Phone Call

There are many things that you have to do in preparation for IVF. I had lots of blood tests, one showed I wasn't immune to Rubella so I also had a rubella immunization. John submitted the semen sample, then we got the phone call. We got the shocking news that there was no sperm in the semen sample. They didn't know why, they expected to at least see some dead ones especially since there were some after the reversal. They suspected that there could be scar tissue that formed but couldn't be sure and they wanted us to go see their urologist.

They didn't want us to start the IVF process if there was no sperm. So we made an appointment with the urologist. They did an exam and they thought that because John already has two kids and there was sperm after the reversal there is probably scar tissue that has formed. This new made IUI out of the question and put us on the IVF track. They can do a testicular biopsy to extract sperm. This is where more decisions came. We could do the biopsy before we started IVF to make sure there was sperm and freeze them if there were until we were ready for them, but fresh sperm have a better track record. Our other option was to start IVF and have the biopsy done the day of my egg retrieval. This is what we decided to do.

There are two options in IVF. One is where they extract the eggs and put them in a petri dish and surround them with sperm. The other is when they do ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection). This is where they take one sperm and inject it into one egg. Because we will have a limited number of sperm through the biopsy. We will be doing ICSI. They told me they would like to do this with about 10 eggs. Then they will let the eggs grow for three days and evaluate which ones look the best. Depending on how they look they will implant them into me on either day 3 or day 5.