I naively assumed that since my husband and I were both young and healthy, we would get pregnant quickly. In 2011, after we celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we decided we were ready to start trying. Several months after we had “pulled the goalie”, we had not had any luck.

I picked up a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility and began charting. In January 2012 I brought up the fact that we were TTC at my annual well woman exam, and my gynecologist ordered some tests for my husband and me. I had my blood drawn on cycle day 3 to check my hormones at my doctor’s office, while he took his referral to a fertility clinic for a semen analysis. About a week later, my husband got the news that he had male factor infertility.

M A L E  F A C T O R  I N F E R T I L I T Y

I think most people associate infertility with problems with the woman’s reproductive system, but 30% of couples with infertility are dealing with it on the man’s side. My husband’s specific issues were a low sperm count, low motility (the movement of the sperm), and low morphology (the shape of the sperm). The majority of his sperm moved around in circles and were misshapen. We were stunned. We never imagined that we would deal with infertility. What I remember most about the first weeks after my husband’s diagnosis is a lot of tears from us both, anger, and finally a determination to find a way to get pregnant.

The first doctor we saw was an urologist. After a couple of visits my husband was diagnosed with a varicocele: an enlarged blood vessel in the scrotum. Blood is not able to flow properly and that causes the testicles to overheat, which can negatively effect sperm production. During varicocele surgery, a urologist seals off the affected veins and redirects blood flow into the normal-shaped veins. For my husband, it was an outpatient procedure. He checked in at the hospital at 7 am and we were heading home by 3.

Several months later we had a follow up and there was no change. The varicocele was repaired and his sperm count had improved, but his motility and morphology numbers were the same.

ADVERTISEMENT

I U I

The urologist’s office had an intrauterine insemination program, so we decided to give that a try. I used an ovulation predictor kit at home to monitor my cycles. When I got a positive test I called the nurse to schedule an insemination for the next day. My husband and I both had to be present for the procedure. He provided a sperm sample and then we waited while it was processed in the lab. Then the sample was transferred into my uterus with a catheter. The IUI process was pretty painless and inexpensive, so when it did not work the first month we were not too upset. After the second IUI and second negative pregnancy test a couple of months later, we got discouraged and were ready to see another type of doctor.

I V F

By then it was time for my 2013 well woman exam. At that appointment my gynecologist referred us to a reproductive endocrinologist. We started seeing her in January 2013. She ran several tests on both of us including a karyotype, the number and visual appearance of your chromosomes. That was when we found the root cause of my husband’s infertility: a Robertsonian translocation, which is a rare chromosomal rearrangement where the long arm of chromosome 21 fuses with the long arm of chromosome 14.

We scheduled an appointment to speak with a geneticist. After speaking with the geneticist, we knew we needed to decide between IVF and adoption. Neither of us were ready to give up on the idea of a biological child, so IVF it was. We discussed preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) with the geneticist and our RE. That is when one cell is taken from an embryo and tested for genetic disorders before it is implanted into the uterus. The geneticist told us about a recent study of male patients with translocations that found the sperm that carried the translocation were mostly misshapen. We also found out that the closest laboratory that did PGD on embryos was several states away. Our RE told us that ⅙ of our embryos should be genetically ok. After considering all of that information along with the cost of PGD and the fact that we started with 10 embryos, we decided against it.


This is a chart similar to the one the geneticist used to explain translocations to us.

In August 2013 we started a fresh IVF cycle. After being on the birth control pill for a month, I started the Lupron shot to quiet my ovaries. A couple of weeks after starting Lupron I added a second shot to my daily routine, a combination of Bravelle and Menopur to stimulate my ovaries. The Menopur burned like crazy, and pretty soon I had a stomach covered in bruises. Throughout the process, I stayed pretty upbeat. I was convinced IVF would work for us. So was my husband.

A couple of days before the egg retrieval, I started to get very uncomfortable. My back throbbed constantly because of how large my ovaries were with all of the follicles I was growing. I was in a pretty irritable mood the day before retrieval. My RE wound up retrieving 13 eggs, 10 were fertilized, and we had 6 on day 5. Two were transferred back in and 4 were frozen. Ten days after transfer I went to my doctor for a blood test. The nurse called and told me my HCG level was a zero. I wasn’t pregnant.

4 months later in December we did a frozen embryo transfer cycle that was also unsuccessful. At that point we had two frozen embryos left. I needed a couple of months off from treatments for my mental and physical health. In May, 5 months later, I was ready and we transferred our last two frozen embryos. It worked. I was pregnant.

Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. My first beta (the blood test that checks HCG levels) was a 44. Three days later it had dropped to a 12. My husband and I were devastated. When I got the news I was at work. I practically ran out of my office and once I got into my car and started driving home, I began to sob. My husband came home early from work and we spent the next couple of days together watching movies, talking about how unfair life is and what could have been. The time together helped us cope and then accept our situation. The day I was to be 5 weeks I started bleeding. Physically it was not worse than a normal period, but it was much harder emotionally. About a month later we were ready to move on and think about the next steps.

To be continued…

Why We Chose Embryo Adoption part 1 of 3

1. Why We Chose Embryo Adoption - Part 1 by Mrs. Pickle
2. Why We Chose Embryo Adoption - Part 2 by Mrs. Pickle
3. The Different Ways You Can Adopt Embryos by Mrs. Pickle