Azoospermia support - Part 2

[WhiskeyInTheJar33]

@2022ttc
@Ljp2022
@lemons44
@IslaO
@Carla2601
@TheFanciestPants
@HoustG
@Sleeter0893
@Creatingspace
@Nats140
@pomdownunder1
@Annies1992
@Lily1994

As the old thread is almost full, I thought I'd start up a part 2 so that we can all continue our journeys together!
Apologies if I have missed anyone x

@Lily1994 I've heard lots of stories about Mr Ramsey prescribing anastrazole, some don't respond to it but I have never heard any side effects stories. It's difficult to know because anastrazole is not licensed for male fertility, it's usually a drug for after breast cancer. I can only go on my experience with DP and he had no side effects and it worked for him 😊

@HoustG glad you have a date. I remember my DP feeling anxious in the lead up. Before surgery my DP cut out alcohol and caffeine and ate a high anti-oxidant diet. Also took zinc and selenium supplements. After surgery DP was in a fair bit of pain for the week after surgery, stock up on ice packs, supportive underwear and pain killers! Wishing you both all the best!

@hjg17 sorry you find yourself here but glad you are finding some of our stories helpful. Do you know what type of y-microdeletion your partner has?

Hi All,

First of all, thank you so much for sharing your stories. I have been following this thread for quite a while and found a lot of comfort from knowing that we are not alone, and hearing your success stories.

A bit of background about my situation. My DH essentially knew he had azoospermia when I met him but hadn’t really investigated what this meant or what his options were. He has a complicated medical history with lots of previous surgeries and other issues. We initially saw a urologist and were then referred to an IVF clinic to discuss a micro-TESA. The doctors didn’t know what the problem could be and gave us a 50-50 chance of finding sperm. Thus queue months of uncertainty and emotional limbo. I did a round of egg retrieval before the micro-TESA was scheduled. Unbelievably the procedure went really well and they found a significant amount of sperm - I still can’t believe it. I think we were both expecting the worst. We ended up with 3 five day blasts from 21 eggs; 1 was put in (BFN) and the other two are on ice.

I am now 3 days into stims for our next cycle which will be using the frozen sperm. Nervous about how it will play out this time as we only had a fraction make it to day 5 last round. I’m trying to stay positive and remember how grateful we are to have overcome the initial huge issue. Wishing you all lots of luck with your journies x

Hi @Runner77, welcome to the chat. That’s a great success story- I know you’re not where you want to be just yet and none of us will ever fully relax until we have a baby in our arms, but so far so good for you! Sorry to hear your first transfer was a BFN. Was that a fresh or frozen transfer? If it was fresh, your body many have been under too much stress as 21 eggs is a massive amount. I’m also in awe of you going ahead and doing another round of stims to get more on ice even when you have two there. I toyed with this idea but was too impatient and I hope I don’t live to regret it in the future. If you are worried about using frozen sperm to fertilise your next round of eggs, i was told it generally doesn’t make a difference. All mine were fertilised with thawed sperm as my partner had his Tese months before I did stims. We ended up with 4 pretty good grade embryos and I’m pregnant with one of them now. Definitely not saying that in a confident way.. we have a genetic blood test called a Panorama test plus a scan on Wednesday and I’m a nervous wreck! If that goes well I might be comforted for a few days but I have a feeling I’ll be like this for the whole 9 months.. the journey to get here has definitely changed me!

how do you find stims? When is your egg retrieval scheduled for ?

Thanks for your reply @IslaO, and big congrats! I hope everything goes well for you with the scan and blood test.

I do feel very grateful to be in this position and it could so easily have gone the other way. We had a fresh transfer using my frozen eggs and DHs fresh sperm. I actually did two rounds of egg collections before the micro-TESA; first produced 15 and the second only 6 eggs.

There really is no right way to do things. I was also very tempted to try another transfer straight away. I’m worried that my age will soon become a limiting factor (I’m 37) so I didn’t want to delay hopefully banking further blasts.

I’m feeling fine with stims so far thanks, I’m lucky in that I only feel a bit bloated but otherwise feel ok with all the drugs. I have really noticed this time what a pro I have sadly become with the injections 😂

Hello @WhiskeyInTheJar33

Im a late comer. Where is part 1 of your story? May I know please ? Many thanks

@Runner77 the stims can be brutal but you have got this!

