Are You Freaking Kidding Me...???

We went to see Dr Haq in Clonmel on Wednesday as a follow up after my operation and he suggested that Patrick go and have another semen analysis done, just so we can see exactly where we are in order to decide the best course of action from here.
So... On Friday morning Patrick went down to the new Fertility Check Clinic which happens to be right across the road from Gordon's clinic. Dr. Michelle O'Connor is the andrologist there, a lovely lady who agreed to do the test straight away and have the results for us in 30 minutes.

I couldnt understand why, but I was really anxious about getting these test results. I was expecting them to be good as Gordon had put Patrick on lots of supplements back in February to improve his fertility.

Patrick rang me with the results and initially they seemed to have improved significantly, the count and motility had improved and the IgA antibodies (antibodies from infection) had improved unbelievably. It all seemed quite positive until we got the IgG antibodies result and that was 100%,  this has risen from 2% in 2 years. IgG antibodies are antibodies that the body can produce and are commonly known as Anti-Sperm antibodies, and exactly as the name suggests... they are antibodies that surround the sperm and attack them. Michelle explained it to me in terms of when she looks at sperm with no or few IgG antibodies under the microscope, the sperm appears to swim, but sperm with high levels of IgG antibodies appears to vibrate but not progress or move along, as the IgG antibodies have surrounded each sperm and are fighting to destroy them.
So... as you can imagine... this is really really bad news, as if the sperm cannot progress... it certainly cannot fertilise an egg.

I called Michelle, I called Gordon and then I called my G.P. and it became very obvious that the results themselves and what they meant was not our most immediate problem............ usually men who have high levels of IgG antibodies have them because of a childhood illness or injury, but 2 years ago Patrick's IgG levels were normal at just 2%, Last December the DNA Fragmentation of the sperm was 13.2% , again within the normal range............... but now, just 6 months later it has risen to 100%, and this is something that cannot be reversed. The most immediate thing for us now though, is to find out what has caused the levels to rise so high so quickly. My G.P booked both Patrick and myself in for full screening on Monday morning to see if we can figure it out and also to make sure that there is nothing serious going on that has been overlooked.

Isn't life just ridiculously unfair...???  We finally got to a stage where we were certain that all of the issues had been addressed and resolved, we had been assured by several Dr.s that if I were to get pregnant in the next 6 months... I would have a much better chance of carrying to full term... we were ready to start trying again and we were so hopeful and confident.......... and then we get hit with this and find out that things are actually worse than they have ever been, this is something that could not have been foreseen, something that was never even an issue, never even a consideration in our fertility journey and now it has jumped in with two feet and pretty much put a halt to our plans.

We have to find out what has caused this before we can even think of looking at our options for getting pregnant, again, we need to be sure that Patrick is healthy and there is nothing wrong.

It looks though that our only option after that for getting pregnant again... will be more IVF treatment unfortunately, even though I had promised myself that I would never put myself through that again... faced with the prospect of never being able to get pregnant safely again.... I am once again of the mindset that I will do whatever it takes. We have 2 remaining embryos in Cork and I suppose implanting those will be the next step on our fertility journey as at least we know that Patrick's sperm was practically IgG free when they were injected into my eggs 2 years ago. After that... we have a lot of decisions to make and may even have to consider using donor sperm, but either way it means a lot more treatment.......

I suppose we are both in shock, it does feel like everytime we get ahead, something happens that puts us right back where we started and even now... we are in a worse place than we were 2 years ago. It just all seems so terribly unfair.