- Even guys in like you know close quarters
aren't gonna be like, yo man, what's your sperm count?
- Yeah (laughs)
- Nobody's, nobody's saying that.
- No one.
(soft music)
- Hi, my name is Phil, and I have male factor infertility.
So back in 2012, my wife Alex and I just
started this journey on okay, we're gonna start a family.
And we thought, oh gosh, this is just gonna be easy,
and are we just prepared for a baby in nine months?
And the reality was,
that journey that I thought was typical,
was for us, everything but typical.
It was me, later that year getting checked
and realizing I had male factor infertility.
And so my sperm development wasn't working.
It wasn't happening the way it should happen
and biologically for whatever reason or another,
I had slow swimmers, I had weak swimmers,
I had swimmers that didn't know where they were going,
and for me what it did was, it started to lower,
day, by day, by day my own intrinsic value of myself.
I'm ready to talk to these guys
about what their scenario is
and see what we can find out about them
and what their journey might be.
- Hey man, I'm Zach.
- What's up man? I am Brendan.
- I am Tristan.
- What's up Tristan? - What's going on?
- How are you?
- I'm good, kinda nervous.
- Okay, don't be nervous.
- Kinda nervous.
- So like what's like a common like sperm count for men?
And does it differ depending on age group and age range?
- Yeah so actually, male infertility in general,
is actually on the decrease.
In fact, there's a handful of studies right now
that have been produced in the past six months
that are actually saying that years,
so let's say 30, 40, 50 years ago,
like a normal sperm count for a man would be 100 million.
- Okay.
- Right now, we're sitting, at least in the western culture,
somewhere around 50 million.
So it's half, - Right.
- in the last 30, 40, 50 years.
One of the biggest studies, was a Hebrew study
that was done at the University of Jerusalem I believe,
and essentially what they said was,
we're 25 years behind in this research of male infertility.
They should have started back in the 70s
- [Zach] Right.
- When they started to see the decline in these numbers,
and then see the decline
in actual sperm health and development
and they didn't do anything about it
and now they're going, this is kind of a crisis.
- This seems like kind of a dumb obvious one,
is that a lot of guys like
take for granted that this won't be a problem.
I guess how do I even find out that I would be infertile?
- Brendan I would say the first thing would be
if you and your spouse like have been trying to have kids
and it's been over 12 months,
you know, they say that over 12 months of consistent trying,
month after month to have children and it's not happening,
that's considered infertility.
That's where we step in and we go okay,
I gotta be manly about this, and I gotta step my game up
and I gotta think about
possibly is this a male factor thing?
Could I be a contributing factor to our infertility?
And then you go in to a clinic and you get tested,
and get a sperm test done,
and from there, you know, try to figure out
if there's a diagnosis or there's a reason.
Sometimes infertility is actually undiagnosed infertility
and there's not a specific reason for it.
You could have great, fast, strong swimmers,
and a ton of 'em,
and she could have no signs of let's say,
endometriosis, or PCOS, and you just can't get pregnant.
And at that point, it's just trial and error.
- I've had, you know, had unprotected sex
but I've never gotten anyone pregnant,
so I was always like, oh you know,
just good, just in the clear.
But I've never thought like
oh I could just not be able to get someone pregnant.
- Sure.
- So like when you found out,
how did that affect you mentally?
- [Phil] I think for a while it was, this like gut punch,
- [Tristan] Right.
- to my manhood.
- Yeah.
You know it was like, well you're supposed to be macho,
and just strong,
- [Tristan] Right.
- and I wasn't that, like I felt weak.
- Right.
- Like for some reason I thought like,
my sperm count made my identity less.
- You know we're talking about like healthy, eating healthy.
- Yup.
- I've, last year, I lost like 50 pounds.
- [Phil] Impressive.
- [Zach] Yeah man, yeah I did a really good job.
- [Phil] Do you feel better?
- I feel way better, I feel like healthier.
While we talk about like you know,
like eating healthy and all that stuff,
does genetics, is it genetic?
Does it get passed down?
'Cause again, we don't know, is that like something that,
- Yeah. - is like an indicator or not?
- Kinda going back to it,
I think there needs to be a lot of attention
in the medical field, so that we can figure this problem out
because I know that there are factors that contribute
to having a healthier reproductive system for a male, right?
It's getting the fat off of your body which creates heat
and that heat is killing the whole system
that's creating sperm.
- Yup.
- And so the hotter your body runs,
the less sperm you're likely to have.
So that's why you see in overweight populations,
there's usually more infertility problems and diagnosis's
for male and female,
- Right.
- because they're carrying so much more.
- Sounds like too and this is, I don't know this
but like I would assume that like,
you know, if you're going down the road of like
trying the different like treatments and the IVF and stuff,
that would probably get relatively expensive.
- Yup.
- And so I guess I'm curious like,
in the country right now,
is that something that's frequently covered much
by insurance or is it like really kinda hit or miss?
- And I would say,
for the majority of infertility treatments,
most insurances don't cover.
You're gonna find with big corporations,
that they do have some IVF extensions,
or there's like a bucket within the company
that they'll be able to say
hey, we can help you with x amount of IVF treatments
but as insurances alone, it's really difficult.
- Procreating and being able to have kids
is such a big thing. - Sure.
- Do you ever feel like you not being able to do it,
she will leave?
- [Phil] You know what, I did think of that.
- That's like when I think about being infertile,
that's my biggest fear, - Yup.
- is like someone being like well you can't give me a child,
why would I still be here?
- There were moments and there were days
that I would look at Alex and I'd go,
if I can't give this dream to you,
- Right.
- like, here's your way out. - Right.
- And she never took it.
And I'm so grateful that she didn't.
- Good.
- It's amazing because we're not in this marriage for sex.
- Right.
- We're not in this marriage for babies,
we're in this marriage to be unified as one.
And if it works that we get to have kids,
biologically, that's awesome.
- That's a plus.
- But guess what, there's other ways to have kids.
- Yeah.
- For us, adoption was an avenue for us to have kids.
- [Tristan] Yeah.
- Foster care is an avenue for people to have children.
- Obviously great to meet you.
- [Phil] Thank you.
- Thank you for just still being to strong and powerful,
- [Phil] Thank you.
- and open.
For me, it's really big to see a man
be open about this shortcoming with other men.
So this has been a beautiful, beautiful experience.
- Well I'd say, for you man,
thank you for allowing me to be apart.
- For sure.
- And vulnerability is the biggest sign of strength I think.
- For sure.
- And this generation needs to see it
because we've gotta get from behind the mask
and get in front of, just show people who we really are.
(upbeat music)