I started birth control for IVF cycle number 2 on November 3rd. That tiny little sphere was basically my “here we go again world” war cry. And here we are taking it day by day. So what does today bring? Today brings intake. Yesterday was our follow-on What in the World (WITW) appointment.
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| The new pill regime begins |
I asked if it was an egg issue, a sperm issue, or something else. And she explained that it could have been anything, but if she had to guess, she would have guessed S.’s sperm count. It was low. Really low. Much lower than it had been for the IUI and that was significantly less than 1M. When counting sperm per grid, S. only had 7 moving per grid. I’m linking this Mayo clinic page that breaks it down much better than I, but here’s my layman.
Sperm is looked at under the microscope to see how many normal sperm appear in squares on a grid pattern. If they use a big 4 corner squares gril, they are looking for a number x50K to determine sperm per ml. If done by 9 big squares grid, they are to look by x22K to determine sperm per ml. S. had 7 or 350K. A normal minimum is 5M and my husband (if I understood correctly) had 350K after sperm wash on the day of retrieval.
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| Not exactly a great number |
We’ve gone to one of the top specialists in the nation for male factor infertility and he said the S. had no findable issues. I think it’s time for a follow-up. Either way, we are pushing forward and I pray everything works out. I’m a couple of days away from ordering some of the meds and our community has been able to help with others. I am investing in no stress and just focusing on God.
We will conceive.
-K
