Hi there! Throwaway here.
I'm infertile, but not sterile. A LOT of numbers and measurements are involved in a sperm analysis, but altogether, according to my first sets of results, I would need to be about ten times more fertile in order to not be considered "infertile" anymore.
My wife has always wanted to have a family. I think it's safe to say it's her main life goal. And not just that—she's wanted a large family (ideally around five kids). She's an only child herself- not to mention an immigrant twice over, cut off from both immediate and extended family- doesn't want her children to experience the negative consequences she feels she has experienced.
We married when my wife was 25- which was already older than she wanted to be to start her family- and by 29, she still hadn't had a single pregnancy. It got to the point that I dreaded the monthly ritual of my wife taking pregnancy tests and getting negative results, since it was crushing her. She would spend all this time on Facebook scrolling down a newsfeed which always seemed full of friends' newborns, toddlers, and even elementary school-aged kids.
I got tested and came back with bad numbers. She also got some testing done (not sure of the details) and nothing was obviously wrong with her.
I went on an aggressive course of Clomid, which is not FDA-approved for male infertility, but pretty commonly prescribed since there's not much else. I have mental health struggles, and Clomid has been called "suicidal ideation in a pill", so I wasn't too excited about that. I had to get regular blood draws, and they dialed back my dosage when it made my testosterone got too high, and T is also known for its psychological effects, so there's that, too.
My sperm analysis numbers got much better, but still, pregnancy wasn't happening. We finally did an IUI procedure (where they collect the sperm sample, process and wash it, and inject all the good sperm directly into the uterus so that the inefficiency of natural sex is avoided)... and it didn't work.
That's when things really started to fall apart. I told my wife at one point that this didn't have to be a Russian novel- if she ever decided she needed to leave me, I'd live. She also admitted that she felt like she'd screwed her life up- got married too late, got fertility testing too late, screwed up her career (from her perspective), had a partner who ended up in a relatively low-paying career that couldn't support lots of kids. None of the pieces of her dream were in place.
I wasn't going to pull the trigger myself, but was bracing myself for the end of the marriage. By this point, I was convinced we were biologically incapable of having children.
We had another IUI, and I felt dead inside. I put up an encouraging/supportive front, but it felt like we were just delaying the inevitable. At least we had good insurance that was paying for the treatments.
But then amazingly, the second procedure worked. At the age of 30, for the first time in her life, my wife was actually pregnant.
She didn't really want to believe it or think about it. Every test result she got back, she tried to find the negative angle to prove the pregnancy was in trouble.
Last week, we had an early ultrasound, and they found a fetal heartbeat. At that point, miscarriage is very unlikely, but not impossible.
So at this point, I don't really know what's going on. My wife agrees that the fact that she got pregnant changes everything- because as far as we knew before, we simply could not conceive together. I think this may end up turning things around for the marriage, since honestly, fertility issues were 80-90% of what was weighing the marriage down. My wife was desperate to get pregnant, and she's coming around to the idea that it's really happening. She still finds things to worry about every day- feeling too sick; not feeling sick enough; cramps, aches, and pains; temperature going above 99°F; etc etc. She's clearly terrified of losing the pregnancy. But for the first time in a long time, I feel like there's a real path forward.
PS: Not looking for your relationship advice. I'm just answering the question.