@IslaO I think that the biggest challenges present the most opportunities for personal growth. It sounds cliche but I hope I am changed for the better by this process.

@Lily1994 I will dig out my husband's supplement list and share to the group when I get home.

Quick update from me, had an AA embryo transferred yesterday and was super surprised when we got the call to say we also have a AA in the freezer and no issues with DNA frag. My IVF cycles have not gone to plan at any point, so I am unbelievably grateful with this result 🥹. I am not sure it has sunk in yet, especially given how few eggs we got.

@WhiskeyInTheJar33 good to know

@TheFanciestPants thats amazing news, fingers crossed for positive results!!!

@TheFanciestPants such good news! Fingers crossed this works for you!

@Runner77 welcome! Sounds like you've been through so much already but it's great you have some in the freezer!

@Claricethecat45 Hi. My story - DP and I started TTC nearly 4 years ago. After a year of trying had the usual tests from GP, which is when we found my partner had no sperm and was sent for repeat sample which came back the same. He also has a left varicocele. He was referred to urology on the NHS but was a 9 month wait so we ended going private to Mr Ramsay who confirmed NOA (low testosterone, high FSH, genetics normal and no y-microdeletion). Mr Ramsay prescribed anastrozole. In the meantime I had been referred for IVF, and it was recommended DP go for varicocele embolisation. 3 months after embolisation, sperm had returned to his sample, albeit very small numbers (so he was told to stop anastrozole), we managed to freeze a small amount of sperm in the first couple of weeks. 6 weeks after stopping anastrozole, count was back to zero. He was referred for micro-tese which he had in August and they froze 3 vials on sperm (which was found on his right side, left side is producing nothing). DP is now 8 weeks post micro-tese and we are just awaiting confirmation of funding so that we can proceed with IVF. He has a follow up in December to find out the outcome of the biopsy taken from the left side during the micro-tese surgery.

@Claricethecat45 I’m not sure if this is the way to share it but this is the link to the start of our first thread and @WhiskeyInTheJar33 has been there since the beginning. We’ve been chatting for a long time so you have plenty of reading to do!

@TheFanciestPants sending you all the good vibes and positive thoughts. Be kind to yourself over the next few weeks. Lots of nice plans, good food and rest!

@pomdownunder1 been thinking of you a lot and hoping you’re ok x

Whoops meant to link:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/infertility/4558984-azoospermia-support-stories-and-timelines

and I see @WhiskeyInTheJar33 has already got you up todate So the link is a bit pointless now 😂

Hi everyone, hope you're well. For those who used Dr Ramsay, does anyone have a rough ball park of charges please? I know each case will be different and need different tests etc but was hoping for just a rough estimate so we can be prepared. Thanks x

@2022ttc we saw him February/march 2022 - his consultation fees were around £280, semen analysis, hormone bloods, genetic bloods and y-micro deletion were around £700-800.

@WhiskeyInTheJar33 thank you! Appreciate that. We were just wondering if we should do all those tests from another private clinic ahead of our initial meet with him in December. I think the prices are similar so will go ahead and book, that way we turn up with as much info as possible!

@2022ttc you may as well get as much done as you can before you see him. Mr Ramsey uses a lab not far from his clinic so prices are set my them and not Mr Ramsey himself. He likes at least 3 SA's so I made sure we had these done through DPs GP before we saw him. GP wasn't happy but I quoted the NICE guidelines at him.

Nice to read the positive stories in these threads.

OH has got his appointment with andrology in Jan, and I have a gp appointment next week to get the NHS ISCI funding referral going.

We are attempting to do everything that they will advise us to do now, so that they won't delay treatment. Such as telling us to "try 3 months of this supplement" etc before they do the next step.

Just as a recap, as far as we know, our issue isn't azoo, its retrograde, but for all we know he may have both as his urine sample found no sperm.

We are trying this month to use sudafen before sex, as apparently that can temporarily resolve retrograde. Though, we are just trying more on a whim, we have 0 expectations of it working.

Part of me just wants to get to partake in some element of the normal ttc process, as his retrograde started before we planned to TTC so never had any of the excitement of starting that process - its complete mental gymnastics on my part, as it will be completely useless, it just makes me feel like I'm not 'waiting' if we kind of pretend to ttc for a while 😂

We have started tentatively talk about what happens if the surgery he had messed his fertility up so much to the point that even with surgical sperm retrieval that this won't happen for us. He does not want to discuss sperm doners yet, I do not know if I would want this either. I think he could be convinced, though I think this will be just to appease me.

