The short story... I have PCOS. We realised pretty early on once we started TTC that there was a problem, I've been on metformin since March and I'm now about to start clomid (just waiting for AF to show her face). In all that time I've ovulated for sure once and had a luteal phase of 8 days, so problems galore! When my gynecologist gave the prescription for clomid, he insisted that DH have a semen analysis. We never honestly believed that there would be a problem, but turns out there is. DH has a low count (about 5 million) and poor motility (15%), we weren't given a morphology figure. So turns out we are battling infertility from both sides and now need to find a way to deal with it... I'm repeating the barrage of questions from the buddies thread here in the hope of maybe finding some more answers.


Firstly... what sort of specialist would deal with male infertility? My gyn apparently mentioned to DH the possibility of a testicular varicocele which could be causing the problem and can be corrected surgically. But what sort of doctor would fix that?

Is there a type of specialist that could deal with both his problem and mine? I mean, obviously the gynecologist can do nothing for DH, and someone specialising in problems of the male reproductive system (urologist?) wouldn't be able to do anything for me, but is there someone who can deal with us both, short of going the IVF route?

To do with intercourse timing... I know they say that every second day is best for TTC, but why? With a bad sperm count should we be BDing more often or less often? I thought it would be more often, but when I mentioned this to DH he said it made no sense... that if a male with good sperm needed two days to recharge, then a bloke with bad sperm would need even longer. I thought it may have something to do with getting a decent number of sperm inside... that if a normal healthy male will deposit over 20 million each time, then we need to BD 4 times to get that as many as another couple would get once... If that makes sense? Does anyone know which of us is correct?

How many clomid cycles will someone generally be allowed to do? I'm not ovulating without the clomid, if clomid works and I ovulate, great... but with DH's SA and the news that it will take us longer... will I be allowed to have enough clomid cycles to have "longer"?

I'm wondering whether it would be worth us trying to continue with natural conception (as natural as clomid, acupuncture and everything else can leave it), or just go the whole IUI/IVF thing straight off... really tough decisions to make and I don't know the first place to look for the answers!


I'm really quite sure we need to find a new specialist, but the thought of what type, let alone which one is really quite daunting.

BW