Getting pregnant is easy. That is what this man thought. I found out it was not always true.
It is simple to have kids. It really is. Man and woman go out on romantic date. Man and woman get lost in each others eyes while drinking a nice Merlot and they forgo the movie after dinner for some private sexy time. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Nine months later you both have a mini-me. A little bundle. A little ‘un. A baby. There is nothing to it right? That use to be what I thought. I never once in my life considering having a baby would be hard.
Male fertility and motility can be increased by having more sex, thanks to science.
According to science, part of the answer to male infertility is so simple and brilliant that you may have glossed right over it: have more sex. Per science, increased ejaculation can increase fertility (by reducing sperm damage) and generally increasing motility. It's a brave, new world, gang.
A new study published in the online edition of Fertility and Sterility has concluded that half of men taking SSRIs could have damaged sperm and compromised fertility. The study, conducted by the New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center, followed 35 healthy male volunteers who took paroxetine (Paxil) for five weeks. At the end of the five weeks, sperm samples were taken from the men and examined to determine whether there were any missing pieces of genetic code in the sperm DNA. Their findings? That the percentage of men with abnormal DNA fragmentation jumped from less than 10% at the beginning of the study to 50% afterward.
A couple's difficult journey towards having a baby: Part 4.
We had been married for eight years. We had been trying to get pregnant for six of those years and between IVF and ICSI had gone through five fertility cycles. We knew we could get pregnant but we didn't know if we could stay pregnant. We had spent over $200,000, and all we had to show for it was a glossy photo of four egg cells.
That photo still sits in the drawer of the night table besides out bed, buried there. We're unable to look at it—or dispose of it.
Other friends who were on the IVF merry-go-round and got pregnant, had their children. Some had their second child while we waited and tried again. Every couple who had a child swore by their doctor, their method, their technique—success was its own affirmation.
A couple's difficult journey towards having a baby: Part 3.
Amy had been referred to a Beverly Hills fertility doctor, who was so reassuring that I took him to calling him Dr. Mellow. His office had a wall of photos of smiling babies, as if to say, "This will be you."
We sat in his waiting room holding hands. We believed. We didn't know we had just taken our seats inside the Hope Factory.
Once inside, the possibility of getting pregnant never ended. If one technique failed, you tried another, and kept trying. There seemed to be an infinite supply of hope.
