We did only fertilise very few embies each time. But ended up pg 2/3 cycles.

Hiya I’m new here
Been trying for years to conceive and it turns out my oh has very very low count and motility
I got him on the Superdrug male fertility supplements which improved his motility a bit but not his count much (improved by a million) is the wellman any better? I was thinking about getting him on wellman x

Hi natty can I ask what your partners count was?
My oh had two tests and both times the gp said it was too low to count morph so I’m now very worried ivf with ICSI won’t work x

Donas146 my DH had zero in both his samples, we went to TESE and ICSI and got 3 frozen vials of good quality sperm and from our 2nd cycle good quality day 5 blasts on ice

Hi @AniSL thanks for the reply
And I’m sorry to hear about your ohs results it really shocks you doesn’t it. I don’t really understand a lot of what you wrote sorry 😄I’m new to the jargon lol
Did you get pregnant from the treatment? I’m really thinking ahead and I’m terrified I’ll never have a baby with my husband x

We did IVF with ICSI for this but no female issues, worked first time and six months after gave birth got pregnant naturally with our second. ICSI is really good with male infertility. When we did it the NHS used two type of drugs and one had a few percentage points higher success so I used that one but was the more expensive one. We went private on NHS but thankfully our doctor agreed to give nhs prescription for drugs. Good luck to you all.

Hiya

Sorry, ok so TESE is testicular extraction where they remove the sperm directly from the testes, this will usually happen at the same time as your egg retrieval. ICSI is where they inject the sperm directly into the egg they have retrieved from you.
The fertilisation egg, or embryo will then go through a stage from being an embryo to blastocyst, day 3 is when the sperm takes over on the development part, my clinic waits until day 5 before they transfer them back in - supposedly increases success rates if they put back day 5 blasts.
We went with a freeze all cycle so the blasts have been frozen ready for a frozen embryo transfer when we go back

I can't remember what DHs results where but doctor looked at it and said there's no way you will get pregnant naturally ever.

Hiya @Penguinsetpandas Thankyou for the reply was just going to ask about your hubbys results!
Yes the doctor has said the same but looked at me straight away and asked if I had been tested
I’ve been pregnant when I was younger but had a termination so I always doubted it was me and I’ve know had an internal scan blood tests and abdominal scan and everything seems normal and working okay. Can I ask how you found ivf?
I’m worried inwont handlenit very well, also your story has really give me some hope. I think we will only be able to have one round on the nhs x

Physically ivf isn't that bad, emotionally it does your head in, but its amazing to have kids. I did 2 weeks of injections then there was egg collection which was just a bit weird and injections just sting a bit for a minute. Got DH to do mine. Our cat was a kitten then and used to swing on top of door when she saw the needle. 😻

When there's only male factor success rates are pretty good. All the NHS would give us was one round in 4 years so we paid to go private via them but still few months wait. Hope you get your baby.

Donas146 the journey for me was easy both emotionally and physically. Injections were fine and mininal side effects, I was quite relaxed through both my cycles. We didn't qualify for NHS so have funded privately in Greece. DH was anxious about TESE but apart from that it was all good. Disappointed after our first cycle was cancelled due to no embryos making it to day 5 but we took the positives from it too.