Male infertility: ‘Late at night, when the house was still, I started to feel it all pressing down’

The one basic biological premise for being a man, I was failing at. I remember getting the news from the consultant on a car journey to a weekend away with my wife and two of our friends. I was down on the key metrics they look for in semen analysis. I remember just feeling deflated. Like someone had just stuck a pin in this balloon of excitement of potentially being a dad I’d been carrying. 

I’m 30 years old; my wife and I got married when I was 27, she was 28. We met when we were 15, on a bus heading to a fun fair. We began going out shortly after. A teenage romance. Secret kisses in the back of the cinema, endless texting, and childish behaviour. Mainly from me. 

We haven’t always been together. But we have always ended up back together. I guess that was the sign that there was something. On a warm evening walk down the beach in Miami, my wife, bolstered with confidence after one particularly strong frozen margarita, asked, “So, where are we going?” Six months later, we were engaged. Six months after that, we were married. After her question, I began to think about what my life would look like if she weren’t in it. And I knew it wasn’t one worth living. 

When I think of my wife, when I think of our teenage years, I wish I could shake myself by the shoulders and tell myself to cop on. Not because I was terrible, but because I was a teenage boy, immature and still figuring things out. But maybe these mistakes of our past shape us into the person we are today. We’ve grown up together. Through teenage immaturity, the early adulthood stages of moving out and finding your own feet. Over the past year, we’ve both had to have surgery. Which has meant we were both, for a period of time, unable to shower alone. A humbling experience, something we thought wouldn’t occur till our later years. Nothing quite says “for better or worse” like your partner having to shower you. But the cards being dealt had other challenges ahead in store for us. 

Male infertility

My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant for a year and a half now. And over that time, I figured I should get tested. I remember the awkwardness of heading into the clinic, “Hi, I’m here for a semen analysis appointment”. A childish smirk inside saying that sentence. We might get older, but a part of us never grows up. As I’m shown to the waiting room, I see another man walk by. Looking a little lighter, a kick in his step. You can either cringe or laugh about these things. “I’ll just check the sample room is clean and then you can head in”, a staff member says while they hand me an empty cup. Once I get the thumbs up, I head into the room just off the hall. The entrance to the bathrooms is just outside the door to where I am, a constant stream of people going in and out. An entirely bizarre experience. 

The results weren’t great. 

Still, I think I’m lucky. We are young. We have some answers about potentially why my swimmers aren’t swimming, and we have things that we can try to do. But what about the men and women who don’t have answers? Who are told, without explanation, that the most basic thing they’re supposed to be able to do, they can’t? How many of them suffer in silence? 

Approximately half of male infertility cases are unexplained. I feel for those men, I feel for the women encountering their own struggles. Fertility and conception are intensely sensitive and personal subjects. Before running into this problem myself, I hadn’t heard much about it. Is this another way in which men are clinging onto outdated norms: don’t share your struggles, don’t show weakness, bottle everything up. I wonder who suffers at the expense of this narrative portrayed for so long? I wonder how many men wander through this difficult time alone. In a classic male fashion, I focused on what it is I could do to help with these results. I drastically reduced my training, understood that I had a varicocele and that could have an effect on the poor results. In fact, it’s only from hearing another man describe his own journey with male infertility that I realised a varicocele could have some negative impacts. His description of it feeling like “a bag of worms” still remains in my mind. And so, I focused on what we could do, but didn’t really give myself time to just sit down and say, “This is crap”. 

One month after my wife came off the pill, we bought pregnancy tests. Naively thinking that, well, maybe as her period hasn’t come back, it could mean she’s pregnant. But we didn’t yet understand the effects that years of being on the pill can have on a woman’s body. And then, of course, we discovered my situation. A double whammy. After 10 months, my wife’s period came back, but we’re still trying to work out my situation. So much uncertainty looms. 

Uncertainty when it comes to careers is one thing. Uncertainty when it comes to topics of having a family is another. Tests, waiting lists, and investigations. Waiting for tests to be done, waiting for results of those tests, waiting for advice and ramifications of the results of those tests. Endless waiting. 

Meanwhile, friends and loved ones announce pregnancies, or share news of beautiful souls entering the world. I feel elated for them, but I’m acutely aware of our own situation. Of our own uncertainty. Feeling guilty for these conflicting emotions within. I feel it’s my fault. I question why I never got tested earlier. But that only adds to the weight. Instead, I try to remind myself of where we are now, of what we’re doing, of the wheels already in motion. I have no idea when the new chapter might begin, but I think of those moments in the future when we might hold a child of our own. When I look into the eyes of another and see my own or my wife’s looking back. I hold onto the hope for that moment, for that feeling. And the pain and uncertainty of what we’re going through feel less. 

Masculinity 

Masculinity is a concept I’ve been wrestling with lately. I recently left secure employment to go self-employed, to try and chase a dream, a little voice inside saying you could do more. But that has brought with it some financial worries. And although we are in a stable place, thanks to my wife, inside, there are days when I’ve felt like a failure. I’ve questioned my worth. I’ve questioned whether I’m doing the right thing. While there is a shift in the culture of our current times, there are still the remnants that being a man is supposed to be about providing financially – which adds to the doubts within when one is not able to do that. It’s a weird feeling, knowing that it is the whispers of previous times that make you doubt what you’re currently trying to do. 

So, right now, I can’t financially provide, and I can’t procreate. Two of the basic premises for which we have been measuring what it means to be a man. Which often makes me start to question everything. What am I? What am I doing? Why am I such a failure? 

There are times when these questions can overwhelm me. Late at night, when the house is still, when we’re winding down to go to sleep, I start to feel it all pressing down. The doubt, the guilt, the sense of not being enough. It’s not that I believe in those old definitions of manhood, but those expectations seem to live somewhere deep inside of me. And some nights, those expectations speak louder than my own voice. 

I still think being a man is about providing, but that definition of providing expands beyond financial means alone. To provide a form of consistency, safety and support. To be a dependable person. It’s about showing up and taking responsibility even when it’s difficult to do so. For these are things we can always control, we can always influence.

Just before heading to sleep one night, my wife and I stare at each other in bed. Our final debrief of the day, an “I love you” shared before we both turn our separate ways and close our eyes. She says, “Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out”. I respond, “I just don’t believe that it will right now”. My wife reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder, “That’s ok, because I do”.