Post by innocencelost on Mar 6, 2007 19:26:36 GMT -5
As most of you know, my RE (reproductive endocrinologist, AKA fertility dr) in California continually blamed my age for our infertility problems and thought perhaps by drugging my aged ovaries up, we could get pregnant.
In addition to undergoing months of treatment (with a higher risk of cancer due to overstimulating the ovaries) and wasting 2 years of our lives, we just received some weird news yesterday. It's not *that bad* because we're already in treatment. Had it happened while we were still in CA without the means to overcome it, heads would've rolled.
The fertility clinic we're now using (William G. Bennett Fertility - Dr. Kallenberger in OKC) does a much more advanced semen analysis than Kaiser ever did. Kaiser continued to tell both of us that Greg was a "semen demon" and to "keep practicing" <wink wink>. Yesterday we discovered that yes, he does have LOTS of little swimmers, but 97% of them are ABNORMAL in shape. My age doesn't help our problems, but having more than 95% ( more than this # means sub-fertility) of your sperm malformed is probably the greater issue and we had little chance of success with the less invasive procedures we were doing in CA. I'm just glad we didn't sink any MORE money into it.
This issue is serious enough that in addition to the IVF, we have to do an additional step called ICSI. Normally the eggs and sperm are left alone in the petri dish to do their hookup. When most of the sperm collected are duds, the dr takes GOOD sperm and actually injects it into the egg. This is also cool because as a woman ages, the outside of the egg can become harder for the sperm to penetrate, so hopefully this ICSI process will overcome 2 potential problems.
Wow, after nearly 2 years we perhaps have a definitive answer and can move forward accordingly. I had my first ultrasound yesterday to check for how many potential eggs I might have and Dr. Kallenberger said that it looked good.
In addition to undergoing months of treatment (with a higher risk of cancer due to overstimulating the ovaries) and wasting 2 years of our lives, we just received some weird news yesterday. It's not *that bad* because we're already in treatment. Had it happened while we were still in CA without the means to overcome it, heads would've rolled.
The fertility clinic we're now using (William G. Bennett Fertility - Dr. Kallenberger in OKC) does a much more advanced semen analysis than Kaiser ever did. Kaiser continued to tell both of us that Greg was a "semen demon" and to "keep practicing" <wink wink>. Yesterday we discovered that yes, he does have LOTS of little swimmers, but 97% of them are ABNORMAL in shape. My age doesn't help our problems, but having more than 95% ( more than this # means sub-fertility) of your sperm malformed is probably the greater issue and we had little chance of success with the less invasive procedures we were doing in CA. I'm just glad we didn't sink any MORE money into it.
This issue is serious enough that in addition to the IVF, we have to do an additional step called ICSI. Normally the eggs and sperm are left alone in the petri dish to do their hookup. When most of the sperm collected are duds, the dr takes GOOD sperm and actually injects it into the egg. This is also cool because as a woman ages, the outside of the egg can become harder for the sperm to penetrate, so hopefully this ICSI process will overcome 2 potential problems.
Wow, after nearly 2 years we perhaps have a definitive answer and can move forward accordingly. I had my first ultrasound yesterday to check for how many potential eggs I might have and Dr. Kallenberger said that it looked good.