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Please any advice..anyone?

Hi Em. even i am having problems conceiving. my husband has an appt with Dr & we'll ask him for the semen analysis test. How old are u Em? & how long are u trying to conceive?

Em, I initially didn't respond to your question as I didn't want to upset you with my experience, but I know how horrible and lost you are feeling right now since I went through it, and I didn't feel right leaving you hanging out there with no one who had been there responding. My husband and I were in the same boat. When we 1st found out he had zero sperm, he immediately suggested a donor if there wasn't a way to fix the problem, but I was against it. The 1st question you need to try to have answered is why he has a zero sperm count. We went to a specialist because they thought my husband probably had a blockage as he had a hernia as a child. Sometimes hernia repairs can cause what they call an accidental vasectomy. My husband went through exploratory surgery and they found that he had no blockage (devastating because we really thought the surgery would fix everything) and subsequent testing of the testicular biopsy they took during surgery showed that his problem was that he had lots of sperm, but that they were not mature and they could not find any that were mature. We were told this was most likely some type of genetic problem. Our only chance was a process called ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) with IVF. In many men who have no sperm they can find viable sperm through ICSI. It basically involves a needle being inserted in the testicle to pull out sperm and if they find any good ones, they can use them to fertilize your egg. Because the biopsy did not find any mature sperm at all, our chances of success with ICSI were not that good, and because my husband only had one functioning testicle because of an injury and the ICSI does pose a risk to the testicle, my husband really did not want to take the risk when our chance of success was not good anyway. He would have done it for me, but I couldn't imagine putting him through that. We were devastated, but it's amazing how quick you can change your mind about using a donor when you find yourself in that situation. There was no reason we couldn't have a baby that was all our own (no chance of a natural parent changing their mind about an adoption and much less expensive than an adoption) and genetically was at least part of one of us. I would recommend that you get and read the book, Helping the Stork, by Carol Frost Vercollone. It really helped me with the decision. At first, I thought the doctor's news about my husband was the end of the world and we would never recover, but we did. I'm in my third trimester now and my husband and I are extremely happy, as are both our families. He calls this baby the best gift I could ever have given him. He loves this baby so much and the baby is not even born yet. Through this process I also found out that there are a whole lot more couples out there who use donors than you would think. I was shocked at how many there actually were. Most don't like to talk about it and no one who they confided in about what they did will tell you about it, until they know that you are going through the same thing. I think people worry that others who don't understand will judge them. If people haven't actually been there, they can't know what it is like or what their decision would be. Before this happened, I would have told you there was no way I would ever even consider using a donor. I hope that they find a way to fix your husband's problem and that maybe he just has a simple blockage that can be fixed, or that ICSI can work for you, but just know that there are lots of people out there who have gone through the same thing you are going through and who feel for you, even though a lot of us don't want to talk about it.