Newbie, looking for help with MFI/donor sperm

hopefulmama11

Hi, I am a new poster but have been reading posts on here for a while for much needed support/guidance. My husband was diagnosed with a varicocele/severe male infertility. He has a low count, motility, and morphology. We were told IVF was our only chance at conceiving and had given it a try last November. We ended up with 17 mature eggs (from 30), 9 fertilized, 2 embryos made it to transfer, but the cycle failed. My husband decided to have the varicocele surgery and we started to see his counts go up slightly. We decided to try IVF again 6 months after the surgery and had the exact same IVF results. My RE suggests changing my IVF medication protocol so that I grow less eggs (she would like me to grow around 20) and freezing all embryos in order to let my body heal - I haven't been diagnosed with OHSS but it has always been a concern. My husband's urologist suggests waiting a full year from his surgery before attempting IVF again. My husband and I are at a loss of what to do. We started considering donor sperm but are we giving up on IVF/varicocele surgery too quickly? If anyone has had success/no success with a varicocele surgery/severe MFI your input would be greatly appreciated. My husband and I are scared to wait another 6 months to try IVF again and have the same results as before. I should also mention my husband has been put on several vitamins/supplements/acupuncture but nothing has appeared to be helping.

Kp214

@hopefulmama11 i'm sorry you are going through this.  I don't really have any advice.  I can say that I had a cervical disc fusion and was told after 3 months I should be back to normal, but it was another 6-9 months before I was without pain.  So, the doctors don't know everything.

Also, you may want to talk about what your priorities are, having a baby or having a biological baby.  Good luck with this!

Elyse1384

My husband has Klinefelter syndrome and underwent TESE surgery only to be told he had no mature sperm that could ever be used.  Fast forward 2 years into unsuccessful IF treatment (we went with a donor) and we switched clinics (I was not ovulating and had not yet been diagnosed with PCOS as my first specialist was the worst).  My new specialist also specializes in MFI and told us we should speak to another colleague who read through my husband's TESE surgery report and felt there might be a glimmer of hope.  If we pursued it, my husband would need a second TESE and we would probably see lower viability rates for any embryos we did get.  We opted just to forge ahead with a donor and it was the best decision for us.  Now we both feel that in a really weird way, the first specialist possibly overlooking something was the best thing that happened to us because *TW* (children mentioned) we have two amazing kids from the donor we picked.  It is such a tough and personal decision, but we genuinely have not regretted it.  best of luck!

Brewerbrian

I had a bilateral varicocele (grade 3 on one side and 2 on the other). My SA results were right at the baseline for average, but still considered low by my urologist. He gave me a paper that discussed the different procedures that were possible with statistical results. We decided to do the subinguinal varicocelectomy. Two weeks after the first surgery was the optimal time to try and ultimately from that attempt we got our first positive test ever. The 3 month follow up SA didn't show too much increase in Motility or Morphology, but did see my count go from 25mil to 175mil. 

kangastein

@hopefulmama11 we have male factor issues too but not variocele but I've been told that when using IVF and ICSI the sperm quality doesn't matter. (However we are still getting poor results with both)  I've been doing a lot of research and although egg quality could make a difference you may want to look into PICSI if your clinic offers it. I read somewhere that men with variocele have a lot of DNA fragmentation and PICSI will weed those out. I'm in the same camp as you with high responding but possible bad eggs and besides protocol change or human growth hormone, I haven't heard many solutions to it. My feeling is that you neither need to wait 6 months or use donor sperm but what does your RE think?