Low sperm count - what are our chances?
DH went and had his sperm analysed because last time we were TTC it took a long time and it was because of very low sperm count (sadly wasn't given any numbers then). We managed to conceive naturally while queuing for IVF treatment. Also conceived naturally once before that ended in miscarriage and was suspected ectopic.
We want another baby and don't want to spend ages trying naturally if the chances are small but we also don't want to pay for IVF if our chances of conceiving naturally in reasonable amount of time are OK. The plus side of doing IVF is that there's a possibility that we get a frozen leftover embryo for later, in case we would like a third child when we are older...
I'm 35 years old. Still breastfeeding our 2.5 year old but I've had periods since he was 4 months old. I take ubiquinol and folate.
DH is 39 years old. Does what he can to improve sperm quality: release every 3 days, no hot laptop, coq10, zink, folic acid. Intermittently multi vitamins. I think he will start taking fertilaid (but maybe half dose) and l-carnitine now after getting the results back. Not a lot of exercise but he takes 1 hour walk with me every evening.
So here are his results:
Before preparation:
Volume: 2.4 mL
Concentration: 15 million/mL
Progressive motile: 50%
Non progressive motile: 25%
Total sperm count: 31.2 million
Total motile sperm count 15.6 million
Viscosity: +++ ( scale being +, ++, +++)
After preparation with puresperm method:
Volume: 1ml
Concentration: 0.4 million/mL
Concentration progressive motile sperm: 0.25 million/mL (69.4%)
Total motile sperm: 0.25 million
Motility: 2.5 (scale being 0-3)
Comments after prep: Low concentration and low total sperm count. Low motility before prep (because of high viscosity we think, he had comments about viscosity being too thick last time too).
So, any ideas what our chances are? I know we have conceived naturally a few years back but maybe we were just super lucky? Or it's reasonable to expect it to happen again? I just don't know how low these low results are.