After years TTC without ever seeing a positive, we finally went to a private urologist who confirmed a varicocele which possibly explained our unexplained infertility due to DNA fragmentation (results due in a few weeks).
Sooo frustrating that this could have been fixed years ago... but his GP had dismissed it on multiple occasions — telling us it was just scar tissue. DP even managed to get a referral for an ultrasound last month, but it was rejected.
Anyway, there's some super interesting research about improving DNA fragmentation just by reducing the abstinence window (i.e. ejaculating a few hours before DTD).
According to studies, live birth rates significantly increased (~ over 30%) with 1-3 hours abstinence, compared to 3-7 days.
I think the idea is to ejaculate (outside) and then DTD, so that only fresh better-quality sperm gets the chance to fertilise the egg. Whilst sperm quantity will decrease, presumably it will be of higher quality.
This was the first month we tried this out — we DTD twice in one day, 3 or 4 hours apart, for two days (i.e. the day I saw the positive ovulation test and the day after). Currently 7/8 DPO so will report soon 🙃
If it doesn't work this month, we're aiming to cover more days in the fertile window (we only managed 2 days as ovulation took me by surprise this month as I wasn't really tracking), and not ejaculating inside on the first go.
There's quite a bit of info on Reddit but I haven't found anything here, so I wanted to create a thread and I'll document as much as I can. Feel free to join ❤️