Anyone got pregnant naturally or through IUI with poor sperm morphology?

[Anonymous]

I was told that our only option would be IVF with ICSI, but we got pregnant naturally once, but it was a blighted ovum. Looking for some success stories either getting pregnant naturally or through IUI and carrying a baby to term from women whose husbands have poor sperm morphology.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same situation and I looked for these stories high and low, no such luck. We ended up doing IVF/ICSI, which hasn't worked for us either. Giving my body a break now before I go back for IVF #3.

If you were able to get pregnant once, I would give the IUI a try a couple of times, it can't hurt. But, keep in mind that while you could get pregnant, b/c of the poor sperm morphology you could miscarry. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

My husband has low motility and IUI didn't work for us, but we got pregnant with IVF (no ICSI). The doctor told us that we were "borderline" candidates for IUI but we wanted to give it a shot. IUI is a good way of easing into fertility treatments - less shots, ultrasounds, blood draws, etc., so maybe it's worth a shot (so to speak). Keep in mind that success rates for IUI are about 15-20% at best, but your chances may be lower due to the morphology issue - ours were due to the motility issue. IVF success rates are more like 50-60% per cycle. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Anonymous]

What was your husband's morphology? We were told the same thing -- morphology ranged from 3 - 7% normal. Count was good though. Two weeks after being advised of our options we conceived, after 6 months of trying. I'm not sure I'd put too much weight on morphology if count and motility are good.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. My husband's morphology was measured at two different fertility clinics. At the first one, the morphology was measured at 4%, at the second one - 1% (we were told that they use much stricter evaluation method). Also, his motility is only 25%, that may also be a contributing factor to our failure to conceive.

[Anonymous]

is your husband's sperm count good? If so, it might be worth trying some IUIs. Also, if one of the sperm evals was done by GW, they are notorious for saying that sperm is bad.

[Anonymous]

We're a success story! DH had 1% morphology and I have PCOS. Did IUI 4 times, resulting in one chemical pregnancy. Was told we'd never have children without IVF/ICSI. Said no thanks and moved immediately to adoption. Had our precious DC home for 3 months and much to our shock, found out I was 8 weeks pregnant.

In response to 11.18's comment about GW and sperm, that's who we used. Interesting what PP says about that...FWIW, my DH did go to a urologist for a 2nd opinion, who said that he gets a lot of men from GW's clinic and that he thought if we just gave it some time (we didn't try to get pregnant at all on our own- went straight to the RE), we'd get pregnant. Sure enough...

[Anonymous]

We used Dr. Sharara's clinic for the second sperm test. This is when we got 1% morphology result. 4% we got from Columbia Fertility and they were willing to try IUI, whereas Dr. Sharara thought that IUIs will be useless in our case.

[Anonymous]

Thank goodness someone wrote about this....I am in the same boat as well. My husband has low morph but good motility and count(after 2 SA's). Our RE recommended that we try one IUI, see how his sperm does with the washing process, and move onto IVF if it doesn't work. We are paying out of pocket as well, which is why we aren't doing more than one IUI. It was a hard decision but we thought we'd give IUI one try before shelling out thousands of dollars to go to the big guns.

[Anonymous]

Expert here on morphology!!

My dh has very poor morphology - tests back in summer 2003 revealed 2% via the strict kruger method and 10% via the WHO method at two separate clinics. However his motility and count were excellent. Got pregnant naturally the month we had our first tests. Baby born April 2004. Roll on summer 2006 when we tried for #2. My dh got epidydimitus, which is an infection in some tube that carries the sperm, right when we had just started trying - new tests three months later and after a course of antibiotics revealed same crappy morph but now a low low count (1mil down from his previous 100mil) - his count did not come back after a further 9 months so we did ICSI - failed and then a FET and has success with twins. Roll on twins first birthday and sure enough, I discovered I got pregnant naturally while breastfeeing them. Had a missed mis and then 6 months later pregnant naturally again. Now close to entering my third trimester. Since our IVF days in 2007, my dh has been followed by a male infertility specialist since they are intrigued by his "issues, counts etc" and all the time his morph has remained crappy - his count seems to be finally coming back very slowly after 4 years. This has been tracked by SA's every 3 months and then every 6 months.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble but the long and the short of it, is that some Dr's seem quite unconcerned about morphology if all else seems good or fairly good and others see big problems. I don't know why such a difference of opinion. As regards helping morph - the only thing I ever came accross was a study that showed pycnogenol (french tree bark) was shown to help - but it is fairly pricey.

Good luck!!

[Anonymous]

Sorry PP here again. I was also told that morphology affects the sperm's ability to fertilise the egg and would not affect the pregnancy after the fact. So I guess there are differing opinions on that?? Just referring to a miscarriage comment of a PP.

[Anonymous]

I think it's a really crap shoot whether poor morphology will effect a man's fertility. Like the previous poster, my husband had 2% morphology (in his case on about 4 different semen analyses). His count and motility were always perfect (and in fact, count was very high). My testing has always come out 100% normal and I was in my late 20's/early 30's at the time of the conception of our now 3 children.
We tried for 2 years to conceive #1 (and 2 as we ended up having twins) and then did IVF with ICSI. As predicted, I had a great response to the medications and we had a textbook cycle. Created "perfect" embryos.

After this, tried another 2 years to have a 3rd child but never got pregnant naturally. I would ovulate every month like clockwork, we'd have sex on every possible schedule and nothing ever happened. Again, the only issue found on fertility testing was poor morphology. Count and motility were well above average. Did another cycle of IVF with ICSI (textbook results again). Embryos looked spectacular. We put one back and now have a singleton.
So for us, poor morphology seems to have inhibited fertilization. I think it depends how the sperm are misshapen. If the defects are primarily on the head of the sperm, they may not be able to fertilize eggs.

I hope you find what works for you!

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Expert on Morphology! Your story definitely gives me hope. I feed my husband a handful of pills including pycnogenol to improve his sperm quality. It's been more than three months since he started taking them, so I need to send him for another sperm test.

[Anonymous]

I'm the 11.54am poster. Don't laugh at this, but one thing we've always wondered if it helped was going to a Korean spa's fertility sauna room. I actually am not into alternative options at all, but...after we stopped treatments, we started going to a big Korean spa just for fun. Not sure if you're familiar with them or not but they have big dry sauna rooms that supposedly have various healing properties to them. One of the rooms is supposed to increase fertility. Maybe it worked, b/c DH certainly spent more than his fair share of time in the various hot tubs there too, which is not supposed to be good for the boys.

[Anonymous]

My DH also has poor morphology - at Columbia it came back at 7%. But like some PPs, all his other numbers were fine. We did an IUI and it worked on the first try. Now, I am pregnant with #2, and we got pregnant the second month of trying, naturally! So, I would say if morphology is your only issue, you should try on your own for a while, or at least go the IUI route before the IVF.