My DH is a delivery driver for a spare parts company. So in and out of cars and sometimes he has to pick up large drums of oil. Maybe he can ask his boss if he can be in the office when he returns for a few weeks if need be??
I think that would be a really good idea, then of he feels better he can always go back onto harder duties earlier.
I don't think hubby and I were prepared for the swelling or the amount of pain he was going to go through. Obviously you can tell from my ticker that it's was well worth it!!! I would suggest asking doc to take as much as they can while they ate in there. They only opened up one side on my DH, we got three straws of sperm plus what we used for our fresh cycle even though I'm young and have good eggs, they don't fertilise well so we are hoping the two straws we have left will be enough to complete our family.
DH has already said regardless of the pain and recovery, he would do it all again if he had to.
I had no idea either, i watched a testical biopsy on you tube and it was just a little incision with 2 stitches.
When DH asked his Doctor, the doctor said they need to cut the sack, cut the testical pretty much in half and scoop out the middle of the testical and send it away for testing.
So now i understand why he needs the 2-4 weeks off work.
Fingers crossed there is something in there.
Will keep you all up dated in this post. The site wont let me make a blog???
My DH is booked in for his surgery! I'm feeling very nervous for him, if the results come back negative I don't know how he will react.. I'm also nervous about the surgery in general, fingers crossed we find some baby making stuff!!
Just to let you know, my DH had is biopsy done on Wednesday, he is doing really well, we thought the swelling, bruising and pain would be a lot worse!! The doctor said it doesn't look good, we have an appointment with the doctor next week just to confirm.
He will also probably put us on the wait list for a sperm donor. Does anyone know how long the wait is?
How has it all gone and what decisions did you end up making?
My husband and I have been through the same process. After the azoospermia (no sperm) diagnosis from his semen samples, my husband had the microTESE surgery last year. They told us from the start that our odds of finding any sperm were poor (less than 20%). I did a stimulated IVF cycle and had eggs retrieved at the same time so that if they found a lame sperm or two they would have eggs available to fertilise with ICSI straight away. The microTESE was unsuccessful and they froze my 20 retrieved eggs. Then our real pain began! My husband was utterly broken… and still is 15 months on. He too, really wanted to have children but struggled with the idea of donor sperm. After much agony, ruling out adoption, and me admitting how painful it would be to not have children at all, we decided to do IVF with donor sperm. We have had a lot of counselling and taken our time to get to this point. We put our names on the waitlist at our clinic as soon as donors became a possibility because the list was six months long. I also spoke to other clinics in Sydney – one had no waitlist at all (imports sperm from America) while others require that you BYO donor (which wasn’t an option for us). We stayed and waited at our original clinic because their program seemed good and we trusted them. We have just started IVF using an anonymous donor. Even now, my husband is finding the idea of me pregnant with another man’s sperm very tough. He has really struggled to be involved in the IVF process but will hopefully find things easier when we are able to talk about a baby rather than eggs, sperms and embryos. I have been finding the IVF cycle quite difficult too because I have been doing most of it on my own and my husband has struggled to even deal with the good news along the way. My little joys and successes seem to exacerbate his sadness and make him dwell on his own infertility. We are in the two week wait after our first embryo transfer and I am scheduled for a pregnancy test on Friday 13th. I hope we, and you, have happy times ahead! I would be happy to chat with you anytime if you want to compare notes or vent.
Best wishes!! I hope things work out for you guys whatever you decide! xx
I have spoken to lots of clinics in Sydney over the past year about their sperm donor programs and discovered that:
- IVF Australia has a good donor program - the wait is about 6 months long and then you get a choice of about 20 donors from Australia and the US.
- Fertility First in Hurstville has a good donor program with about 20+ donors constantly available straight away. Most of their donations were imported from the US at the time we looked.
- Genea does not have an anonymous donor program - they require you to find your own known donor.
- Westmead Fertility also does not have an anonymous donor program - they require you to find your own known donor.
I know that different states across Australia have very different laws about sperm donors that affect availability and waiting times.
