hanging in there...

If anyone is following our little baby making dance, I'd recommend C's blog for the greater amount of detail! But steer clear if you're sqeemish :)

In a recent post she asked me break down exactly what my infertility issues are. This I'd already done a while back. So if you're interested, here it is.

The only thing I would update is around the following;

"...my body produces antibodies against my own sperm. Don't ask me why, ..."

Since then I've come to some greater understanding of the antibodies issue. In short ones own sperm are foreign bodies from the point of view of the bodies. Quite why I don't fully understand, but its essentially the case that your sperm is the DNA of another person. So it makes sense that its DNA is different and your own immune system doesn't recognise it.

This is why the testicles and that entire system are actually separated from the rest of the body by a natural barrier. (I'm not sure what kind, but its not a brick wall, anyway! Some sort of membrane, I guess.)

The problem is that in my case this barrier has been breached. It may have been constructed poorly in the first place or may have been the result of an injury at some stage. (I've copped my fair share of whacks in the goolies over the years, so I can't rule it out.) But, once its happened the horse has bolted. My immune system now knows of my sperm and as the fine people of Krikkit once said, "Its got to go!"

They can't fix the barrier, mainly because they can't find the breach. (Well, in my case no one has actually looked, but their experience is that it isn't practical to try.) They could supress my immune system with cartabolic steroids, but thats pretty nasty stuff and still wouldn't make our chances of natural conception all that flash. So, no joy there either.

Anyone would think the treatment methods were developed by blokes who got all squeemish at the idea of knives near other blokes tackle! But that's a whole other discussion.