Riverrock 10k Scrmable

Saturday May 16th I ran the Dominion Riverrock 10K Scramble. It was sooooo mcuh fun. Trail races are the best because they're so nice on your shins and legs. My goal was to beat my time from last year of 1 hour 20 minutes . . . I beat it! This year i did it in 1 hour 9 minutes! I know next year i can beat that too. It feels so good to have runners in front of you move out of your way when they hear you coming. It almost drives you to run faster so they know they moved for a good reason! haha!

Hubby ran the Carytown 10K the next day and did it in 56 insanely fast minutes! The fastest I've done a normal street 10K was 65 minutes or so. He can really push himself when it comes to exercise.

Male Factor Blogs and Vitamin Treatment?

Why can't i find any blogs about MFIF and changing diet/exercise/adding vitamins before doing IVF or IUI's??? I'm preparing my RE visit to end in tears with the dr. telling us IVF with ICSi is our only answer. Am I hoping too much that we can do this naturally??? Are most IVF dr.'s greedy and want to make lab babies instead of telling couples to add vitamins/change diets for a couple months and then try on their own for a while?

Keith at Conscious Conceptions is keeping my head clear and non-depressed with his adamant ideas that vitamins and acupuncture WILL help morphology. When i google "vitamin treatment for sperm" i find plenty of forums of ladies talking about a new diet plan for their hubby's and their sperm got better in 3 months. Why won't anyone write a blog about it so i can stalk them to see if they ended up getting pregnant on their own.

its the Ups and Downs i tell ya!!! note to self, stop researching. again.

Ups and Downs All Arounds

(This is not a photo of MY husband)

So I've been researching and driving hubby up the wall. BUT we finally had a breakthrough ie. I broke him. He's going to cut wayyyyy back on alcohol until his sperm get better. He has a big fishing trip after his second S/A and will probably drink a bunch with the boys, and I'm fine with that. I don't think that drinking really causes bad morphology. TONS of people drink and are still able to get preggers. I wonder if he realizes this could be for 3 months, i mean, i told him, but was he really listening?

He's going to cut back to no drinking during the work week, and 1-2 glasses on his off nights. I'm so proud of him! I had to ask him if he thought he had a drinking problem and forced ourselves to talk about the idea of talking about where our goals are in life . . . he was complaining and whining sooooooo much about it not being fair that he had to stop drinking. I tried the nice approach and told him yeah, its not fair and that I'm so proud of him for being open to cutting back. I tried the angry approach, I've quit caffeine and drinking for the past 10 months and will HAVE to stop all those when we do get preggers for 9 months and then some while i'm breastfeeding . . . all he could think about was how he didnt want to cut back and how it isnt fair. Poor guy, they deal with infertility situations so much more angrily than women.

We've also decided that if we had to we would do IVF and make adjustments for the costs. I really hope we can have a baby naturally. His sperm WILL get better. Maybe not by the next S/A test, but maybe in August he will have healthy sperm. Ugh, so far away . . .

On a lucky note - I was supposed to run a 5K last weekend but couldn't since i had to be a slave to my mom for mother's day, I won a door prize for the race. I told my friend that she could have it if she picked it up and she forgot to, but they mailed it to me! guess what it is???? a free 1 hour Reike massage:
"Reike healing is the usage of spiritual energy to heal a person's aura or situation. The word "Reiki" actually translates to "Universal Life Force Energy." Massage is the process of rubbing or kneading different parts of the body for therapeutic reasons or purposes"
One of them being reproductive issues!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEeeeee!!! hubby is going to love this!

