MY OTHER PROJECT • by Anon
Indian and male infertility remains a major cultural taboo, but we’ve ended up being pretty open with our friends and families. ‘Now it’s time for you to have a child’ someone would say, and I’d always respond with ‘I wish it were that straightforward!’ If only. Here is how it happened:
‘Hey don’t be so negative, plus you never know it could be something wrong with me’ I said to my wife one night.
‘Doubt it’ she responded, despondent
And with that we went to bed, the last night of ignorant bliss. Life was supposed to be me, the wife and a new baby, not me, the mrs and infertility. I mean, there are never fertility issues with the man, right?
The morning after the night before, and there we were, walking sheepishly into the doctor's room after months of trying to conceive the ‘normal’ way, (whatever normal means.)
It turns out I had unexplained azoospermia; a nil sperm count. Not even one. Zero. I can’t even express the crushing feeling of hearing those words.
But, we picked ourselves up and a few weeks later I had varicocele removal surgery (the science: I had a build up of enlarged veins in my scrotum, which were heating up what should by all rights be staying cool). So the plan is, we remove them, (just like that!) wait six months and see if sperm is produced.
We had some DNA mapping done at the same time, and it also turned out I have a balanced reciprocal translocation. Meaning I have all the correct DNA, but it’s not quite in the right order, so my body may not know how to make sperm at all. Imagine baking a cake before mixing the ingredients, that’s how I picture it. Therefore the varicocele could potentially just be a red herring. IVF forums talk about a two week wait, but imagine a six month one.
The prognosis wasn’t amazing. The doctor told us that even if I did produce sperm, and we manage to fertilize enough eggs, and they manage to reach blastocyst stage, my genetic makeup could create unviable embryos, or a severely disabled child.
Meanwhile, onto my wife, who had low egg reserves too. So during this six month period of purgatory we underwent two cycles of egg collection in order to freeze them. It was tough for my wife to manage the cocktail of hormones, the nightly injections, the bloatedness so people mistook her for being pregnant, without even knowing whether we were heading for success or not.
But that’s the issue with infertility, you always hope and believe that there is a route, and with the amazing medical advances there often is. But my word we’ve found it hard, mentally, physically and financially.
All of this came together in an unbelievable trifecta - unfortunately we had zero NHS support, so I did what I do best and planned; I made a spreadsheet tracking expenditure, saving wherever we could, all the while trying to enjoy our lives so that the struggle didn’t take over everything. I found it incredibly hard to have to give my wife the injections, knowing that I’m the primary reason she needed them. Oh, and giving up cycling was another kick in the balls (if you’ll pardon the pun).
Six months later and still no sperm. And so, the last roll of the dice. I had one more microscopic surgery called TESE.
They say that if the surgery is over quickly, then it’s a good sign that it’s been successful. Over an hour later than it should have been, and I still wasn’t out. I’m sure my wife, waiting outside, had worked out the negative outcome and had to deal with that grief alone. It tears me apart to have to think of that.
It seems I was simply born infertile. It had taken almost a year to tell us what we’d feared all along. but maybe that time was what we needed to make peace with the eventual outcome.
Donor sperm was our only way forward, and this brings me onto another huge challenge, because we are Indian. Finding a suitable donor match in this country is a whole other ball game, because there is a huge imbalance of ethnic minorities available to us. But, it seems miracles do happen and we somehow found a fantastic match - donor #1378. We don’t know who he is but we feel hugely indebted to him. He's an absolute hero in our eyes.
After a lot of counselling we went all in, defrosting all the eggs and throwing in another round of egg collection, (“Why not since we’ve done it twice before”, said the doctor, like it was that straightforward...!)
And...
Two weeks later we saw the double red line.
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For the couples out there reading this - and the prospective fathers in particular - it is honestly true when they say it is good to talk. And please know that you’re not alone.