Tuesday, May 1, 2007

And the Official Diagnosis Is.....

Went to the doctor today with DH. Normally his dad goes with him, but seeing as how we're getting married in LESS THAN A WEEK, and I had plenty of questions, I went instead of his dad. A little weird.... The doctor stuck his head in the door and said "What's goin' on man?" and walked on down the hall. So not a doctor statement! (I guess I'm just used to the really old ones or the ones that don't really speak that much English?) So he came in, and was obviously shocked to find out that DH is engaged, and even more shocked to find out the wedding is THIS Sunday! Now, DH has known since he was about 16 that he has Klinefelter syndrome, and that he has really accomplished a lot more in his life (academically, socially, mentally, in every way) than most men with KS. But that's about as far as his knowledge went. I, on the other hand, started researching KS and infertility and our options almost as soon as he told me. I wanted a definite karyotype, I wanted a semen analysis, I wanted to know all the details about everything. Today we saw the endocrinologist(sp?), who only deals with the testosterone side of KS, and checks different levels in the blood. He was able to look back in DH's chart and tell me that definitely, DH is 46XXY, not another variant thereof. I was kind of hoping for the mosaic, in which some are XY and some are XXY, as there is somewhat more hope of biological children with the mosaicism. I guess I wasn't really that surprised, but I had hoped for the best. It was easier to "pretend" to a certain extent, that everything would magically be okay one day, until I actually heard it from the doctor. So anyway, that's about the only question he could answer. He doesn't really deal with the semen analysis, but set up an appointment with the Urologist DH has seen before.
So, with 46XXY, the chances of conceiving are virtually nill. There are some higher-end procedures we could try, but the endo suggested that we go up to the East Coast for someone who specializes in ICSI. That's cheap, right? The whole process... So yeah, not only does DH get to be stuck with needles and have testicular biopsies done to "see if they find any sperm," we also get to hop on a plane and explain why he's walking so funny! And at this point, DH decided he, who is terrified of flying, would rather hop on a plane to Ukraine to adopt our children,than go through such terrible, horrible pain!!!!!! And at that point, I said that is why women give birth, not men! ;)