I’ve wanted kids since I was a kid myself. My husband and I were high school sweethearts, and kids were something we talked about even in our teens. We waited until we were married and our careers were somewhat established, but we started trying as soon as we could. We were in our mid-20s — young, healthy, and raring to go.
I honestly expected to get pregnant as soon as we stopped using birth control
I was naïve and very wrong, though. Six months went by, and nothing. A couple of friends of ours who had started trying around the same time we did started getting pregnant. I figured we were just unlucky. But by the time we hit the one-year mark, I started to seriously worry that something was wrong.
I’d been tracking my cycles forever, and I had very regular cycles, so I knew that we were timing sex at the right time. I had all the signs of fertility too. Still, as soon as it became apparent that there might be an issue, I started to blame myself. Even when I visited my gynecologist at the one-year mark and asked for advice, she was focused on me, asking me detailed questions about my cycle and the way we timed intercourse.
After a year of trying, I figured I ought to do more to make this happen
I started drinking fertility tea and using a lube called Pre-seed that’s supposed to make your vagina more hospitable to sperm. I went to a dozen acupuncture sessions, and consumed this bitter-tasting herbal mixture that was blended up for me.
Again, the focus was on me: No one ever mentioned that my husband should try anything or do anything different.
Finally, at around 18 months, we found a reproductive endocrinologist who was willing to see us
There were a handful of tests that needed to be performed on me: I got a pelvic exam, had blood drawn, and had tests done after intercourse to see how my husband’s sperm was faring in my vagina. Fun times.
I also had to get a test done called a hysterosalpingography (HSG), where contrast dye is shot through your uterus and fallopian tubes to verify that your tubes are open and healthy. Not pleasant at all.
This time, for the first time, my husband had to be scrutinized as well. He went to an office in the Empire State Building (no joke — that’s where it was) to give a sperm sample for testing.
About a week after all this, we got a call from the doctor’s office: All my tests came out great. No fertility issues detected. My husband’s sperm tests, on the other hand, were not great. He had low sperm count and abnormal sperm morphology (sperm shape). It was so bad that the reproductive endocrinologist thought that IVF was our only option.
Thankfully, that doctor was wrong
My story has a happy ending. It took just a few small tweaks to increase my husband’s sperm count. We started doing the deed every other day instead of every day during my fertile window. He started wearing boxers instead of briefs, cut out coffee, and drank copious amounts of water.
I got pregnant that same month, and we are now the proud parents of two great kids. My second kid was conceived on the first try!
But that’s not really the point of my story. Looking back on our fertility journey, the No. 1 thing that stands out to me is that I was focused on my own body as the potential culprit the whole time. Even when I mentioned casually to doctors or friends that it was taking longer than I expected to get pregnant, no one even mentioned that maybe it was my husband’s issue!
Yet a third of all fertility issues are caused by men (a third are caused by women, and a third are factors from both partners). Crazy, huh?
So if you are dealing with fertility issues, don’t assume it’s you
If you are in the early stages, don’t just focus on your own cycle: Make sure your partner is conserving that sperm and keeping the sperm machine cool and comfortable. And when it comes time, make sure that your male partner gets his freaking sperm tested.
Fertility issues suck, and I’m very lucky that mine were relatively easy to fix. But I wish I had known earlier that it takes two to tango and not assumed that my body was broken in some way.
