When you can’t impregnate her

What is more daunting to man than seeing all his efforts to sire a child he can call his own land on the rocky perch? Probably none, if this question was directed to Claude. Marrying at the prime age of 32, Claude saw the first five years of his married life go into worries, At first, his family members accused his wife of not giving them a child because they believed that infertility was a woman’s problem. “I reached a point where I believed that my wife was infertile, little did I know it was I who couldn’t make her pregnant,” he reluctantly confesses.“A friend advised me to take my wife for a fertility test. I told my wife to go alone, but the gynecologist said I also needed to go with her because such tests required both people,” he says.Test results showed that he was the one with the problem. The doctor suffering from low sperm count probably due to a childhood disease.“I went to another doctor who started me on treatment. It took me close three years before I could get children. I sometimes felt like giving up the treatment,” he says. Claude has been blessed with three children. Dr Gaspard Ntahonkiriye, an obstetrician and gynecologist at La Croix du Sud Hospital, said male infertility occurs because of problems with ejaculation or erection, problems within the small reproductive tract ducts and problems with sperm production.“Problems with sperm production are by far the most common of the three, and can be detected during semen analysis. There are many causes of abnormal sperm production, including varicocele, genetic problems, infections, exposures to heat or toxic chemicals, drugs and medications and hormonal imbalance” he saidThe doctor also faulted cultural beliefs, saying it is wrong for people to think that men cannot be infertile“Sometimes men are so impatient that they seek tests before the right time. Couples ought to seek medical attention if one has been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for more than a year. Here they come within the first six months,” Dr Ntahonkiriye says.