zero sperm, but we found some with biopsy

**tracey2010** · May 16th, 2010, 04:27 PM

Hello, just wanted to say like a lot of others we were told there was little chance as we had no sperm, not even one... but DH went on to have a little operation in hopes he was producing some in his testies or epididymus...... And yes,,, much to the suprise of all, we now have lots of great frozen sperm awaiting our first attempt at IVF... so dont give up, even when they say no, you have no chance. Can share our info with anyone else if others are in the same predicament...

**puffsgirl11** · May 16th, 2010, 05:05 PM

Tracey2010,

We are in the same boat as you. Found out a year ago that we had severe MFI. In DH's first SA they found no sperm and in the second only 4. We start ICSI in late July and DH will have a biopsy straight after my egg collection to see if there are any sperm. All of DH blood tests have been fine and they cannot find any blockages.

Can you give me a bit more info regarding your DH SA?
Did he have bloodtests and does he have any blockages? What is the reason the sperm isn't coming out naturally?

Sorry for all of the questions but we do not know anyone else who's SA have come back so bad yet biopsy has been good.

Good luck with your IVF journey and I hope it is a short one!

**tracey2010** · May 18th, 2010, 09:59 AM

Hi yes happy to share with you, well the bloods that were done showed hormone levels normal for DH, so we then went onto having the biopsy. His sperm analysis both times showed zero, not even one. They could have timed both EPU and his Biopsy the same day, but to be honest, they held little hope to find any sperm at all. The urologist operated and went straight to the epididymus first as thats where the most mature sperm are and thats where he found all great samples.

If he did not find anything there he was then going onto seeking in the testies.. Very hard to determine if he had a blockage as we are talking micro surgery... So my only advice for you is go for the best ones in the epi first as they freeze better as well... If we are unsuccessful with IVF we will inquire into micro surgery but its very intricate...... hope this helps you and keep me informed.... cheers Trace x

**puffsgirl11** · May 18th, 2010, 03:41 PM

Tracey2010,

I was a bit worried when the FS told us that the biopsy would be done on the same day as egg collection. I questioned the FS and he seems to think that he will find some good sperm, so who am i to argue with him? On a letter that he wrote to our referring Doctor he states that there is a 65% chance of finding sperm when doing a biopsy even if no sperm are present during a SA. Our FS doesn't know why sperm are not showing up in SA. I would love to know why, but i suppose i should be happy that they have found any.

Keep us up to date with how you go on your IVF journey.

that you have a baby soon!!!!

**bextaj** · May 26th, 2010, 06:14 PM

Its so reassuring to hear there's some other couples going through the same thing as us.
We have been TTC for 4 years and after much persuading finally DH did a SA to find zero sperm count, twice

DH has since had ultrasound, no blockage found and blood tests which were all good, what came up though was abnormal chromosomes, DH is XYY, but to make it worse his two Y chromosomes somehow got mixed up when he was conceived! We went to see a genetics counsellor before going further down the IVF ICSI track and he told us there is no other case of this happening before so couldn't really tell us what to expect! As you can guess poor DH is very upset and now we are waiting for a biopsy to see if there is any sperm

Anyway, what I wanted to know was after we see our FS next week, how long from that appointment does it take to book a biopsy? I know there is going to be lots of waiting with this whole TTC journey, am so over it already thou!

**tracey2010** · May 27th, 2010, 10:14 AM

If you go through public system it may take a while as its not emergency surgery, we went private as it was the only way to get things moving quickly.. The cost was not all that bad from memory. We are now paying rent on the frozen sperm which we will take out of their pocket money when they are born ha ha... best of luck with it all.... let me know if i can help any further..... it was nearly 12 months from finding no sperm to having some frozen, most of that time was waiting to see urologist and timing things in between my DH work.

**bextaj** · May 27th, 2010, 12:26 PM

Thats a little ray of sunshine, we will be able to go private too so fingers crossed a biopsy can be done in June, DH plans to take a week off work after the surgery as aparently the bruising and swelling is bad

What was your partners experience?
Thanks again for sharing, while everyone around me is very supportive its good to get advice from people who have had to go through this too.