Bad Bad Bad . . . But Not Horrible

The Dr. was NO help at helping us understand what his S/A results mean. And we had to pay the co-pay to to get the results!!! 5/1/09

All of these were good:
volume 2.1 ml
normal color
liquefaction time 46 min
viscosity good
concentration 40 million motile, 75 million total
motility 53%
Forward progression - 60% moderate, 20% sluggish, 20% non-progressive, 0% rapid ???
quality of progression 3+,
round cells <1 ml (normal <5 mil)

Now here's the bad news - morphology 0%

I've been crying about this because i know this is bad. The Dr. suggested he not wear spandex shorts when doing jiu-jitsu, cut back on alcohol (he drinks about 2-4 glasses of wine every night), and to stop using chewing tobacco (yes, he uses dip about 1 can of Skoal a week, and I'm very repulsed and embarresed by it). He's going to get a second S/A done in 4 weeks and I'll take both results to my RE appointment.

I wonder what my chances are for IUI? Or am i going to have to face a biological IVF baby or an IUI donor sperm baby? I wonder if him quiting chewing tobacco and spandex shorts really help morphology?

I've heard it takes 2.5 months for the sperm to completely develop and and come out... so is the next S/A too soon? I made sure with the RE and they said it was fine.

I'm proud of my hubby for quitting the dip and to eliminate the spandex, but he's being stubborn about the alcohol. He said he's going to cut back, but want him to pretty much quit. Maybe i'm being to overbearing.

I've gotten lots of great advice from my ladies at WebMD. Hubby's going to start taking Pycnogenol which is to help improve quality and function of sperm and improves morphology. I don't know if i believe in taking the FerilAid for men. but he's taking some type of fertil blend in addition to his multi-vitamin's and other supplements.

I think I'm ok now. I have some weird faith that his sperm is going to get better.

No results yet but they're available!

eeeeeeeek!!!!

The future of our genetic upbringing is so close! The results are in at the dr.'s office and now hubby's just gotta go get em! I'm tempted to ask to leave work early to go to the appointment. The control freak in me wants to know every little detail and to make sure that hubby is honest with the doctor about everything.

i'm so excited and scared

No S/A results yet but . . .

I called his dr's office and my silly husband forgot to put me on the list of people that can view/hear his records. arghhhhhhhh!!!!

But they don't have the results yet anyhow and said that he has to make an appointment to see the Dr. a week from the day he got the S/A done in order to get the results . . . Wow, we get to pay $25 co-pay to see the results of a test he had to pay another $25 for (i guess its not that much in the big picture). And his Dr. will probably send him to a urologists ($35 for a specialist).

Hubby's Dr. just so happens to be taking a 4 day weekend this week! ahhhhhhh!!! And Hubby works all of next week (12 hour shifts). So if the results aren't in on Thursday we're going to have to wait more than 2 weeks just to get his freaking results that apparently other peoples labs will give out over the phone within 2 days.

I ended up making the appoint. for Thursday at 4:30 pm. This is really annoying, but i have faith that the results will be in on thursday . . . 2 more days to go!

Bloodwork - Normal!!!

YAYAYA!!!

I just got a call from my OBGYN and my blood work came back normal for progesterone, thyroid, and whatever else they check!!! She says i'm definitely O'ing and we just need to hear about my Hubby's SA. The wait is killing me!!!

He went in friday and they say it takes 1 week to get the results. really??? come on!!!!! i know they test his stuff within the hour, please, just call us!!!

If his SA comes back normal then the next step is to make an appoint with my OBGYN to set up dye test/ultrasound to check for blocked tubes.

I'm 50% excited that I'm coming up as normal for now. Actually I'm really excited my armpits are sweaty and i keep making typo's. I'm so tempted to call my Hubby's dr to see if they will call me instead of him to give us the results (he works 12 hour shifts) and I'm sure he won't understand what they're telling him. And i'll act like a crazy person and research it like crazy!

Even though my blood work is normal there are still other hurdles that i will face. If his sperm is bad then we might have to do IUI with any good sperm (i've heard this can range from $200-$1000, ugh) . . . if his sperm is good, then i may have blocked tubes or be termed as having unknown infertility.

Sperm test! Sperm test! Sperm test! what are the results???