Meeting with Fertility Doctor

On April 2, my husband and I met with our fertility doctor. Thank god my OB/GYN pulled some strings to get us the appointment. Otherwise, we would have waited until June for the appointment! The fertility doctor thought we would make good IVF candidates but explained that insurance would only cover the procedure if (a) we had been trying to get pregnant naturally for 1 year or (b) there was some other factor that would qualify us for IVF. It turns out that having one blocked fallopian tube is not enough to qualify for IVF right away. In addition, we would have to do 3 IUIs (intrauterine insemination) before the insurance company would allows us to do IVF.

The fertility doctor also asked for my husband to re-do the sperm analysis in her lab. Apparently, the IVF lab uses much stricter criteria when analyzing sperm (called the Kruger criteria). Under this criteria, a normal male has 14% good morphology and if a man has less than 4% normal morphology, that would allow insurance to approve IVF. So my husband took his first test and the results came back that he had only 1% normal morphology. I think we were both shocked. Given my sister's history, I had spent so much time and energy thinking that I was the sole cause of our infertility. We had never even contemplated that my husband would have any issues! So we took the news in stride and my husband once again took pride in the fact that he still had a VERY high sperm count and excellent motility.

The doctor explained to us that the sperm analysis had to be done twice, with at least a 2 week break in between. So we went on our planned cruise in the Caribbean (and did one cycle on clomid in the meantime) and waited for time to pass. To make the long story short, the clomid cycle failed and my husband's second test revealed again that he only had 1% normal morphology. The doctor explained to us that this would immediately qualify us for IVF and that we would be allowed to bypass the mandatory IUIs. I was sad that we had to use IVF to create a baby, but I felt very fortunate to have technology on our side.

Quantity Over Quality?!?

So my husband went to his regular primary care doctor and asked for a sperm analysis. The results came back and showed he had a fantastic sperm count, excellent motility, but abnormal morphology. Morphology? No one hears about morphology. What does that even mean?! Apparently, the shape of the sperm can affect how well the sperm can fertilize an egg. But we didn't worry that much because the test showed that he had 54% normal morphology and the average normal male has 60% normal morphology. Close enough, right?