Our Journey with Ogliospermia

This is long, but worth a read - my husband sure knows how to make some of the hardest months of our lives humorous. Hopefully I’ll be back to share a positive test soon! 🤞🏼 He details everything he has done to improve his count for everyone out there struggling with a low sperm count. You’re never alone ❤️

“Hi friends.

I have been lurking TFAB since the second half of 2016, when my wife and I started trying to conceive. I have learned a lot by reading what you all are going through and frankly, I ended up getting a pretty sophisticated (at least I think so) understanding of the female reproductive system, despite not having one myself. I am 30 and my wife is 29. We started trying to conceive at 28 and 27 years old, respectively.

Anyway, I decided to come on and post to add a data point for some of the folks like me who felt pretty despairing with male factor infertility. When the wife and I hit 11 months of negative tests, we made an appointment with a RE. This led to me getting a semen analysis and my wife getting a couple blood tests (she hates needles) and a hysterosonogram (she REALLY hates saline infusions in her uterus). All of her tests came back normal.

My blood tests came back normal, with a slight imbalance in the testosterone:estradiol ratio. It wasn't that bad, but it was off a bit. My semen analysis, however, was very disheartening. I had total of 3 million sperm. Only 1.6 million were motile. My counts were so low, that the lab couldn't collect the morphology. For what small amount of sperm I did have, the motility % seemed okay. While disheartening, I did have one monumental blunder of mine that did, in fact, leave me with a great deal of hope. You see, I had to produce a sample in what can best be described as a roomy closet, that was somehow sterile and gross. It was across the hall from the office window and I did not want to sit anywhere or touch anything. In that moment of deep discomfort I "missed the mark". Or rather, as my urologist would later term it "missed the cup on his 'first squirt' but got the rest in". Anyway, my mistake gave me hope. Cruel, unremitting hope.

After some research, I discovered that most motile sperm rush to the front lines to best commence their fallopian siege. That means, so thought I, that I killed off a huge portion of my troops. My urologist seemed to hold a bit of my failure induced hope as well.

Sample 2: One month later I gave another sample in the clinic. I did not miss. And even with all that, hanging my hope on this thread, my sperm count actually decreased. I went to 2 million total sperm. I did not even have 1 million motile sperm. We were devastated. We had follow up appointments with the RE and urologist. We go to all of these appointments together. We were fighting back tears for both of them. To add insult to injury, I have had two rectal exams in these urologist office visits to check for prostate issues. One of which was teaching an intern meaning two people were feeling an prodding me. This is not relevant, just an annoying asside. My wife contends that the hysterosonogram is significantly worse than my exam. She's probably correct.

Both the RE and urologist said that most likely, our only hope was to try IVF as I would not produce enough sperm for IUI to be cost effective and that natural conception would only occur under an incredibly rare circumstance, if not technically impossible. That was so hard for us to hear.

We explained that we would not consider IVF as an option. After that was clear, my urologist said he would try to help balance out my testosterone and estradiol. He did not sound very hopeful that it would yield much of a change. Our RE basically thought we were out of options and kind of left us with a good luck, you'll probably never conceive.

Health wise, we are both overweight, not morbidly obese, but we are not being contacted with modeling offers by any stretch of the imagination. We decided to diet (I swear we really did try). I had quit cigarettes in 2016 when we got married, but I would use other forms of tobacco - namely pipe tobacco - somewhat regularly. After 2 back to back failures, I decided to quit all tobacco completely. I would also cut back on caffeine and alcohol (I swear I really did try).

In the meantime, we continued to focus on starting a family, under the belief that it will probably never happen naturally. We started the path to adoption, which, apparently, is incredibly expensive. We have started to save money for adoption costs. Regardless of what happens with us biologically, we may still adopt or foster. There are far more families who want to adopt than there are children needing adoption, so we don't want to take that joy from someone else and there isn't necessarily a huge urgency for open homes.

I was prescribed Anastrazole to help balance my hormones. Desperate for any help, I also started taking CoQ10, Vitamin C, a Multivitamin, Zinc, and Ashwagandha. I also had read that BPA and phthalates could lead to male infertility, so I started buying all natural organic soap, shampoo, deodorant, fruit, and vegetables. I also had tests for microdeletions and some other genetic issues. Those tests seem to take an eternity to result. When they finally came in, I was cleared of genetic issues. Phew.

I started my pill cocktails back in August or September. I had another blood test for testosterone and estradiol in December. The ratio improved to where it should be. Even though that's good news, I knew that my initial results wasn't actually that bad, so I didn't think much of it. I continued to try to cut back on alcohol and caffeine, to work out, to strategically light prayer candles when the opportunity presented itself. I also switched to boxer briefs and sleeping without any bottoms. I do try to stand up from my desk more often as well.

My last SA was the beginning of this month. This time it worked out that I could provide my sample at home and take my specimen in on my way to work. My wife tried her darnedest to get me 'worked up' (I swear she really did try). After we laughed at the silliness of that, she left me to my own devices and I was ready to hit the road. I am nothing if not efficient.

Sample 3: With the lowest of expectations I woke up one morning and saw that my results were available in the patient portal. I sighed and looked at it. I read through my latest results calmly. My wife rolled over and asked what I was looking at. I told her my latest SA was resulted. She asked what the results were in a flat way, anticipating nothing, hoping for nothing, resigned to be supportive and help me through another round of disappointment. "Well" I said "my first result was 3 million total sperm, my second result was 2 million, and my third result says I have 120 million sperm".

It took a while for the news to sink in, but some combination of low dose prescription medication, vitamins, some Indian plant extract the effects of which I am still uncertain, personal health changes, strategic prayer, and riding the extremes of this emotional roller coaster, we were able to get good news. My motility rate was high, my first morphology result looked good, and my count went way up.

While not pregnant (so far as we know), this feels like we reset the game and we can do the things that we used to find exciting, like tracking on Ovia and FertilityFriend (I even have that little FF certificate you get when you answer all those quizzes), reading through the posts on TFAB, and Googling pregnancy symptoms and hitting confirmation bias in overdrive.

Thank you all for what you do, and keep on keeping on.

TL:DR Me had bad SA, then another worse SA, then me had great SA. Keep your stick on the ice, we're all in this together.”