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

@2022ttc That's great news. Ramsay is such a nice man!

Update we now have 12 grade A embryos in the freezer 6 of which have been PGTA tested and waiting on results for. We have no idea how this happened given our previous results but the sperm must have been a factor because we didn't change anything else.

There was no obstruction on my partners scans either but Ramsay found it during surgery so I'm not sure you can rule out OA

@Bran90 that's awesome!! Such a big difference from your first round too.

So we have the mtese booked in for tomorrow....my partner is feeling really anxious, particularly about the general anaesthetic. He's never had any kind of surgery before. Does anyone have any tips or could share their partners experience going through this?

@Magix86 , hope that the procedure went ok and that your partner is recovering well. Wishing you both all the best!

@sackofpotatoes123 just wanted to send a quick message to let you know I am praying hard for you. I can imagine the wait for the results of the FNA mapping must be really stressful - hope you're both ok x

@2022ttc thank you. I hope things are going well for you. Unfortunately it wasn't good news today. They didn't find any sperm after 1.5 hours of looking. We will be going ahead with donor sperm now but need our clinic to do another funding application and will then have to see if the ICB decides to approve funding for IUI or IVF. We'll also need counselling before any treatment.
I've no idea how long it's all going to take, or what the best scenario would be (between IUI or IVF)

They did do my AMH today though and that's 16.9 which has put my mind at ease slightly!!

@Magix86 Hope your partner is recovering after his procedure and good luck with your donor journey!

Hey everyone, I umm'ed and ahh'ed about updating on my husband's sperm retrieval just as I did not want to add additional anxiety to an already nervy time, but, we were very unlucky and this definitely isn't the norm, but ours wasn't great, he ended up with a few weeks off work, in and out of surgery, IV antibiotics, a week in hospital and almost losing his testicles - but, we seem to be out of the woods now (testicles in-tact), and for the positives - the actual retrieval was successful!

We are just waiting for a date to start now; we are thinking its December or January but will find out next week.

@Magix86 I'm sorry it did not go to plan; however, you seem very proactive about the next steps. Hopefully, you can get over all the faffy paperwork steps quickly and get to the next step.

@Bran90 any updates on the embryos?

Ohh @wateringcanface I'm so sorry to hear that!! Sounds awful. But hopefully he is on the mend now and recovering. And so so pleased the retrieval was successful for you!!

@Magix86 so sorry to hear that but I'm glad you have next steps in place, I hope it all goes well x

@wateringcanface that sounds awful!! Can I ask where he has his procedure and who with? I know there's a small chance these things can happen but that sounds sooo awful I will defo not be mentioning this to my OH. I hope he's feeling better now and amazing that they found sperm!! Wish you all the best x

@Magix86 sorry to hear that the mtese was not successful, but good that you had a plan!
In our case, we were lucky to get an appointment with the fertility clinic in our hospital one week after our failed mtese and they have referred us to the clinic where we will have IVF. The clinic hasnt contacted us yet, but in parallel we are currently looking for the donor and hope to be able to make a decision soon🤞
I asked them about IUI as well but in my case they didnt recommend it.
They didnt tell us about any ICB approval required to proceed with the treatment, so I hope the process is different in my area and we dont get any surprises!

@wateringcanface omg so sorry to hear what you went through! Hope your husband is feeling better. But on the positive side its amazing news that mtese was successful!

@Blue234 thank you. That sounds brilliant for you that you've been seen so soon afterwards. Do u mind me asking how you've been able to look for donors if the IVF clinic haven't contacted you yet? Are you private or nhs? I'm in the dark about all of this so trying to learn as much as I can. Have they explained why they didn't advise IUI and went straight to IVF? Please don't answer if you don't want to.
We had tentatively booked in 9th October with the local fertility clinic as a follow up after the mtese but now hoping they can bring it forward if it's just to refer us back to the other clinic for treatment now.

Thanks guys. Honestly no need to be sorry, after everything we have been through this felt like nothing more than an inconvenience 😂

@2022ttc I will message you the hospital in private, but it was not a reflection of the surgeon, it's just that the wound got infected afterwards. It was preventable though, he left it very late to express concern that it was not healing properly, and had fever, chills, extreme swelling, and sickness for days a week later and kept saying "I'm sure this is normal" 🙄, so my advice is if anything does not seem right, to not ignore it. A simple course of anti-biotics several days sooner would have likely solved the issue.

@Magix86 no problem at all :) We have had mtese with NHS and now that it has failed, we are eligible for one NHS funded IVF cycle using donor sperm. However, we need to purchase the donor sperm ourselves.
Our hospital doesnt do IVF treatments, so they referred us to a private one (we could choose between 4 clinics).
When the clinic call us, we will need to go through implications councelling (as you mentioned), purchase the sperm and once they receive the straws, we will be able to start our IVF journey.
However, given that we are sure that we are not changing our mind about using a donor, we have decided to look for a donor before having the implications councelling. Also we are doing this as we want to do genetic matching test with the donor and results take up to 6 weeks, so we are hoping to speed up things if we manage to find the right donor soon.

