CD12 - IUI and MFI

     Today was the day. Insemination. Intrauterine Insemination(IUI), to be exact. Our day started with a date with a plastic cup. These dates are never the most exciting or sexy. And we NEVER really look forward to them. Jim took his sample to the RE's office first thing and when he got back I headed to the acupuncturist's office. I've been practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine for the past 5 months, or so. When I got back, Emmy's Grandma was already there and Jim and I headed back to the RE's office.
     We waited for about 10 minutes and then were called back to the room. I was instructed to undress from the waste down and wait for the doctor. I did as instructed as Jim played on my phone. He doesn't have a smart phone, so any chance he gets to fiddle on mine, he takes. When the doctor came in, he explained the process and went through the sperm washing results with us. When you are doing IUI, they take your sperm sample and "wash" it. This basically means that they concentrate it and take all the crap out that is dead or unnecessary. The washed results are much lower because most of it has been stripped.

 Jim has had a semen analysis(SA) done twice and they generally went like this:

Total count - Between 16-24 million
Total motility - 40%

    Those are the only 2 numbers I will go over as they are the most important. Motility is forward moving. That means that 60% of his "guys" generally swim in circles or go no where. The average count for a typical guy is between 20-100 million and average motility is 50%. We've always known that we were dealing with slight Male Factor Infertility(MFI) but our doctor always referred to these results as "borderline".

    Today's count, post wash, was as follows:

Total count - 8 million
Fast Forward moving - 0%
Total motility - 10%

     The doctor was not happy with this. He didn't use the word "borderline" anymore. He used the term "IVF" instead. Up until this point, he thought that we were perfect candidates for IUI. But, these numbers are too low. Post wash, they hope the total count will be at least 10 million with a total motility of at least 50%. He explained that he will keep doing IUI's as long as we want, but IVF would be our best option.
     We have always said that because we already have a child, IUI is the furthest we will go. IVF is much more involved and takes a lot more time, energy, and money.
     After explaining our odds, the doctor went ahead with the procedure. I put my legs up in those awful stirrups and laid back. I was chatting with the doctor and the nurse about things that I can't really recall now and before I knew it, we were done. I was instructed to lay there for 20 minutes and they left the room.
     Jim and I were both deep in thought most of the time trying to make sense of what he just told us. We were both a bit shocked that the results were so poor. Even his worse SA wasn't this bad. He's very hopeful, but I'm not really counting on this working.
     We have made a few dietary changes and recently discovered that Jim is vitamin D deficient, so I'm really hoping that once that is resolved, our problems will be over. I'll keep this updated, but our blood pregnancy test isn't until 2/6/12, which will be CD26.
     Thanks everyone for reading and please let me know if I've been too vague about anything and you have questions.