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2004-01-10 - 5.21pm��previous entry��next entry
Frustration over sperm test!!
Hello, hello, I'm back again!
The sperm analysis results are IN, but we don't know what they are yet. We are so frustrated because it seems to have worked out to be as exasperating as it could possibly be with getting the results! Friday afternoon I drove to the doctor's surgery on my way home from shopping in town, to pick up the results. But of course (I didn't even think about it) they couldn't give me the results to someone else's test. Even though I protested that he is my husband and the test was the result of MY doctor's appointment, still the answer was no. So I drove home and tried to get hold of Neil at work so he could phone the surgery before they closed to get his results. But he had already left. By the time he got home they were closed :(
So today we set the alarm and sat by the phone making a list of exactly what we wanted them to tell us (total count, count per ml, motility in %, and morphology in %). There are many other things you can find out from a sperm analysis test, but those were what we hoped they would have written down to tell us. Then Neil made the call, and the line was engaged for EVER, but he finally got through. When he got through, the receptionist didn't know what the results were. She said they were there "okay" - and we don't know if she means the results are okay or just that the results had ARRIVED okay. Tsk!
Neil asked her what was on the screen, and she said a lot of figures that she didn't understand (grrrrrrr!). He asked if there was any number per ml. He asked her if there was a percentage figure of any sort. She said there was a 60% listed (nothing listed next to the figures to explain what they mean), and that there were lots of different figures, but one of them was 2.5. Then she said maybe Neil should make a doctor's appointment so he could have it explained properly. So Neil said yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Then she said our doctor is next available on FRIDAY!!!!!! We are NOT waiting till Friday. We are both going to the surgery in person on Monday morning before they open their doors or phone lines, and then we are walking in and asking politely but firmly to see a doctor at the first appointment that morning - any doctor will have to do - so that someone can explain the results!
We are both going a little crazy, and we feel that knowing those two random figures is worse than still waiting for the results! The 60% is very promising, since it is highly likely to be the figure for either motility or morphology (possibly motility?). In which case it is a very good healthy result for motility (or morphology). But we are agonising over the 2.5. She didn't say what 2.5 was, like, was it 2.5 million, the count? That would be very bad news. A sperm count of 2.5 million is exceptionally low :( A "good" sperm count is anything from 45 million per ml upwards, and a "normal" sperm count is anything from 20 million per ml upwards. Below 20 million per ml is considered a low sperm count and often labelled as "sub-fertility". A sperm count of less than 1 million per ml is labelled "infertile". So we are very worried incase by 2.5 she meant 2.5 million for the actual count. We couldn't think what on EARTH it could mean otherwise, since no other figures should read anything like that. It wasn't a percentage figure, and she said it was something to do with ml, so we've been kind of down about that. It's sooooo frustrating not actually knowing!
BUT! Then I went online with Neil and we looked up sperm analysis results at various medical fertility sites, and we found something that gave us more hope. We found that it's apparantly normal to record the actual sample volume in ml - normal ranges being from 1.5ml to 5.5ml!! Yay! So HOPEFULLY that 2.5 was simply the sample volume. I hope, I hope, I hope.
We are trying really hard not to think about it for now, till Monday. Poor Neil looked so disheartened when we were thinking it must mean 2.5 million for his sperm count. He looked.... I don't know... it was so sad. Like a little boy. Like someone had told him he could have some fantastic prize and that it would be waiting over there behind that curtain, and when he rushed over there was nothing there. That kind of look. You know what I mean? My poor love. I hope we get a good result after all on Monday, and that he will get a good boost to his self-esteem! I have been reassuring him all day about low sperm counts. I don't want him to think I resent him (because I don't) if he has a low count, or that he's any less of a man in any way. I love him so much.
Anyway, that's all I can tell you for now. I will update on Monday of course, and let you know what happens.
As for me, I am now on CD8. My period has finished and I am probably a couple of days away from starting my next fertile window, which is exciting! Still rather nervous that I'll ovulate after I go to France, but oh well, what will be will be (as Neil keeps reminding me!).
I filled the little pink velour outfit that I couldn't stop stroking, with balled-up fleece. I couldn't resist. It is so lovely to hug. Neil asked if I was okay when I was cuddling it on the sofa while I watched TV the other night (!!). He wondered if I was struggling with not being pregnant, and resorting to weird extremes! But I'm not, I'm really fine. I had stuffed a little outfit before, remember, and even laid that one in the crib for months! I feel fine. I just couldn't resist the cuteness of filling such a cute little outfit with some firmness to cuddle. Neil is much reassured, and has been pretending to burp it and so on the same as me! Hehe! It has a name, my absolute favourite girl's name at the moment, but I'm not telling what it is, because Neil quite likes it too (at last!) and we are quite likely to use it if we have a girl. So I'm keeping it to myself for now!
So other than being slightly loop the loop, I am doing fine, and we will hopefully get the SA results on Monday. I'll update again when there's news to write!
Oooh I almost forgot! Huge congratulations to Candace (she's locked so no point in a link!) on the birth of Alexander!!! That's her second pregnancy diary that I have read at diaryland. Now I feel like an old diaryland pregnancy-junkie pro! ;)
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