What I have done is to contact the private clinic we have been referred to and ask for which sperm bank they work with. And we are currently looking at all the options available on those banks.

Regarding IUI, they told me that chances with IUI are quite low and it most likely would require several cycles. Also with IVF hopefully we could get more than one embryo, that they would freeze for free and we could transfer later on from our pocket. So they really encourage me to go via IVF.

Also my AMH is slightly lower than average for my age (which concerns me a lot) and they already told me I most likely will require high stimulation for IVF. If this wasnt the case and also if I was a bit younger, I would have been keen to give IUI a try (given that it is less invasive) and if it didnt work, then try IVF instead. But I am not going this route cause I am worried my AMH gets lower and if I need to try IVF later stimulation might be tricky.

Hope that helps! Please don't worry about asking! Also I am try to learn as much as possible to try to speed up things

Hi everyone! Hope you are all doing ok.

@Magix86 sorry to hear the MTese failed. We had ours yesterday too and had the same outcome.

It's really sad and such an unfair journey. However, I think we've been grieving the situation for a while now and we're braced for the outcome. We sort of knew what was coming.

We will also be progressing with donor as well. We have a follow up appointment at our clinic next Tuesday to discuss next steps but I've already been in touch to book the implications counselling and have been in discussions with them about donor sperm. We will be sending them the donors we are interested in so they can do some checks. However, they advised we could go ahead and order it now if we have found one we like. Lots to think about!!!

@StarJasmine93 sorry to hear you also had the same outcome :( as you said its such an unfair journey but good that we were "prepared" for this...Hope your husband is feeling ok and recovers soon!🤗
Hope you manage to find a donor soon. We are also on it! We have already shortlisted some but lets see! Its such a tricky decision.

Thanks @Blue234 !

We just think that this must be what was always meant to happen with us and it's just a different path to parenthood. In the grand scheme of things, genetics aren't the most important thing. Sure, it's nice to pass these to your children and be linked in that way but coming from a blended family myself, being bloody related doesn't matter.

Yes picking a donor is an absolute minefield!! I had some good advice from a few fellow azoo warriors on this chat that really helped us when doing our search.

It sounds like we are in a very similar place in our journey along with @Magix86. Let's keep each other updated in how we navigate this next phase 💪. We got this!!

Thanks @Blue234 thats all really helpful. It sounds very similar to us, apart from having to purchase the donor sperm. I was thinking the same about going for ivf rather than iui - the chance to hopefully have some embryos to freeze for a later round. I'm hoping that's what they offer with the funding, but if they only offer iui then we might just have to go privately, which is a shame when we've got this far with the nhs so far!

@StarJasmine93 I'm so sorry your mtese wasn't successful either 😔 but also pleased to hear how quickly you're moving ahead with things - I'm actually amazed you have your follow up so soon! Are you also going via nhs? We also had a lot of time to process things while waiting for the surgery so it helped to know what we wanted if it got to this point.

Definitely let's all stay in touch and help each other through it, especially as our stories and timelines are so similar. It's so nice to have other people know what you're going through. I actually haven't told anyone in my family about this at all.

@StarJasmine93 @Magix86 actually I was just thinking, do you think it would be a good idea to create another thread for those of us who are going via the sperm donor route? I am so grateful for this thread and I will definitely stay active on it. But I was wondering if we would need a separate dedicated one for our own path.
Please let me know your thoughts :)

@Blue234 I think that sounds great! I also will stay active on this thread too but would be helpful to have one for the donor route. Thanks for suggesting this

@Magix86 yes so our process sounds like it's been a little different....

We were made to apply for funding at the beginning of the year for IVF/ICSI which also covers treatment with the use of donor gametes. We needed this in place before we could be referred to andrology via NHS and get booked in for MTese and other male related investigations. So we've had funding in place for 6 months now I think.

When the MTese got booked in, they also booked us in for our follow up appointment with the assisted conception unit where we are registered.

I'd say this is the only part of our journey where I've been impressed with timings 😅.

@Blue234 yes happy for you to start a new thread specific for donor route so that we don't crowd this thread.

@Magix86 @StarJasmine93 so glad to hear that you are also keen on this thread :) I have just created it.
I know there is more people in the azo thread that are also going via or considering donor route. So please feel free to watch and contribute to the new thread -> Azoospermia - Donor Route Support | Mumsnet

@everyone, hope you're all well. Feel a bit down this week. It's been a year since our initial diagnosis and I keep remembering how that initial few days felt and also keep thinking how has one year passed and we are no closer to the end of this journey 😞

Hang in there @2022ttc you are not alone!

@2022ttc I don't have any great words of wisdom to be honest. Just know that you are not alone in this and you have us here for support! It's such a crappy diagnosis and such a long process to feel like you're making any progress at all. Are you waiting for more follow up with dr ramsay? Maybe try and do something nice with your OH to try and distract from all the waiting. Me and my OH realised the other day how much all this has taken out of us, we've kind of lost ourselves along the way. Sending hugs x

Thanks @Bran90 @Magix86.. it's one of those weeks. Know what you mean about losing yourselves in this process, it's hard not to though. Hope you're well x