A Bright Spot

There has been a bright spot in our reproductive lives recently, but I’ve been so focused on not feeling well that I completely forgot to tell all of you about it. And then the bright spot got even brighter yesterday, on top of which I had a really good day in general. So now that I’ve completely confused you with my gibberish and you’re wondering if I’ve truly, finally gone mad, I will tell you all about it.

First of all, the bright spot from a week and a half ago: R has sperm again!! I try to avoid the overuse of exclamation points, since it is one of my grammatical pet peeves, but this is truly multiple-exclamation-point worthy.

How could I have forgotten to mention the sperm news? I’m not quite sure, but I did. Anyway, thanks to a drug called Arimidex, his counts have gone from practically zero (no exaggeration) to the best they’ve ever been - more than 130 million per ml, with pretty much normal motility and morphology.

Last week, he did another DNA fragmentation test, and we got the results back yesterday. His fragmentation levels went from 68 percent last fall to 27 percent. (Anything below 30 percent is considered normal.) So, YEA!!! We’re going to be traveling to cycle, and we’ve decided it would be best if he freezes the sperm at the clinic where we will cycle rather than freezing it locally. We’re going to be making a quick trip within the next week so he can do that.

Before this latest round of testing, we knew that we had three vials of his sperm that appeared to have normal levels of fragmentation. This news means we should have much more sperm to work with, which means we don’t have to depend on those three vials to build our whole family. The breathing room that gives us is a huge relief.

Given his counts and my age, we could try a couple more IUIs before trying IVF, but I’m not really inclined to spend any more time on that. We would do it at the new clinic, and our new RE, Dr. Fabulous, would put me on a different protocol, but I’m just not in the mood for something that gives us only a 15 to 20 percent chance per try. I want to get this show on the road. Now if only my GI tract would cooperate with that sentiment.

Oh, and before I forget, the counselor yesterday seemed good. It was kind of hard to say for sure, since the entire hour was spent by me trying (as quickly as possible) to recap our three-year journey through Infertility and Adoption Hell, and she mostly listened and didn’t really say a whole lot. But at least I got through it without shedding even a single tear.

Based on the limited comments she did make, she has a clear understanding of infertility and adoption issues. (She even knew the WHO standards for sperm.) And she was very nice. So next week it will be interesting to see what happens when she spends more time talking and I spend more time listening.