August 2013 was my first appointment with the doctor. Be as honest as you can, when it comes to how often you have sex as believe it or not, once of the most common issues with couples trying to concieve is that they’re just having enough!
Who’d have thought, but then we’re so busy and tired and working different hours. It doesn’t always happen as planned.
Think about your body – how fit and healthy are you. How much do you drink and / or smoke? You will be asked these kinds of questions moving forward and whilst you will see plenty of overweight people with children, if you are overweight it will be a contributing factor.
I will go into more detail later but think about it, why not make your body as fit and healthy as you can ahead of getting pregnant, so you can be as fit and healthy as possible during your pregnancy to give you baby the best start in life
To me it doesn’t make sense that people eat crap, like chocolate and cake when they are expecting, with the excuse ‘because they can’
These are the people who had no issue whatsoever conceiving so don’t give it a second thought. Your body will recover better and your baby will have the healthiest start to life if you respect yourself.
Your doctor will send you for blood tests where they will check your LH and FSH levels, to determine whether you are ovulating. They may also check your thyroid
If these are normal they will then ask to for your partner to give a semen sample. By this time for us is was November 2013. Tests on the NHS take time.
Don’t underestimate how a man feels about this. It can be pretty stressful for the pair of you, as there is pressure on the man to ‘perform’. There’s also rules about when you’ve had sex ahead of a sample, which can change, but the advice is to abstain for 2-3 days beforehand. Any longer then the semen won’ t be fresh.
This area again is a learning curve for the pair of you and whilst it will be challenging you need to both talk openly about it.
If you partner clams up, do try and encourage him to talk to you – the brilliant thing is there are now tests your man can do at home!
Most men agonise about the sample, that it’s not enough, that they had a drink the night before.. don’t be shy about offering a sexy picture or video for him to keep on his phone rather than him having to use the clichéd magazines that for some reason they still have.
This is where it’s really important to know what can affect a sample. Alcohol and tobacco are massive factors. Ideally you want him to try and cut down if both are consumed a lot. Men in general will assume there’s nothing wrong with them, it’s part of their makeup – it’s part of their human instinct. Man must sow his seed.
So please be prepared for bad news. There are many cases when a guys first test comes back abnormal, but please know that 1 in 5 men are affected by poor sperm health so guys need to not feel ashamed. Their next sample could well improve and there are also steps that can be taken to help mobility and motility or worst case scenario if the count is very low, there is fertility treatment available.
Following the initial tests with the NHS, my husband and I chose to go private as we felt things were taking too long. Also it’s worth knowing there are tests the NHS just don’t do unless they know you do have a problem with your fertility such as checking your AMH levels
