Azoospermia

[Anonymous]

Any positive stories with those who have dealt with azoospermia? Specifically non obstructive. Any live births? Any positive donor stories?

[Anonymous]

It may not be exactly what you are looking for because this may be considered obstructive, but my husband has retrograde ejaculation as a result of cancer treatment, which in turn causes azoospermia. When I had my egg retrieval they retrieved sperm directly from his testicle and used it to create our 8 embryos. One of those embryos is our now 8 year old daughter, and I am currently in the 2 week wait after having a FET yesterday.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on whether they can find viable sperm via TESE. If you can get enough sperm to successfully fertilize eggs, then you have good odds of success. If not, then donor sperm is probably the only option and likely to be very successful. Of course all things are harder if there's female side fertility issue as well, particularly egg quality issues.

[Anonymous]

I listened to an interview with a man who had azoospermia.
He opened up and talks to other guys about his w and I really admire that!
https://www.knackeredknackers.co.uk/

[Anonymous]

PP again, here’s a link to the interview. He went through a lot! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fat-negative-ttc-fertility-infertility-and-ivf/id1431698726?i=1000574703498

[Anonymous]

My husband has non-obstructive azoospermia. When we were trying to conceive 15-16 years ago, he was put on a drug that reduces estrogen production. It was an off-label use of a drug for breast cancer patients. The idea was to increase his testosterone-to-estrogen ratio. Months later, he was tested again, and although he did have some sperm in his sample at that point, his count always remained fewer than 1 million. Genetic testing did not reveal a cause. The urologist felt that there was most likely a micro deletion on husband’s Y chromosome that was too minute for testing to pick up.

We tried IVF w/ ICSI for a couple cycles without success. On our third cycle, dh provided a fresh sample and also underwent TESE. Both sperm samples were used. We ended up with fraternal twins, and our RE thought that one of our children was from the fresh sample and one from TESE, but there’s no way to know which is which. Both children are healthy 14 year olds. I’m sure treatment has improved in the last 15 years.

This is a tough road to travel. Big hugs and best wishes for a successful outcome.

[Anonymous]

My husband had azoospermia after a brain tumor caused damage to his endocrine system and he underwent chemo and radiation. He took various fertility medications for about two years before producing any sperm (I don't remember exactly which meds, but they were basically the same ones I took to trigger ovulation when we did IVF). Even then, he had low motility and morphology. We did IVF with ICSI and have 13-year-old fraternal twins.

I think he might be retired, but Richard Sherins did the original research at NIH about restoring male fertility, and that was who we used when he was at Columbia Fertility Associates. I am forever grateful to him. We thought we had no hope of my husband fathering children but Dr. Sherins was nothing short of a miracle worker.

There have to be excellent male factor infertility endocrinologists in the area (or perhaps Johns Hopkins or NY). If you haven't already, please see an RE specializing in andrology in addition to the RE who will primarily deal with female infertility procedures and oversee IVF. I hope someone on this board can provide updated recommendations.

[Anonymous]

6:20 again - I should add that TESE was not an option because there was nothing to extract. DH was truly azoospermic.

[Anonymous]

I had azoospermia and tried and tried everything and eventually decided that it was hopeless. At that point I decided to start using anabolic steroids, because I figured that further ruining my fertility was impossible so I May as well. For context, using anabolic steroids was always a dream of mine as I have always had a love for bodybuilding, but I just never pulled the trigger. I used large doses of Testosterone Propionate essentially, with a drug called Deca Durabolin, and Stanozolol on and off, and within a couple months my wife was pregnant.

This is a highly specific case and I don’t know what the take away is besides that life works in very strange ways. In my case, doing something that should have made me less fertile actually made me fertile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had azoospermia and tried and tried everything and eventually decided that it was hopeless. At that point I decided to start using anabolic steroids, because I figured that further ruining my fertility was impossible so I May as well. For context, using anabolic steroids was always a dream of mine as I have always had a love for bodybuilding, but I just never pulled the trigger. I used large doses of Testosterone Propionate essentially, with a drug called Deca Durabolin, and Stanozolol on and off, and within a couple months my wife was pregnant.

This is a highly specific case and I don’t know what the take away is besides that life works in very strange ways. In my case, doing something that should have made me less fertile actually made me fertile.

***I should add that now I take Testosterone Enanthate year round, combined with Human Chorionic Gonadotropiin, and I remain fertile with low but viable sperm.