Careful what you wish for

UPDATE: This post has taken a few people by surprise as it is more personal than others I have done. So, just a heads up that there is some information here about me that you probably would not get in casual conversation. But hey, I posted it so it is all right by me if you read it.

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I was not going to post about this, but I realized if I don't talk about it more, it will kick around in my head and drive me absolutely nuts, so....

I think I mentioned before that one of the frustrating things about our infertility struggles is that we did not know why it was happening. Testing on both of us had come back normal and the docs were calling it unexplained infertility (which is apparently pretty common). Well that was then. Now, it turns out there is a cause, and that cause is me.

In February of 2007 I had sperm testing done which showed that I was essentially within normal limits. The number was twice the normal but the morphology (shape) was low. The docs felt that these basically off set. (For the record normal number is at least 20 million and normal morphology is at least 14% normally shaped. My original morphology was 8%.) As we went on and continued to struggle, our docs thought is was best to see if we could raise the morphology number up to help increase the chances.

I went in for a re-test last month to see what effect changes in my diet, lowering my stress levels and my vitamin and herb regimen were having. In almost every category my numbers improved, except the one we were trying to increase. My morphology dropped to 2% (abnormal is 4% or lower).

If you want to look at it from a strict numbers standpoint, normal would be 2,800,000 regularly shaped sperm (14% of 20 million); previously I had tested at 3,280,000 normally shaped (8% of 41 million) and now am topping out at 820,000 (2% of 41 million). You look at those numbers and the first thought is, but all it takes is one! And yes, no one is saying it is impossible, just extremely unlikely that we can conceive on our own.

This has rattled me. Hard. Kicked to the nuts with a steel toed boot kind of hard. I feel ashamed, inadequate, angry... hell pick a negative emotion and I have expressed it in the past 24 hours. I feel like God is telling me I am not good enough to be a father. I am jealous of all these... these... these chowder heads who get to have kids of their own with no thought for the consequences of it. I feel guilty. I know, I know. This is not my fault. But that is very easy to say and hard to feel, especially after having comforted Trish's broken heart month after month after month after month after month. (And for the record, the only one feeling that way is me; Trish has made it crystal clear to me that is not the case for her.)

And we soldier on. I am busy pestering my primary doc for a referral a specialist (and missing our old primary doc very badly since he retired). We need more information. We need to know our options. From what we have read to date there is no real treatment for low morphology, aside from what we have been trying (diet, stress reduction, etc. and look how well that turned out). The good news is that while low morphology makes it very hard for the sperm to get to the egg, once there it does not cause issues (nothing wrong with the genetic material; just a funny shaped delivery system).

And while we are doing all of that, I am busy flipping God the bird. We have some issues, God and me. Time to work those out.

In the meantime, if anyone reading along has struggled with male factor infertility, I would really appreciate hearing from you. (Not like I have a ton of readers, but one can hope.) Drop me an e-mail if you would, because I could really stand hearing how you coped with all of it.