5/12/08 - Scott's SA Results

Our baby journey took a pretty harsh turn today. We got Scott's sperm analysis results back, and they are borderline infertile/subfertile.

The good news...

Volume: 2.2 ml (normal is > 2.0 ml)
Concentration: 57 million/ml (normal is > 20 million)
Motility (forward/good movement): 60% day of SA/80% day after SA (normal is > 50%)
This is good - it was up from 40% in 2005

The bad news...

Kruger Morphology: 5%
Normal: > 14%
Subfertile: 5% - 9%
Infertile: < 5%

Kruger morphology refers to the "normal" shape of the sperm using very strict criteria. Those that are not normal will have an impaired ability to reach the sperm and fertilize an egg. So only 5% of Scott's sperm are able to fertilize the egg. On top of that, only 21% of the sperm made it through the night alive, so she says they probably aren't living long in me.

This doesn't mean that we can't have our own baby, but it means that IUI is not likely to work, and that we will probably have to do IVF with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) - which means they will insert one sperm in each of my mature eggs with a needled and watch for it to fertilize, rather than put the egg and sperm in a petrie dish and let them do their thing on their own, before them implant them in me.

We're pretty devastated tonight. I've been crying for hours.

But I've pulled myself together, and I'm trying to be thankful that we still have the parts that we need, and that we are only facing 1 infertility factor provided that my tubes appear clear in my HSG this weekend. Neither of us are infertile at this point. And morphology can be improved - so immediately Scott is off caffeine (except 1 morning cup of java) and alcohol, and he'll be taking two kinds of vitamins a day.

Dr. Hinckley wants to move forward with our May IUI as planned. I'm trying not to lose hope. After all, people DO get preggers - even on their own without medical intervention - with 5% morphology.

So that's where we are this evening. God, how I wish we knew this four years ago.