New to the board...

401BeachBum

Hi ladies,

I have been reading posts on this board for a while now, and am now ready to introduce myself.  My name is Kathryn and my husband and I have been TTC for 16 months now.  Last month, we met with my OB and he ordered the first round of testing for both of us.  My progesterone was perfect, as was my thyroid levels, and the HSG test was also clean.  My husband sent in his semen sample and it came back with mixed results.  They are as follows: motility- 60% (of which, 50% were strong, 25% slow and 25% non linear), count was 64.0, and morphologies were 87% abnormal.  This obviously seems to be the problem area.  Apparently my husband has small acrosomes!  I happen to teach high school Biology, so after a very amusing lesson at the kitchen table, and a talk with the doctor, I feel like we are on the same page about everything.  My OB set up an appointment for the hubs to meet with a urologist to go over the test in more detail, and perhaps repeat it.  That appointment is happening next Monday.  The OB said that if the repeated test comes back the same, then we would most likely be pursuing ICSI. 

So we are new to this level of TTC, and to a certain extent, I am happy to be at least doing something!! In a way, it is better than trying month after month and going through the dreaded TWW time after time.  We are both 34, so our OB is very happy to move at a pace that is quicker than for those that may be younger.  Any advice from you ladies who have been where I am would be very much appreciated.  My husband has been really great throughout this whole journey, but I also need people to talk to that understand what I am going through. 

Looking forward to getting to know you more...  Kathryn

GoldenKeys

Welcome to the board!  I have no idea what small acrosomes are, but I'm really glad that you do.   It's great that your RE is willing to be a bit more aggressive, you two have waited long enough!   I'm hoping that your stay here will be short and sweet.

jnissa

(child mentioned) 

I have no advice since we've never dealt with sperm being the issue, but I will tell you that we did ICSI and it can be a little scary when the tell you about the increased chances of "issues." You're a biology teacher though so you'll be able to see that the relative and actual numbers there give you actually very little to worry about compared to natural cycles. Good luck!