{"id":1042,"date":"2007-09-27T13:27:37","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T18:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/wordpress\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2007-09-27T13:27:37","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T18:27:37","slug":"the-results-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/2007\/09\/27\/the-results-are-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The results are in!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leah called at noon today and got the results of our recent tests.  Drum roll, please&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Leah&#8217;s blood work came back all normal.  So that&#8217;s good.  <em>Most <\/em>of my sperm analysis came back fine.  My pH was a little high.  Normal range tops out at 8, and I was an 8.2.  Always overachieving.  Doc doesn&#8217;t think that&#8217;s any problem.  Sperm count was good.  I had 134 million sperm\/milliliter, and normal is 20 million and over.  The kicker:  My &#8220;morphology&#8221; was not good.  I.e., only 8% of the sperm in my sample had a normal shape.  Quick online search reveals possible causes, which include varicocele (abnormal enlargement of the veins in the scrotum draining the testicles), drugs, heat, infrequent ejaculation, infection, and smoking.  A fast assessment of my current lifestyle whittles those suspects down a bit.  I don&#8217;t have any idea about the varicocele, and the drugs, infection, and smoking are out.  Perhaps it&#8217;s no coincidence that Ava was conceived in December?  The heat thing can be addressed, and Leah&#8217;s already offered a hand in the infrequency matter.  According to the doctor, morphology is subject to change over time, so a subsequent test could come back normal (or at least more normal).  I guess Leah didn&#8217;t think to ask what would happen if one of these abnormal sperm managed to run the gauntlet and impregnate her.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;d be not so cavalier about all this if I couldn&#8217;t sit here and think about my beautiful daughter running around in the sunshine right now at daycare (actually, she&#8217;d <em>better <\/em>be napping).  We&#8217;ll go back in a month to retest my semen, and we&#8217;ll keep &#8220;trying&#8221; in the meantime.  Another date with my little brown lover&#8230;fantastic.  I just <em>knew <\/em>I&#8217;d see her again, somehow, someday.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s &#8220;an artist&#8217;s&#8221; representation of a normal sperm compared to what the <em>vast <\/em>majority of my sperm look like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Normal:<\/strong><br \/>\n<center><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1382\/1448266389_330fdb6ade_m.jpg\" alt=\"normal\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mine:<\/strong><br \/>\n<center><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1013\/1448266437_aaa6ebb929_m.jpg\" alt=\"weird\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leah called at noon today and got the results of our recent tests. Drum roll, please&#8230;. Leah&#8217;s blood work came back all normal. So that&#8217;s good. Most of my sperm analysis came back fine. My pH was a little high. Normal range tops out at 8, and I was an 8.2. Always overachieving. Doc doesn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tmi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9oLlO-gO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}