December 21st, 2012, 01:17 PM
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Mega Super Mommy
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,692
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I used to be an active member of this board a few years ago, but then it got really slow and I kind of quit coming around. I always thought I would stop back and share my story if we ever got our miracle, and well, I just haven't got around to doing that until now 
DH and I always wanted a house full of kids. We conceived DS #1 fairly easily. It took about six months and seven cycles, but some of that time was more NTNP. We were ready to have another baby right away, and we started TTC #2 as soon as I quit breastfeeding and got AF back. DS#1 was 10 months old and it was Nov.'09. I had read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and was hopeful that it would have more quickly this time since I was more "informed" When seven months passed with no success, even though we'd been "trying harder" this time around...I just had a bad feeling. My doctor recommended getting DH checked first, but I was sure he'd be fine. Wrong. His first SA came back 1.3 million/ml with 36% motility, and the grade of motility was poor. His sperm were mostly wiggling rather than moving forward. Low morphology too. His second SA was slightly better with 3.2 million/ml and 36% motility, but still really, really bad. We were pretty much told that they couldn't believe we'd conceived naturally before, and as things were now (just 2 years after conceiving our son), IVF was really our only option. He didn't even have enough sperm to try IUI. To say we were devastated would be a complete understatement.
We were referred to a urologist, who referred us to another urologist and DH ended up having varicocele surgery in Sept. 2010. He was also on a major vitamin regimine, which I kept tweaking but I'll post the gist of it at the end. We conceived almost exactly 3 months after the surgery, which is how long it is supposed to take to work. That was cycle #13. A SA right before I conceived showed his sperm count had improved to 12.8 million/ml with 50% motility. Our joy was short lived when I miscarried at 5 weeks . Shortly afterwards we found out I might possibly have diminished ovarian reserve (I was only 26!)
His 6 month post-op SA was about the same as the first one, and our doctors recommended IUI. We tried 3 IUIs with no success. We finally started the adoption process, knowing that having another child was something we both wanted no matter what. The financial burden of adoption was very stressful for us to consider, though. We said we would keep TTC until the one-year anniversary of my m/c but not really expect anything to happen. I ended up conceiving naturally again against all odds, almost a year to the date of when we'd conceived our angel baby. That little miracle is 3-months old and taking a nap upstairs right now
It took us over 2 years to conceive our second child, but it was so worth the wait. I can't tell you how many times we were told it was unlikely, and that it was likely I would miscarry again due to my diminished ovarian reserve. While I truly believe God answered our prayers, I do think some things we tried helped. I read a book called "Making Babies" which recommended doing a baking soda douche (SOOO TMI) to help make things more sperm friendly. I did do that the month we conceived. I also did soy isoflavones (google it for tons of info) and used preseed, but we had tried both of those things multiple times before. And I had increased some of DH's vitmamins six months earlier and at his last SA, the quality/speed of his sperm motility had improved a lot. But the highest his sperm count ever was on a SA was 12.8 million/ml...so it was still low after all that and when we conceived.
This is what I can remember of his vitamin regimine :
L-argininine: 4 grams (this is really important and proven by studies to improve motility if taken in this dose)
L-carnitine (4 grams) (also proven by studies)
Acetyl L-carnitine (1 gram)
Vitamin C (2000 mg)
A good multivitamin (with at least 400 mg folic acid)
Vitamin E (400mg)
L-Lysine (500mg) (improves volume of semen and therefore the overall count)
Anyway, I hope this gives someone hope. Doctors can be VERY negative when it comes to MFI. I really think it's possible (obviously) to conceive with a low count if you can get the motility up with supplements and lifestyle changes. We will try again. I don't know if we will be blessed with another child, but I do know it is worth trying.
Last edited by wishfulgal; December 21st, 2012 at 01:21 PM.
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