Semen analyses

[Ecdysiast]

My husband recently had a semen analysis that came back very poor. He needs to get re-tested in a few weeks to confirm the result.
Has anyone else's partner had multiple semen analyses with very different results?
We conceived our first child naturally within 4 cycles but have been trying for #2 for 20 months now.

We conceived our first within the first try and after 1.5 years we are going through the IVF for our second. My husband had this semen analysis come back with really bad results (doctor said we would have to do ICSI as he thought it would not even fertilise my eggs). We retested time and time again and it was always not great. Lo and behold on our egg retrieval day the results were so good that the embryologist said the semen is very good and not to do ICSI.

Great that it improved, shame that it took so long!

@ObsidianDeck Yes, that's what happened to us - they told us to do ICSI. Did they refer your husband to an andrologist? They have said if the re-rest results are still not good, that is what they will do. I just don't understand how in the space of a few years sperm can go from being good enough for natural conception, to not even good enough for standard IVF! Was your husband advised to do anything to help his sperm count?

No, no one ever suggested to see an andrologist... Our clinic just brushed off any concerns and said ICSI or it will unlikely to work. We considered going to see someone specialising in male infertility, but the last 1.5 years were so awful for our relationship and mental health that we decided to just do IVF first and see if it works.

Of course you already know these but we did the usual suggestions like no caffeine/alcohol/tight underwear. He took lots of supplements and once we had our IVF date set (like two months in advance), he ejaculated daily (I read somewhere it helps if the quality is poor). Not sure if any of this actually helped us, but I was relieved not to have to do ICSI.