I noticed that you mentioned one of the donor websites (Free Donors Worldwide) in one of your posts a while back but I think that it is better to go through a proper sperm bank at a clinic unless you want a known donor (like a member of your partner's family or a friend). Sperm donors in Australia are not allowed to be paid anyway so the fees that you pay for a donor at a clinic only cover the costs of the donor's testing, storage of sperm etc - it wasn't very expensive for us at all in the scale of the whole IVF treatment. Sperm banks in Australia are highly regulated and there are a lot of laws in place to protect everybody involved. The donors are tested thoroughly for diseases, the sperm is quarantined for 4 months, then the donor is re-tested to make sure no new diseases have shown up. The donors also provide a lot of info about themselves and medical history of their family. Also, on-the-books donors can only donate to four different women in their lifetime (in NSW - this varies between states) to avoid a situation like in the US where some men end up with hundreds of donor offspring. There are no controls like this on the donors who just advertise themselves to provide sperm and I think it could potentially be a little risky.
Hope this helps a little. Feel free to ask me any questions because I think we are one step ahead of where you guys are at the moment.
Thinking of you! xx
Last edited by DizzyLizzie; September 4th, 2013 at 05:11 PM.
We get our results today. We live on the central coast and are using Gosford ivf Australia. We have decided if the results are negative then we will go on the waiting list for a donor.
When we first did a sperm test 3 or 4 years ago and the results came back negative my husband (then boyfriend) was so upset, he felt useless, less of a man, his Whole life he wanted to be a dad.
Since then he has come to terms with his diagnosis. I suggested we try a sperm and egg donor but he doesn't want me to 'miss out' on having my own biological child. The biopsy he had last week was just a confirmation of what he already knows, of course it would ideal if we found some but if not... Such is life...
My husband knows its going to be a tough road ahead. He also knows a father isn't always the sperms owner, so he is ready to be a dad.
We went to visit his new nephew last night and everyone was asking who the baby looks like. It breaks my heart knowing we won't be able to do that or compare photos etc, but my DH has a good out look and is very supporting.
I hope it all works out for yourself as well, I will log back on and let you know the results this afternoon!
All the things that you are saying sound so familiar. I guess most men with fertility issues probably go through the same difficult process! Glad to hear that you are also with IVF Australia - we are with their Sydney clinic.
Good luck this afternoon!!! I will keep my fingers crossed for you!
It's a no go. Which is what we were expecting. It takes 2 cells to make sperm and my DH is missing 1, this could have been cause by various reasons. Eg a virus or infection. Or something traumatic when he was younger.
We will close this door and move on.
We have registered to be on the donor waiting list. Our doctor said there are only a handful of donors in Australia. So we just have to wait our turn but it could be as early as 3-4 months.
We have chosen to use IUI as the first step. I will have hormone injections to make me ovulate. But first we have to have 2 Counselling sessions.
I didn't know if you fell pregnant with triplets or more they will terminate??
It's all a bit scary really.
I feel for you guys! I remember the day that we got our final confirmation in June last year. Even though we expected it, it was still hard to hear. I think my DH has the same condition as yours – he has Sertoli Cell Only Sydnrome – so is missing one of the types of cells too.
We have found the donor program at IVF Australia good. We were on the waitlist for a full six months but it was worth it. When we got the list of donors in July this year, they had a really good selection (about 15 or 20 in total, mostly Australian donors but also a few imported from the US - although not all of them were suitable for IUI, some were only sufficient quality for ICSI with IVF) and we found one that seemed a perfect match for us. We had to do the counselling through IVF Australia too – it was actually useful.
It sounds like the two of you are dealing with everything really well!! Your young age is definitely in your favour as you start fertility treatments and it is great that your husband has accepted his diagnosis so well and is able to be so supportive of you. I think that going through something so tough sometimes brings couples closer together. We have definitely had our ups and downs through the whole process and my husband still has days when he gets quite down on himself about being “useless, less of a man” but I feel confident that we have happier times ahead.
Lots of cuddles and kind words for your man tonight! Always here for a chat! Hope everything goes well for you!!
Liz xx
Last edited by DizzyLizzie; September 5th, 2013 at 04:52 PM.
We did IVF straight away because we already had eggs frozen from when DH had his surgery last year. We figured that we may as well just keep going down that path and use them up. It was expensive but the process was not that bad at all. The hormone injections and the procedures were all relatively painless. Now I’m just really hoping that my pregnancy looks okay when they do my first scan on 3rd October.
Are you still planning to do IUI? I don’t have firsthand experience of that but it sounds like a good option. I really hope that you don’t have to wait too long for a donor and that it goes well for you when you get started!
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks