Crappy News

J’s sperm count, as of yesterday, was 0.01. This from a guy who, three years ago, had enough sperm to get me pregnant unassisted. It’s been dropping since then, but we’ve never seen anything like this.

For the past four months, J’s been giving himself HCG shots. The idea (assuming I’m getting all of this right—biochem isn’t my best subject) it to stimulate the pituitary into producing more male hormone, which will in turn kick-start the testes into doing their job. But after four months there’s been only moderate increase in the male hormone and the testes seem to have given up. Our RE (who is one of the best in the country) assures us that the HSG cannot be responsible for this—it’s probably just the end game for where his sperm count’s been heading all along.

The RE is going to add FSH into the mix, which might help. It also might not. And we won’t know anything for several more months.

I’m so disappointed. I’m not sure how much of the disappointment is due to the ever-increasing likelihood that J is not going to be the biological parent of my child (of course, I might not be either—we’re just not there yet) and how much of it is due to the fact that we have made no progress with our treatment, meaning that it is unlikely we’re going to be doing another cycle anytime soon. Every year, I tell myself THIS is going to be the year that we finally learn whether we’re going to have a child. I just want to KNOW!!!

I wonder if I really am prepared for the news that J’s spermy days are truly over. I think it’s easy to be blasé about it when it’s just out on the horizon and you don’t actually have to make any decisions. But the truth is, part of me just wants to give up and start donor sperm now. Sigh. If ever anything has taught me patience, it’s infertility.

Of course, I’m also upset because J’s hormone imbalance is a health problem as well. It can lead to poor muscle tone, low bone density, etc. I want him to be fixed, dammit (not in the kitty-cat way, but in the burly manly way). I want him healthy.

And we’re having a huge fight with insurance over this. At first they denied coverage altogether, claiming that the hormone treatment was for “IVF support” and our IVF coverage has been exhausted. We appealed, and then they gave us half-coverage, labeling it “fertility,” but not necessarily IVF. We had decided to let it go. The HSG is pretty cheap, and we figured we’d fight that battle after I was either pregnant or we’d given up on that. (After all, when you’re not trying to get pregnant it’s hard to claim your treatment is “fertility” related.)

But now that J has to take FSG, we’re looking at a huge expense if we don’t get covered. So we’re going to have to file yet another appeal with our insurance company. And they’re going to take another five weeks to get back to us.

Christ. This is so fucking frustrating.