Male factor - patient story

When Katya (name changed) came to our clinic for the first time, she was 36. She had 4 years of pregnancy attempts behind her. Katya hadn’t just been trying at home, she had been visiting several gynecologists, checked her ovulation, had her hormones tested every 3 months and improved her vitamin deficiencies (from vitamin D to ferrum). She’d even had her fallopian tubes checked.  All with no result. Gynecologists had suggested ovarian stimulation, but it didn’t help either. So Katya, completely exhausted, came to a fertility specialist.  

She had been advised to have her husband’s fertility tested, but he had a son of 7, they couldn’t get round to it, and the doctors didn’t insist. But the fertility specialist did. So, in just a month, we had 2 semen test results on our hands showing no sperm cells whatsoever (which is called azoospermia). After an urologist appointment and a proper discussion, the couple decided for a surgical sperm extraction followed by an IVF-ICSI cycle as the fastest infertility treatment option possible (Katya was utterly exhausted with trying). 

From now on, everything was thick and fast. Our specialists carried out the biopsy, obtained and froze the sperm cells, while Katya started her IVF-ICSI cycle and had 14 of her egg cells extracted. 10 embryos developed from those, 6 of which lived to the blastocyst stage. The very first IVF attempt resulted in a pregnancy with a subsequent child birth. There are still embryos and 2 samples of sperm waiting for the couple in our cryostorage.

The happy story is provided by Dr. Inga Gorelova, Delta Fertility Clinic