Currently he feels more comfortable with adoption, though I think I'd rather be child free than adopt. I'm not much of a maternal person, I have a drive to have my own child, but I do not believe I would make a good mother for a child that is not biologically mine. I wish I were that type of person.

I'm currently fixated on having children, but I think it would be helpful for us to have a conversation about what life could look like without. Would we reduce work hours, travel, change careers to something we enjoy rather than prioritise making money, buy a camper van etc. I feel that way that it will lessen some of the blow if it does come to that.

Hi all,
Gosh so much to catch up on!

Hello to all the new people - I'm so sorry you find yourselves here too.

@springflowers2023 I am so happy for you. I know you didn't post on the group for ages but I kept thinking of you and wondering how you got on with the donor route. Your story is so inspiring and if we end up taking the same route I may end up sending you a message with some questions if that's ok.

@OHSSsufferer huge congrats to you too! It's wonderful hearing these positive stories.

@2022ttc where are you seeing Mr Ramsay as he works from a few places. We saw him at the Beaconsfield clinic and I took a picture of the price list and can share if it will help?

I don't have much to update on. We saw Dr Phillipa (she is lovely!). She is happy to go ahead with the synched micro tese and egg collection in January. However we still won't get more answers on our situation until we try ICSI some more. It could be the sperm causing us to not get any day 5 embryos, it could be my eggs. It could be DH has bad quality surgically retrieved sperm due to a varicocele or that may not be effecting it at all. It could be that as well as obstructive azoo, DH has the start of maturation arrest. So many unknowns. All we can do is try again. Dr P wants DH to get an NHS referral on the go for his varicocele so that if our next round of ICSI fails we could explore getting that fixed and then doing a third tese to see if it makes a difference. I think we are happy to try a few more rounds with DHs sperm but It's hard to know when to stop and to draw a line under it and go another route. January will be a big deal for us using fresh sperm and seeing if we get any day 5 blasts.

Hope everyone is hanging in there and I'm sorry if I have missed messages as there's been loads since I last commented xx

Congrats @HR01 too! Sorry I missed your news! X

Can I also ask (something I have never thought of asking before!) how old is everyone's husbands/ parters?
Mine is 39 now and I do worry about the link between age and sperm - as if I don't have enough to worry about!

@lemons44 hello! We are going to the London clinic but the price list might still help please? My husband is 41 and I'm 36 and I have the same worries :(

Of course, Here you go @2022ttc xx

@lemons44 have been thinking of you as haven't heard from you in a while. Glad you've had your appointment and it sounds as though you have some options to explore.

btw my DP is 32.

Thanks @WhiskeyInTheJar33 💗
How are you feeling about things? When do you start your cycle? xx

@lemons44 I'm having good and bad days. Some days I feel like I just want to get on with it. Other days I don't want to go through any of this! And feel soo guilty that DP has gone through so much for me to change my mind! With Christmas approaching too, it's always a reminder of what we are missing out on! I'm just feeling very confused about my emotions!
I'm still waiting to hear back about our funding request! It's been 9 weeks nearly! I emailed my clinic after about 6 weeks for an update and they said they'd let me know when they had a decision, but I don't trust them. DP went for some bloods last Friday to check his testosterone levels after the micro-tese and asked again, they said it was still pending. I contacted the ICB to see when they received my application but they wouldn't tell me and said to check with my clinic next week!

I can soo relate to what you've just said. Some days I feel so tired with it all I think let's just stop all the medical stuff and look into adoption (I've always been very pro adoption). Then other days I have the strongest urge to have a biological child and get pregnant that I literally would sign myself up for another 10 rounds of IVF. I think it's normal to feel confused about it and for your feelings to change.

I remember before our first round I did feel very nervous and I think that's normal. I kept having dreams about injecting myself so deep down I was obviously a bit scared. (By the second round I was just whacking those needles in my stomach 😅). Just be patient with yourself and your emotions. It's a difficult time 💗

Argh that's so annoying about the funding application!! Maybe they are very busy and have not yet got to yours xx