Things are looking up, so to speak...

Chris paid a visit to our naturopath yesterday and came home with an armful of supplements and dietary advice to help his sperm. Here's what he was told:

Dietary:

• Avoid tofu and other soy-based products
• Avoid dairy (except, oddly, aged cheese)
• Minimize gluten / wheat intake (go for kamut or spelt instead)
• Eat lots of protein

Supplements:

• Sodium Bicarbonate for sperm motility (the ability of the sperm to move)
• Antioxidants for sperm motility, volume and concentration
• Coenzyme Q10 for sperm motility, density, count and morphology

But it was the supplement tribulus terrestris that I found the most interesting. When I Googled "tribulus herb" I found websites with the hopeful names bodybuildingforyou.com, illpumpyouup.com, and my favourite, trulyhuge.com. It appears the herb is commonly used as an aphrodisiac and does wonders when it comes to increasing sex drive and impotence. In fact, it's been called "Nature's Viagra".

However, a more, ahem, refined search found that tribulus also claims to help in male reproductive functioning and sperm motility, increases the production of the hormone leading to increased testosterone levels, and increases production of seminal fluid.

Another hopeful sign: Chris is no longer training for a marathon, which he was up until two months ago. While regular exercise is beneficial to male (and female) fertility, marathon running and the associated training can alter sperm production. So now that Chris is back to a more relaxed running schedule, things are looking up in that department, too...

The other half of the story

There is, of course, another player involved in this conception game - Chris. This fact did not elude us, it has just taken a little longer than we anticipated to get his sperm results back. Much longer, actually. As it happens, the lab somehow lost Chris's first results and therefore required a second "donation". So, after another visit to a cold, impersonal (and to his chagrin, not unfamiliar) doctor's office, his final results were nothing if not illuminating, adding yet another complexity to our fertility endeavour. Although Chris's doctor told him everything was normal, our naturopath had a different interpretation of the results. She was most interested in his morphology, or the shape of the sperm.

If a sperm is abnormally shaped, it can't fertilize the egg. Many labs use what's known as the Krugar technique, or "strict criteria", which dictates that if any sperm isn't perfect, it isn't counted. A normal sample using the Krugar criteria should have 14% normal forms, which means 86% of the sperm from that sample are considered abnormal. By this measure, it's a miracle anyone gets pregnant.

So it comes as no surprise that there is an ongoing debate about how sperm should be evaluated and measured, not least of all because of the (human) subjectiveness of those investigating sperm samples. The World Health Organization's criteria is 30% normal sperm per sample, more than double Krugar's "strict criteria". But even those aren't set numbers, with analysis varying from lab to lab. Indeed, the lab that tested Chris considers 15% to be the normal morphology. Based on this reference, Chris's sperm morphology is above-average at 17% - which still means that 83% of his sperm are considered abnormal and therefore unable to fertilize my eggs.

Add to this hodgepodge questions as to what causes sperm morphology, and it gets even more complicated. Some say it's environmental toxins that have progressively lowered men's normal sperm count, while others believe the steady reduction of sperm morphology over the years is due to the criteria itself - labs are getting stricter and stricter as they look harder and harder for "flaws", ultimately eliminating every sperm that doesn't look perfect. Now, many men's results show 2% to 6% morphology.

So, after all these numbers and percentages, what's to be done? Well, a couple of things. First, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing. Second, Chris is going to follow our naturopath's recommendation of putting him on a detoxifying diet to help eliminate any environmental toxins that may (or may not) be affecting his morphology. We'll know exactly what that entails in two week's time after Chris's scheduled appointment, but I'm envisioning a few months without dairy for my lovely husband. Then, after the detox, Chris will re-visit the all-too-familiar sperm doctor's office and see if he can beat the lab at its own game...

In the beginning...

Well here it is, my first post. I suppose now would be as good a time as ever to fill you in on what prompted me to wax lyrical about making babies.

Chris and I have been trying to get pregnant for eight months now - still within a perfectly acceptable, normal conception time frame. Unless you're a low-patience high achiever like me, then it's an eternity. I was absolutely certain it'd be a slam dunk the first month. Oh, how blissfully ignorant I was back then...

After four months of failed attempts, I took action - outside of the bedroom. I enlisted the help of a dynamic duo, a husband and wife team of Naturopathic Doctors whose practice focuses on fertility and healthy pregnancies and births. After my first appointment, I was sent home with a (graphic) handbook titled The Justisse Method for Fertility Management, charts to fill out and a medicine-cabinet full of herbs, vitamins, oils and powders that promised to do everything from cleanse my liver to boost my faltering adrenal glands.

As it turns out, there's something I like to call the Golden Triangle, a nice, helpful trifecta of glands and organs related to pregnancy achievement - healthy ovaries, a balanced thyroid, and robust adrenals. I was seriously lacking in the last two of the three. One month and one $300 "spit test" later, and it appeared I also suffered from slumping progesterone and a.m. cortisol (a.k.a. hydrocortisone, a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex); never a good sign.

Herbs/oils/powders were altered, treatments continued, charts were analyzed, cervical fluid was examined, and bi-weekly acupuncture sessions were commenced. I'm still not pregnant, but my oh my have things changed. I no longer experience the down right unpleasant PMS I've suffered from my whole life and other indicators of success are positively shifting. I'm a believer.