[gumonyershoe]

Hi, I normally post at the PCOS and Plus Sized boards, but after a depressing evening and honestly over a year of knowing that DH has just as much of a fertility issue as I do, I finally decided to come over here and see if any of you ladies have any tips or tricks for me.

I'll do a brief intro. My name is Annaka. I'm 26. DH is Rob, 30. We've been TTC since Dec 2008. I have PCOS and DH has poor sperm (which is why I'm here).

I honestly can't remember DH's numbers as it's been over a year since his last SA. All I remember is that my doctor told me that all of his numbers (count, motility, morphology) were all so low they were practically off the chart low.

DH tells me that he wants to have a baby with me. That it saddens him that he can't give me the baby I want and if I had married someone else I'd probably have a baby by now yada yada yada. Yet, everything I have researched on my own to help him (supplements, losing weight, etc) he says he's OK with or agrees with, yet never follows through. He was doing really well for a couple of weeks taking the vitamins (1 geritol, 1 calcium/zinc/magnesium combination pill, and 1 garlic (a friend of his told him garlic is supposed to help with male infertility, but I haven't found anything to support that on my own)), but the last couple of weeks the only times he takes them are the days I bug him about it (I know because I put them in a daily pill reminder container that magnets to the fridge so it's right there in his face every day.) And weight loss... well... yeah. He's a gamer and doesn't move around much and I can't make him do anything or eat better since he does the cooking.

I don't want to be a nag and bug him about it constantly, but it also looks like he's not one to do anything unless I nag him about it (cleaning up after himself, taking out the trash/other chores, etc)

I guess I have two questions. 1) What, if anything, do your men do/take/etc to help with their counts etc? 2) Do you have any suggestions for me other than nagging?

As far as what doctors have told us, the local doctors have said between our two issues there isn't anything they can do for us. We'd have to go to a reproductive specialist over an hour away if we want any further medical assistance and DH has already said that's a no go.

Thanks for listening and any help you can suggest.

[wishfulgal]

I'm sorry you have to deal with infertility, it is so hard to go through.


My DH and I have a 2-year-old son who we conceived within 6 months...we had no idea we had any major fertitlity issue since we conceived without too much trouble. We found out while TTC #2 that my DH had a VERY low sperm count (his worst was 1.3 million/ml with 36% motility. Really bad, his urologist couldn't believe he had fathered a child). He has been taking tons of supplements ever since, and he also had a varicocele repair surgery in September. His SA in December had improved quite a bit to 12 million/ml with 50% motility and the total count was actually in the normal range.
I'm not sure how to encourage your DH to take his supplements. I do have to remind my DH to take his ( I also have pill reminder boxes) and he takes a TON (like 15 pills a day) of vitamins and supplements. When we found out about his severly low sperm count, DH said he would do anything to have anything to have another child and I remind him of that when he complains about taking his vitamins . Has your DH seen a urologist to diagnose the cause of his infertility? There are things that can be done to help, and maybe it would convince your DH that there are lifestyle changes he can make to improve things.

Good luck!

[gumonyershoe]

Sorry I made this post then dropped off the face of the internet for nearly a month!

DH has not been to a urologist because he's afraid of getting a shot. *rolls eyes* I asked him "Why do you think they'll give you a shot? What could giving you a shot possibly do?" and he says he doesn't know, but doctors always like to give shots. He's deathly afraid of needles.

He has been doing some better with the pills. He flipped out (slightly) when I moved his pill container (moved it in front of the Keurig coffee machine so that when he went to make his teas he would see it. But he went to take his pills and couldn't find it.) So now I don't move it and he does a pretty good job for the most part of taking them (he doesn't take many at all and when I sent him a bunch of websites with suggestions he never responded to me)

Since your DH went to a urologist, what kinds of things did they do?

[sarha81]

There's no needles at the urologist, except they might send him for blood work. If I were you, I'd be throwing fits, but that's not good advice. It sounds like you should make that hour drive without him, and work on you, to try to get you into the best babymaking state possible. Also, make sure he understands how you feel, and listen to how he feels. Open up communication. Try to get him to feel comfortable telling you how he really feels. However, sometimes actions speak louder than words.

[gumonyershoe]

I guess since I've never been to the specialist I don't know what they could possibly do with just me, since I'm only half the problem. But we decided a long time ago that if it was going to be a lot of money that only gave us a "50/50 chance" we weren't going to do it. So with work schedules and going that far to a specialist, it's probably not going to be feasible monitarily at this time.

I do have good news though, I just voluntarily bought some of the supplements I read about and put them in his pill container and he's actually been pretty good about taking them lately.

I had a little crying spat about a lot of things, some of it TTC related, so he's been better. And I'm getting ready to go on vacation without him (already decided I would set his pills out but hadn't told him) and he came to me and said with a little bit of a panic "Will you set my pills out? I don't know what I'm supposed to take!" so I'm encouraged that he plans on taking the pills while I'm gone.

Thanks again for the responses.