James and Davina D’Souza met and fell in love in their early 20s. They got married five years later, and three years afterwards had saved enough to buy a family home in a quiet cul-de-sac in London. Then, when Davina was 29 and James 33, they started trying for a baby.
“I knew that the moment we bought a home, we’d start a family,” Davina tells me in their living room, beside shelves crammed with framed photos of nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings. “My parents live down the road, and if I needed help to raise a child, my mum would be here.”
“We thought about all of that stuff,” James adds. “The job, the future, the house, the home: we make things happen.”
But after a year of trying, nothing had happened. Davina went to their GP, who referred her for the kind of invasive tests that have become the norm for women who experience problems conceiving: she had an internal, transvaginal scan to check her womb for fibroids, and an HSG test, where dye was pushed into her fallopian tubes to see if they were blocked. Everything looked normal.
It was only then that anyone suggested testing James. He had his semen analysed, and was told that only 1% of his sperm were formed normally. Still, it only takes one, the consultant said. She told them not to worry and to carry on trying. Two years after Davina came off the pill, James was tested again. This time, he had no normally formed sperm at all.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian.