Good luck with you baby making

**tracey2010** · May 27th, 2010, 01:00 PM

Hi and glad to help.... My partner was a little sore, but panadol and 3 days rest seen him feeling quite ok.. he said it was well worth the sore goolies for a few days to have sperm... He was very proud indeed. Frozen bag of peas worked well wrapped in a towel. Its not a nice thought for the guys, but well worth it if it will produce a baby of their own, especially if donor sperm is not an option. He was back to normal within a week for sure, best of luck with it,, hope you find lots a good swimmers to freeze. xx

**belizeli** · June 2nd, 2010, 08:37 AM

Hi Ladies

Im glad to see this post! It gives me a little bit of hope that we may be able to concieve! We have only had our bad news in the last few days, and we have a long journey ahead..DH has bilateral microlithasis and atrophy, basically the doctor described his testes as "dead". As you can imagine, we are struggling a bit right now

So reading things like this makes me teary in a good way! Maybe it is possible

Thank you for sharing this.

**diva det** · June 2nd, 2010, 12:48 PM

bextaj
you said you DH is XXY
this is called Klienfelter's syndrome- one of the commonest genetic and most livable genetic conditions- most men dont know that they have this syndrome until infertility is investigated
just so you know- when we did assisted conception 7 years ago, our clinic had just had success with the birth of a child conceived from a man who had klinefelters and sperm was collected through a biopsy!!
that was 7 years ago so i am sure they have had more success since then. There is plenty of info out there on the web and there are support groups in Australia that your DH can speak to - there are men who are quite happy to talk to him about their experiences!
i hope this info helps and if you want any more- please feel free to say

**Pandora** · June 2nd, 2010, 12:55 PM

Det she said xyy not xxy. They'd be different yeh?

Bextaj, when you say mixed up, did they (drs/specialists) use the term mosaic/ism? Just trying to figure out what you mean.

Xyy is not uncommon and not usually detected unless investigating for another reason

**bextaj** · June 2nd, 2010, 01:53 PM

Hey guys, sorry its taken me a while to get back to you!

My DH is XYY so he has an extra Y chromosome, what is so unique about him is that when he was conceived as an embryo his two Y chromosomes got mixed up, the way I can describe it is the two tops of the Y chromosomes joined together and the two bottoms, I don't think it is called a mosaic, there is no reported incident in the medical journals of this happening before according to our genetics counsellor

I have spent hours searching the net for answers I found something on an experiment with mosquito's which might be similar

but basically its a big unknown if DH has sperm, technically all the dna is there to make it, its just mixed up. Secondly our next worry is if DH does have sperm how it is splitting into X and Y sperm and what will happen when it is joined with one of my eggs using ICSI.
Specialist app is tomoz so hopefully more light will be shed then, until we do a biopsy though we are at a bit of standstill on knowing what our next step in the baby making process is.
Until we do a biopsy DH doesn't want to talk about donor options which is fair enough, everything is crossed for a good biopsy result

**diva det** · June 2nd, 2010, 02:05 PM

oops sorry about that - read it wrong
hope info helps anyway
good luck

**Amy_jellybean** · June 21st, 2010, 10:38 PM

OMG I cant believe I stumbled across this thread....I feel like im reading about my own life.

DH and I have been trying ton conceive for 26 months naturally. After I had all the tests under the sun done, we decided it was time for DH to have some tests done as well. His first sample came back with 0 sperm in it. We thought it was just a dud sample (or so I kept telling myself!) but the second one came back the same.

We went to the FS about 8 weeks ago and she had a 'feel around' and said it was def not a blockage and that she thinks he has a chromosome problem. The tests take 5 weeks to get the results, which wasnt to bad because we were going to Europe for 3 weeks anyway.

