I Was Told “Almost Impossible” But It Happened

Subsequent analyses were worse than the first. A Greek consultant actually casually stated that he’d seen my analysis from another place and the sample I had just given was

far worse than he expected.

He said this as he walked between rooms, “are you sure you collected it all?”.

I was just sat there hoping my wife was ok, she was in another room having her eggs collected (a painful procedure). ‘Brilliant’, I remember thinking, ‘glad he just told me that, I might regale my wife with that funny anecdote and we’ll both have a good giggle at our predicament’.

He did give me more detail later on, saying that if this is what had happened to my sperm between analyses it was a good thing to do IVF right now, without delay. This all happened in Athens, where we chose to have IVF first time around. A little blow to my ego was worth the discount of going abroad.

The direction for me was simple but bearing in mind I was the reason for all of this, perhaps not nearly enough: limit caffeine and alcohol intake for 8 weeks prior to giving the sample and take supplements consistently. Just the wellman conception tablets for men. See my blog giving a more thorough list of dos and don’ts from a different consultant here.

But who was I to ask for more? This respected and qualified consultant was willing to take on the challenge I set. He’d done this thousands of times and I just this once. I hadn’t yet learned the full back story to male infertility, nor the woefully insufficient research surrounding it.

It was time to takeiton myself.

I collated all the information I could find online and applied it religiously. After a year, nothing changed. I was still infertile according to a fresh analysis. I did not deter, however; we were still going through IVF and whilst PICSI offered to pick up the slack for my lazy swimmers, it was absolutely essential I did everything I could, as my wife was already doing exactly this.

IVF did eventually work and about a year and a half later something miraculous happened- another pregnancy, less than a month before our next planned cycle. My wife woke me early with the positive test and asked if I believed in miracles. I don’t but this felt pretty close to one and the feeling never wore off.

So what changed? The pandemic hit, I slept more and wasn’t strapping into a cockpit as often. I was significantly less stressed without the constant assessment of the aviation world and heavy workload of being an instructor. I continued to exercise most days but enjoyed them more without time constraints and reduced intensity in line with trying to gain more muscle.

I became obsessed with “cooling my balls”.

With all day at home, I was able to be much more consistent with it, following the guidance to cool their average temperature in order to improve my fertility. Click on the link to learn about the science behind it and find out how cooling testicles may even help to gain muscle.

Interestingly, my caffeine intake and alcohol consumption did not change during this period. My wife and I had decided to stop depriving ourselves of what we enjoyed and wanted to live life on our terms for a while. Having a few gins most days made us happy.

In truth, I may never know how it happened but I will be forever grateful that it did. I used to hate people telling me that they knew someone who needed IVF and then got pregnant naturally, it was always said without the knowledge that it would be scientifically almost impossible for me. I know that it’s playing on your mind if you’re reading this, I understand the pain and anger of failing to get pregnant and so my message is just keep going. Carry on doing the right things and try to eliminate as much stress from your life as possible. Sleep. Cool your balls, you never know. Good luck.