Low sperm / miscarriage / IVF

[HopefulPenguin]

Hello, sorry for the long post I think I’m just looking to see if anyone is in the same difficult boat as me as I have found infertility to be the most lonely place!

Me and my OH have been ttc our first baby for 15 months now, I know this could be worse in the grand scheme of things but I’m 34 & he’s 37 so do feel like the clock is ticking. About 7 months in (Feb 22) we started with some fertility tests and found out he had severe low sperm count of 2 million (along with low motility and morphology), which was a real shock. He didn’t have a particularly unhealthy lifestyle anyway but over the following 3 months he made lifestyle changes (started going to the gym, drank more water, took supplements, changed diet etc) and by June everything went up with the count being 13 million which we were really pleased with! But also thought we still had a way to go.

However, miraculously in July we got our much longed for BFP, but this ended in a MMC at the end of August. We had an early scan at 7 weeks and saw the little heartbeat but then found out at 10 weeks the baby had stopped growing at 8 weeks. It has been absolutely devastating and I’m just not coping as a baby is all I had ever wanted.

OH’s recent semen analysis (October) shows it has now dropped back down to 5 million, so I just feel hopeless that we will ever get pregnant again naturally.

We are now going down the IVF route and have an initial appointment booked. I guess i’m just wondering if anyone has been through similar and did you need IVF or did you end up having a healthy baby naturally in the end? I’m finding this all very hard to deal with and just thought there might also be others out there going through similar and we can support each other. Thank you for reading xx

Positive sign that the sperm count so indication that lifestyle changes helped, so he should seek to maintain it (I.e. consistency with whatever he started doing or stopped doing).

There's slight comfort in fact you were able to get pregnant following the lifestyle changes. I'm not best placed to suggest whether IVF is what you need, but thought a response might help bump.

@HopefulPenguin I totally understand why this is so hard for you, what a rollercoaster.

We were in a similar position but with 40 million total count which is borderline and we got pregnant after 15 cycles, just before beginning IVF.

I think the hard thing is no one can tell you if you'll get pregnant again naturally, or how long it will take and I personally found basically 15 months enough of a head f*ck and very draining mentally and emotionally. I would recommend getting everything lined up to begin IVF and keep trying in the meantime, then at least you have something to aim for. This is even more important as you are 34 and 37 and these things take time and obviously I'm sure you know may not work first time!

Best of luck!

Hi @HopefulPenguin your post really resonated with me, our position is a bit similar to yours.

We were trying for about 6 months and then I had what we think was a chemical pregnancy in a February this year.

Carried on trying and nothings happened. Decided to have some tests done and found out my OH has a sperm count less than 2m/ml. Not sure whether February was just a total rareity (and maybe the sperm was crap hence the chemical?) or whether the count has plummeted over the last few months. no way of knowing.

anyway it was a total shock and we’re devastated about it. he’s got to go have another done on tuesday but the gp said if it’s similar we will be referred probably for icsi.

big hugs, know how you feel. devastated it might never happen 😢 feeling very resentful (which I hate, really don’t want to be that person!) and feel like babies are everywhere

@BabyOnBoard90 thank you for your reply. We are doing our best to make sure he continues with the lifestyle changes (he never really stopped!) so it just seems such a lottery whether the results go up or down.

@FlyOnTheWall89 thank you, I know exactly what you mean with feeling drained, it just takes over absolutely everything in life! I’m hoping having IVF in the pipeline will give us something to aim for like you say, although will bring with it another emotional rollercoaster that I’ll need to be prepared for…But that also gives me a little bit of hope that you have a success story in a similar situation, although with higher numbers than us, but thank you!

@mrswoody10 sorry to hear you’re in a similar boat to us 😥 it is so difficult isn’t it. I just feel totally consumed by the whole thing. I’ve been wondering the same about whether rubbish sperm correlated with the miscarriage, we will never know, but we’re just working on trying to make my OH’s sperm as good as possible now, hopefully for natural conception but if not then for IVF. I just get to the TWW (AF is actually due this weekend) and keep having all that hope when I know the likelihood is really very low.

Has your OH tried to do anything to see if his sperm improves? We waited 8 weeks between the first and second SA and it went from 2million to 11 million, then another 4 weeks (after 3 months total) to 13 million, so it can be worth spacing them out a little, although I know how frustrating all the waiting is for tests and results.

