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All About Sperm
What You Need to Know About Sperm to Conceive
By Teri Brown
Sperm isn't really something you think about until you're trying for a baby, and then it becomes half of the equation for pregnancy. If there's a problem with sperm count or motility, then it becomes a very important part of the equation, indeed.
Ask Dana Pollard of Lawton, Okla. She went off the pill early in her marriage for health reasons and took the "whatever happens will happen" approach. When nothing happened for over a year, she began to get worried.
"From there we ran the gamut on tests, thinking I was the problem," says Pollard. "After doing this for a year, the doctor suggested we test my husband's sperm count. He was astounded to find that my husband had no sperm whatsoever. None. I was even asked if my husband had a vasectomy and didn't tell me. This wasn't the case. Sadly, we were given the line, 'You'll just never be able to have children of your own.'"
After kicking around the idea of using a sperm donor, the Pollards decided to give adoption a try, but before they could do that, she found out she was pregnant. Obviously her husband still had a sperm or two the doctor missed, because the Pollards were not only going to have a baby, they were having twins.
"I simply tell people, 'The doctors told us we couldn't have one baby, but God gave us two,'" she says. "Five years later we had another baby, and we haven't closed up shop yet!"
Want to see more?
- Achieving Pregnancy: 10 Tips for Men Trying to Conceive
- Old Sperm Die Hard: Does Age Affect Sperm Quality?
- Antisperm Antibodies: Myths, Truths and Treatments of Sperm Allergies
- When He Won't Change to Start a Family: Your Partner's Preconception Health Matters
- Join the discussion on our Family.com community!
- An At-home "Sample": Testing for Sperm Concentration in the Privacy of Your Home
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