Well we recently decided to step up from if it happens it happens to full out trying mode for our 1st child. My DH decided to kinda drop a bomb on me, he is afraid that he is sterile…
[name]Little[/name] back story, when he was a teenager he was in an accident and had surgery on the penis, how extensive I’m not sure, it seems to me on on the tip. In the past way before we were together, he had unprotected sex multiple times with multiple girlfriends, never even a pregnancy scare. There is always a guy he works with and a close friend of his who are both sterile due to different things (one gentic, the other a brown recluse bite) added all together and my DH is kinda in a panic.
I’m not that worried I think all things combined he is worried, so he wants to get tested.
Here is my question/fear, 1st the best kinda test to get done? I was researching and it looks like everything needs to start with an urologist. Is that right? What exactly will they do?
2nd question/fear, if by chance he is sterile, are there different levels of it? Could we still have a biological child? Or would we need to look into donor sperm?
Penile surgery should not impact his fertility. If he ejaculates (not a dry ejaculate) then you can assume he has as much a chance of being fertile as anyone. The tip of the penis is waaaay down there in the urogenital tract, long after the hormonal axis, the bits where spermatogenesis occurs, the bits where ejaculate is all mixed together (provides glucose as an energy source for sperm to swim, etc).
You should not worry about fertility unless you’ve been having regular, unprotected sex for a year with no results. Then, yes, both partners are analyzed-- usually the man first since it’s so much easier. About 20-25% of infertility is male-factor. So your husband could be infertile, but for an entirely separate reason.
Thanks! That’s kinda what I was thinking, I tried to tell him about the year of trying before testing but he is well and truly freaked out so I’m just going let him do what makes him feel better. But good to know it’s most likely just his paranoia kicking in.
Your health insurance will likely not cover testing now. You would have to pay for it out of pocket, and it is quite expensive. Maybe study together what makes men fertile or not? It should reassure him that there is no causal relationship, and his teenage hijinks were just lucky!
Brief overview–
man must go through puberty and make enough androgens (male hormones) to induce sperm development
testosterone and adrenal androgens level must stay relatively normal as spermatogenesis is constant and lifelong, and new sperm are made every 60 days
sperm are made in the testicles. If anything happens to the testicles or scrotum-- i.e prolonged exposure to heat or cold, trauma, surgery-- then either all of the sperm currently there will die (so he’ll be infertile for 2 months till more sperm are made; this often happens to men who soak in hot tubs) or his ability to make sperm will be impaired. It doesn’t sound like this happened to your husband.
[name]Man[/name] must be able to perform sexually.
in the act of sex, the sperm get mixed together with all of the other stuff that makes semen; this provides the energy source and a pH buffer
ejaculation occurs, sperm are deposited and make their way up the female genital tract till they reach the fallopian tube, where fertilization occurs. If the sperm are wonky, have motility problems, are morphologically weird, etc then they won’t make it and the man is infertile.
Crudely speaking the penis is just a sperm delivery tube. As long as it’s placed where it’s supposed to be (vagina) and nothing impedes exit of the ejaculate, it doesn’t have really any role whatsoever in fertility. So as I said, if your husband is able to have vaginal sex and finish up normally, he has just as much a chance of being fertile as the next guy.
There are circumstances between “normal” fertility and sterility. My dad had several factors stacked against him and after 5 years of trying/tests/treatments my parents used donor sperm to get me. [name]Both[/name] I and my baby’s father have been diagnosed with sub-fertility (obviously for different reasons). We were both really surprised when I tested positive since we’d both been told it would be very difficult to get pregnant naturally. But very difficult does not mean impossible.
There are different levels of infertility for men, and different causes. Low motility or low sperm count can make natural conception difficult, but intrauterine insemination can help that a lot. There can also be a problem from a blockage of some sort, and for that they can use a needle to collect sperm directly from the testicles and use it for IVF. I learned about this process through my cystic fibrosis research. Many men with cf have what is called bilateral absence of the vas deferens (meaning the sperm has no way to travel to the penis) and this procedure has worked for them. Bottom line is there are a lot of treatment options available, so try not to worry too much till you talk to a doctor and find out if there even is a problem. Oh, and my ob/gyn is who ordered my husband’s semenalysis. We didn’t have to see a urologist. We had been trying for about 9 months and I was worried about fertility problems. Our insurance did pay for testing for both of us, so you could just see what your insurance’s policy is on fertility testing. Trying for a year first sounds good on paper, until you’ve actually been trying for a year and you wonder why you didn’t get checked out sooner. Good luck, and I hope there aren’t any problems
[name]Just[/name] want to point out that the girls could have been on the pill, so if that’s what’s making him nervous, then it’s not a good reason unless he knows they weren’t on the pill or IUD or female condom, etc… Therefore, not likely to get pregnant.
I think you should try for at least a year if not more before getting tested. It is really expensive and insurance doesn’t normally cover that since it isn’t a “necessity” Plus there are occasions where doctors say it’s impossible or not likely and then the women ends up pregnant, so even if you got tested and they said it’s “not likely” they could still be wrong.
DH had two long term serious relationships prior to ours and when he was with them, they had unprotected sex (gf’s weren’t on the pill) and never had a scare. He used to say he assumes he must be sterile or something would have happened. I was off the pill for a year before we had plans to TTC. I tracked my cycle but was off on my calculations I learned this past spring, and only once was my period late and it seemed weird. The plan was to TTC in [name]May[/name] 2012 because we assumed it would take a while. We got pregnant on our first try, much to our surprise and I am due in February.
I don’t think the surgery would affect it if it wasn’t not on his testicles. I would suggest trying first, along a normal timeline and then seeking fertility assistance or testing if you do not conceive within a year.
They were not on the pill at all. I think thats is what made him more concerned now.
In asking him for more details he said it was more along the tube then just the tip. I don’t know, I’m not worried about it we are going to start earnestly trying as soon as I get the Wanderfo strips in the mail. Maybe get lucky and conceive on the 1st try too!