So we got back about 3 weeks ago and went back to the FS (5 weeks after the tests had been done) and the results still werent back

Our FS is now on holidays and we go back on 7th July to get the results and have our conselling to start IVF. Im scared but excited/hopefull at the same time. Im so scared that we are going to go through everything and then Ill go in to have the egg retrieval done and they will find nothing in DH for us to use.

They think that he is missing part of the Y chromosome which means he produces no semen or if they can go in and find some and we have a male then we will pass the same problem down t our male offspring.
To make matters worse he works up in the mines, so he does 2 weeks away and work and only 1 week home, so it makes it very hard for us both to talk about it.

Aim xxx

**puffsgirl11** · June 22nd, 2010, 07:45 AM

OMG I cant believe I stumbled across this thread....I feel like im reading about my own life.

DH and I have been trying ton conceive for 26 months naturally. After I had all the tests under the sun done, we decided it was time for DH to have some tests done as well. His first sample came back with 0 sperm in it. We thought it was just a dud sample (or so I kept telling myself!) but the second one came back the same.

We went to the FS about 8 weeks ago and she had a 'feel around' and said it was def not a blockage and that she thinks he has a chromosome problem. The tests take 5 weeks to get the results, which wasnt to bad because we were going to Europe for 3 weeks anyway.

So we got back about 3 weeks ago and went back to the FS (5 weeks after the tests had been done) and the results still werent back

Our FS is now on holidays and we go back on 7th July to get the results and have our conselling to start IVF. Im scared but excited/hopefull at the same time. Im so scared that we are going to go through everything and then Ill go in to have the egg retrieval done and they will find nothing in DH for us to use.

They think that he is missing part of the Y chromosome which means he produces no semen or if they can go in and find some and we have a male then we will pass the same problem down t our male offspring.
To make matters worse he works up in the mines, so he does 2 weeks away and work and only 1 week home, so it makes it very hard for us both to talk about it.

Aim xxx

Aim,

Our story is virtually the same as yours, only we were not actively ttc. When DH told me he wanted a baby i made him have a sa and that's when they found no sperm. He gave up all alcohol for 4 months and his SA came back with 4 sperm.
We start ICSI next month and when i have EPU he will have a biopsy straight after to get my eggs some sperm. I am very worried that they may not find anything, but our FS is very confident that he will, so I can only trust what he tells me.
DH had all of the blood tests as required and they found nothing on them and he has no blockages, so we actually do not have a cause as to why there is no sperm.

Goodluck on your journey and i hope they find some answers for you!

Megan

**tracey2010** · June 22nd, 2010, 12:11 PM

Hi, dont know much about the chromosome thing, but we too were scared that we might find nothing to do IVF with, so hubby had sperm biopsy done and froze what they found. that way I can now safely try to do ivf knowing that we have frozen sperm there waiting. He will only have to do this once, (bit painful) but you can then go onto trying to concieve while he is away at work like my partner does... Fly in fly out for 5 weeks at a time... best of luck with it, at least you guys found out the prob early so lots of positive vibes to you both.. Tell DH he is not alone and not out of the race. If you pass on the chromosome thing to your son,, IVF will be way advanced by the time he wants to have kids too... hope this helps you to go on your journey with positive outcome...

**bextaj** · July 28th, 2010, 01:12 PM

Hi everyone,

Just an update on our journey, Biopsy is booked for the 9th of August, only a week and a bit away and there will be answers! I have been trying to find out what the cost will be as a bit of uncertainty over if our private health will cover the hospital costs given the surgery is not 'necessary'. Tracey could you guys claim on private health for hospital and anethetist? Medicare has given me a rough idea I will get around $500 out of the $1800 surgery costs but thats all I can find out so far.

**Amy_jellybean** · July 28th, 2010, 09:52 PM

Hi Bextaj,

My DH will be going in around the same time as yours. At this stage ours will be the 14th August if all goes to plan with my ivf cycle. Are you doing a cycle of ivf at time same time???

We are with Concept and we have been told to expect about $100 over and above what our private health cover for the anesthitist.