High FSH. Male infertility.

[mabel9]

My husband got the results back from his FSH bloods and they are high, 22.5 which I guess confirms there is no sperm production (he has had 2x SA and they only found 1x sperm in each). Has anyone got experience of this?

Good you are managing to keep relaxed about it, do keep us posted @mabel9
I have no idea how ill cope with the 2ww but will cross that bridge when we come to it.
We just told our families a few weeks ago. We had been putting it off but finally decided to tell them. They have been lovely and really supportive so its a relief to have it out in the open. We just told parents and dont plan to tell anyone else for now. Are you planning to tell your family?
@BellaBellini pleased it helped. I think it is good for there not to be any pressure on him so he can be as involved as he wants to be.

How are you doing @mabel9? I haven't been on here in a few days but have been keeping my fingers crossed for you. I hope your doing ok and still managing to relax. Our families know that we've had issues but don't know what the issues are, everyone kept asking us about babies so I had to let them know something was going on to get the questions to stop. We are in a dilemma about whether to tell family about using donor, I think we will keep quiet for now and see what happens with treatment.

I just seen this thread again and thought I’d pop on and see how everyone is doing? @BellaBellini @Okdaisy xx

@mabelelsie how are you getting on?
Not great for us, just had a second unsuccessful IUI and waiting to start round 3. We had a lot of delays between our first 2 cycles of treatment, so frustrated how slow the whole process has been. I'm not feeling too hopeful about it working, so thinking it'll be IVF for us if the next cycle doesn't happen for us.
Hoping things are going better for you?

Hi @Okdaisy sorry to hear your second round was unsuccessful, it’s painful after so long trying too! Are you using donor still?
I’m currently 36 weeks pregnant following iui. It took 5 rounds so please do not lose hope. I had a chemical pregnancy on the 3rd and then the 5th was successful. I’ve had a good pregnancy so far, starting to feel slightly overwhelmed with it all now though.
When is your 3rd round? 🤞

@mabelelsie congratulations! That's such lovely news! Pleased you've had a good pregnancy, not long to wait now. Must be quite overwhelming though. When will you go on mat leave?
We'll try again next month so fingers crossed. I've been feeling quite pessimistic about it so it's good to hear a success story!

@mabelelsie forgot to say, yes still using donor. Only option for us. Are you? How's your partner feeling about it?

Good luck on your next round, I have everything crossed! 🤞
Yes, I’m starting to slow down now and get organised (which is nice and slightly daunting).
Yes are still using donor, still have pangs of sadness that things couldn’t of been easier and I still worry ‘did we do enough’ but I’m sure that’s normal, I just hope these feelings go when baby arrives.
Have you been quite open about your fertility journey? We haven’t at all so I’m struggling with that.

@Okdaisy my husband has been amazing and is excited which is lovely! How’s yours?

@mabelelsie yeah that's totally understandable. We definitely go through waves of feeling really sad about it. I think my husband has found it hard seeing me have to go through all of this and feeling a bit helpless. My friend recently had a baby with a donor and she did say all that totally disappeared as soon as they arrived. Once you have a newborn to look after you probably won't have time to give it a moments thought!
We haven't told many people, just parents, siblings and a couple of close friends. I found it really hard to tell people but it was such a relief to get it off our chests. They were all super supportive and lovely about it. I was so scared how they would react, but totally unnecessarily as it turned out. We will only tell other people if it works. Have you told anyone?
Good luck with getting organised and hope you have some chilled time before the little one arrives!

Well done @Okdaisyfor opening up, I’m sure that was very hard but such a relief.
We haven’t told a single soul, I’m quite a private person and struggle to confide my issues with people but I mainly think the reason has been that we have been coping ourselves with it and COVID lockdowns haven’t helped - I do wish we had opened up more now as I don’t want to drop such big news right before labour, so we are probably going to wait (although I feel such a fraud and liar). How did you start the conversation?

You sound just like me. I'm a very private person too and spent months agonising over how to bring it up. We don't live near family so when we were visiting my family I literally gave myself that weekend as my deadline to say it. I just blurted out to my mum that there was something I needed to tell her and it went from there. Once I had told her she told my dad and a few other people who I wanted to know. That saved me having the conversation too many times which helped. I was emotionally drained after that first conversation! They were just so excited about the prospect of a baby and sad that we were going through this. Its really difficult though but honestly I think it's a much bigger deal to us than it is to anyone else! @mabelelsie

Hi @mabel9,

Just wanted to say that we are also trying to conceive with male infertility we've used donor sperm. Trouble is that I also have low AMH so far we've done one egg collection, got two eggs only one of which fertilised, and then one transfer which failed. But on to the next try. It's hard but you're not alone.

I’m so glad you got a positive response @Okdaisy what lovely family you must have. Have you asked them to keep quiet about it? How is your partner doing? Is he excited?

Good luck @girljulian and I’m sorry your also going through this. How long have you been trying? Keeping everything crossed for your next transfer! 🤞

@mabelelsie we just said we would tell people as/when they need to know, so if we do manage to have a child then we will tell the wider family etc. As far as I know they haven't told anyone, but we didn't explicitly ask them not too. I'd probably be OK with it if they had though to be honest.

When do you think you will tell people? It's hard but you just need to do whats right for you. Actually I got a book from the donor conception network about telling family and friends. I think that's what spurred me on to doing it so that might be worth a look at if you are worried about it.

I wouldn't say either of us excited yet as we had about a 9 month wait between cycle 1&2, so it's so slow and drawn out that it's impossible to imagine it actually working.. but if it works then I'm sure the excitement would kick in then!

I’m starting to regret not being more open now @Okdaisy it’s just so personal, but I’m aware we need to be open for the child to feel comfortable. Sometimes I can feel like information overload! I’ll have a look at the book, thank you.

If you don’t mind me asking, what was your partners diagnosis?

It will happen for you! I took a year from 1st try to succeeding and quite enjoyed the 4 months in the first lockdown as a fertility break!

@mabelelsie diagnosis was azoospermia, as he had chemo many years ago. So we kind of expected it but still a big shock.
Yeah I'm glad I got the conversation out of the way when I did. We had put it off for a year or so before we finally opened up about it so I know how difficult it is.
How does your husband feel about telling people?