I could have written your message myself - I also feel very resentful and it’s not like me at all! I’m surrounded by babies and pregnancy announcements (often second babies, probably because I’m at that age) and my closest friend has just given birth having become pregnant on their first try. I am happy for her but as more time goes by I just have increasing feelings of ‘she just doesn’t understand’ (and nor do any of my other friends). I don’t want to be that person at all but as I said it’s consuming me and I’m trying to find ways to deal with it better. Sending big hugs too and just know you’re not alone in the way you feel xx

Hi @HopefulPenguin . I wanted to add a message because I can relate to so much of your post, and @mrswoody10 too. I had a miscarriage shortly after we first started TTC, and since then have been unable to conceive (2 yrs now). Ours was also a MMC, I found out at 10 weeks, although they think it stopped developing around 7/8 weeks. The miscarriage and months after were a really, really difficult time and I'm so sorry to hear about yours.

We were told we have MFI earlier this year - my partner has made loads of lifestyle changes and is taking all the supplements etc, but nothing seems to improve the count.

We've just started our first round of IVF (with ICSI). Everybody is different, but I found that I felt a huge relief when we finally started taking the medication and starting the ICSI process. The last few cycles of TTC were so hard and I felt so alone. I feel so much more in control at the moment than I have for months. I know the chances of this IVF round working are something like 1/3(ish), but it still feels like a much higher chance than the monthly TTC so it feels good. Working really hard to manage my expectations, I'm sure there will be hard parts, but I'm happy to have this chance.

You're not on your own and its so normal for people to struggle with fertility problems in different ways. Other people who get pregnant in an instant can never really understand how it feels, but there are lots of us out there who do. More often than not, people find a way through and have a baby in the end. I know this doesn't guarantee anything for any of us individually but its something I find helpful to remind myself. Sorry for long post. Thinking of you!

Hi Op, I went through a similar situation with DH (although I also have endometriosis which wasn’t helping the situation).
We were recommended ICSI , but we decided to give it 3 months and retest DH’s sperm, it did improve but not enough and they still recommend IVF/ICSI to us.

We decided to go ahead and did the egg collection in January, we froze all embryos. We then continued trying naturally until August but never got a BFP and came to the decision it just wasn’t going to happen naturally for us. We then did a frozen transfer and it worked first time and I’m now 12 weeks pregnant.

Before we decided we really gave ourselves 3 options:

1. keep trying naturally and hope for the best.
2. keep trying naturally but give ourselves a time limit e.g if I’m not pregnant 6 months from now go down the IVF route
3. start IVF straight away

we ended up with a bit of a hybrid approach where we did the first part of IVF straight away and had frozen embryos, it felt like the pressure was then off for us and we gave ourselves a bit longer to try naturally knowing we had the embryos. It’s a really tough decision but I felt a lot better once we had made it and had taken some control back over the process. I found it a lot harder thinking we could try for another 12-18 months with no results and wish we’d started IVF earlier which I think ultimately swayed our decision. Good luck with whatever you decide to do xx

Hello @RainbowRoad44 , I’m so sorry for your loss and to hear about everything you’ve been through, but thank you for your message as it really helped me to hear about your journey and how you have got to the point you’re at now. Wishing you so much luck with your IVF! And i‘m so pleased to hear you’re feeling better now you’ve got started and been able to leave the stressful TTC behind. With our initial appointment booked I’m hoping I won’t be too far behind you, as all things considered me and my OH are swaying towards getting started and just continuing to ‘try’ in the mean time beforehand, so not to waste any more time.

Do you mind if I ask whether you’re doing NHS or private? If it’s NHS i’m just wondering whether you had to wait long in between the consultation and starting medication? As i’m aware there’ll likely be lots of waiting, but also aware this probably varies by location too.

Hi @Northtosouth, thank you for your message and congratulations on your pregnancy! ☺️ Thanks for sharing your story, it sounds like you’ve been through an emotional rollercoaster to get to this point but reading both yours and the other ladies’ messages has given me lots of hope that I can start to feel more positive about the options we have in the not-too-distant future. I feel exactly the same as you did in that the upcoming IVF will give me some control back, and the fact that your transfer worked first time is also such amazing news and gives me real hope! I think there’ll always be that part of me that thinks ‘well we got pregnant naturally once, we can do it again’, but ultimately it comes down to how long we would want to wait and how much TTC is affecting our lives in the mean time (a lot!). It sounds like you made the best decision and I’m so glad to hear it all worked out for you!

@HopefulPenguin We have gone private, in our area we are not eligible until two years after the miscarriage and then it can still take a few months to come through so we decided we will pay for one round whilst we are waiting. Massive decision, obviously it's so expensive, but we got to the point that we couldn't wait any longer. I was told that in our area once you have the NHS funding through, you are treated exactly the same as a private patient, the wait is just waiting for the funding. I think it might be a bit different in each area though. When we told the clinic we wanted to go ahead I had to wait until my next period, and then start taking down-regulation medication on day 21 of that cycle for 2 weeks, and then it will be about another 2 weeks of ovulation stimulation medication after that, and then egg collection (all being well!). So the whole process does still take a bit of time. Good luck with whatever you decide to do and when. Keep us posted!