I’ve been thinking a lot about us dealing with Male Factor Infertility lately.
This post was first written in August 7, 2015, and has since been updated, August 27, 2026.
Chase and I both don’t know a lot about male factor infertility (MFI), and I know every situation dealing with male factor is different.
But lets be real, this is our situation, and the only one I really care about.
It’s been 4 months after Chase has been off of the “medicine” from the clinical trial he was participating in. We haven’t gotten pregnant on our own yet. I was hopeful the first month, and then I wrote this post because I was heartbroken. I was scared to death the second month, and now I’m back to being content where we are in life right now.
Chase is now on a strong dose of Zinc (30mg) and Folic Acid (5mg). He had a break from the supplements from the trial and it took us 1-2 months to figure out the correct dosage. If you didn’t know, sperm regeneration is every 3 months, and so his super sperm from the trial (see picture below) are gone. We now we have to wait about a month before the supplements start having an effect on his sperm again.
We still think that there is a possible vericocele, but we won’t know for sure until we go see another reproductive endocrinologist (RE).
My feelings these past 4 months have been indifferent. I believe certain things happen for a reason, and this helped distract me from not being pregnant. And surprisingly I’ve been perfectly okay with it.
Let me explain:
April; I was heartbroken. We had friends staying with us, so I was distracted.
May; I was really sick for a week, and was worried about getting better. Then my period showed up shortly after I started feeling better.
June; I injured my knee. So my focus was trying to get back to running, rather than getting pregnant.
July; We were gearing up for our appt with our new RE, so our focus wasn’t on getting pregnant.
We recently had an appointment with our new RE.
Here’s what we’ve briefly done up until this point:
- We did 2 Femara cycles, but didn’t focus on sperm, just the egg.
- Chase got with a clinical trial, and it boosted his sperm, but we didn’t do any treatments for me.
- And now, we are going to do 3 cycles of medicated IUI’s.
Our RE was really worried about my ovarian reserve level and my fallopian tubes not working properly.
I was so impressed by him, and his ability to explain everything on a level for Chase and I to understand. He didn’t say the only way for us to have kids is through IVF, which our previous RE had said. Our RE said we’re gonna try 3 cycles of IUI, and if those don’t work then we’ll meet back here in 3 months.
We are both hopeful, but also a little frazzled. I’m not ready for the emotional roller coaster for the 3 cycles, and I’ve been an emotional mess the past 3-4 days.
And I’m ready to have a family. I’m ready for things to finally change.
There really isn’t anything else that we can do, but laugh, and enjoy the journey. So here are a few of my favorite infertility funnies:
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