This One's For The Guys...

What’s the most embarrassing part about infertility?  For women it’s pretty much all of it – the stirrups, the ultrasound probes, the embryo transfers on a full bladder, the shots, and general loss of dignity.  I kind of felt like a huge science experiment when it was all over with.

However, women don’t get to take all of the honors – men experience their own level of discomfort as well.  For them it begins with actually making the appointment with the fertility clinic, accepting the little clear cup and proceeding to the “collection” room that’s loaded with age old porn to help create a “sample” for the lab to examine, and then the “walk of shame” – placing that sample in the brown little bag and handing it over to the receptionist and walking out the door.

You know why you are there, she knows why you are there, the front office knows why you are there.  And granted it’s a normal bodily function, but it’s one of those bodily functions that you’d like no one to think about especially if you are doing it.

So what would you think if you and your partner, or just you had the ability to conduct your own sperm count in the privacy of your own home?  You wouldn’t feel pressured to perform on command, or distracted by the noises down the hall.  

The Fertility Advocate Pamela Madsen  (one of my favorite industry professionals ever) is the new spokesperson for this product called Sperm Check.  This product is a kit can be used in the privacy of your own home, which can quickly inform men as to whether their sperm count is normal or low.

Does this replace your doctor?  Not in a million years.  But it is a great place to start and ease in to the whole world of infertility and testing if you or you and your partner think there might be a problem. One of the things I liked about this product is simple – for years it’s always been the female who undergoes a slew of testing only to find it’s really not her, it’s him.  Wouldn’t it be great to have the male test at home first just to get an idea of which direction to go before sending the female for a bunch of unneeded tests?  That’s the selfish part of me I guess.

This test isn’t going to tell you anything but a simple sperm count.  It’s not going to tell you about morphology, or any other part of a complete semen analysis and it should never ever replace your doctor, but I can’t imagine how happy I’d have been 15 years ago if this test had been available.