Whoops
In 2008, after two years of failing to make a child organically, we learned the doom Kathy had already been feeling for more than a year was justified: I was diagnosed with male-factor infertility. Our only real chance to move forward would be in vitro fertilization. We couldn’t afford it; we couldn’t afford not to do it. One way we tried to work through that diagnosis, our anger, and our options was to start a secret infertility blog, “Less Than a Million.” This post and what comments from 2008 that are attached to it come from that blog.—gb
In response to the recent editorial about rising infertility in the British Medical Journal, Ranit Mishori informs the Washington Post that infertility does too happen to men. The problem: ICSI is way more glamorous in Mishori’s hands than it is in real life:
A technological breakthrough called intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, helps do just that.In a 10-minute procedure performed under general anesthesia, sperm is removed from the testicles with a needle. Then, in the lab, a good-quality sperm is isolated and injected into an egg, which can then be inserted into the uterus.
First, there is a general conflation between ICSI, which is really just the process of injecting sperm into an egg, and the process of acquiring sperm in azoospermic or severely oligospermic men. Few other occasions require that sperm be removed with needles—more often than not, friction will do just fine. Second, if a biopsy is in fact needed, then local anesthetic is usually enough, as all the dudes having their junk operated on in these videos will attest.
