Like a lot of males, speaking very generally, you grow up and think that starting a family is one of those things that just happens naturally. You find the right person, you settle down and start trying. Then you’re in the house and you’ve got two three little ones running around. I knew I always wanted to be a dad and I love kids, but it wasn’t something I’d ever given much thought to. I was playing football professionally and initially I wanted to have kids when I finished my career so I could put all my energy and focus into that. But towards the end of my playing career I met Annabel, she was really passionate about starting a family and once we’d been together a while, in our late 20s, I thought, there’s probably no perfect time for it. So we decided to start trying.
I was probably a bit naive
Or didn’t really have any preconceived ideas about the process, I think a lot of males are in the same boat and that’s part of the reason that I advocate being more invested in the lead up to conception. Start putting things in place, have those conversations, don’t just go in blind and hope for the best.
We’d been trying naturally for around eight months. Bel was using apps and stuff to track her cycle but outside of that we were just naturally trying to conceive. After that period, we went to the GP, more out of curiosity, there was no real panic at that point, but Annabelle was just sort of starting to wonder if there’s something we were not doing right or just get a few answers that might speed up the process. So we went to the GP and it was all very much focused on Annabelle, and it’s only really on reflection that we noticed that. There wasn’t anything really discussed about my fertility in that first check-up aside from whether I smoked, or drank and whether I was healthy. But essentially we were told to keep trying.
After a year, we started to do more investigations
I was pretty anxious about getting a fertility test. I’d never heard anything about them, I didn’t know what it involved and you don’t know what’s going to come next. There’s a sense of uncertainty and stress, but there’s also a sense of shame and embarrassment as well. The need to even get tested. It was like, why me?
I got my results and they came back severely low. There was still a sperm there, so there was a little bit of hope. Then I got tested a few months later and that one came back zero. I remember getting those results – I was really upset. Really, really sad. I remember that night, Bel and I just crying most of the night, just trying to wrestle with the idea of what’s next and what’s going to happen.
The thing with male infertility is there isn’t really a whole heap of options from there. It is definitely something that they’re still trying to explore and advance, now that there’s more of a focus on men. But it also varies depending on the specialist you go to. On our journey we ended up seeing three.
I was found to have low testosterone and put on medication for several months, which was a really traumatic period. I was nauseous all the time, really irritable, had a lot of mood swings and a lot of shame and embarrassment. It’s also really expensive. We’re fortunate to be in a position to afford the whole fertility process but that’s one of the many aspects of life it impacts.
I then had a micro-tese
It’s a surgery that finds and extracts sperm in your testes. It felt like a pretty scary process, I was anxious about it. Getting operated on your testes is pretty daunting. Physically, you’re bed bound and recovering for a while. Mentally, it’s tough too. In the lead up I was thinking, what if they don’t find any sperm, what’s the next step? Do we stop there? What if I don’t become a dad? The whole idea of donor sperm starts coming up. I was very fortunate that I had some really good things in place for my mental health, and a lot of people to talk to.
In the micro-tese they found some sperm and Bel had a heap of eggs, which we were very lucky with. We created our embryos, froze them and started our first IVF cycle.
We did five months of failed cycles and there were a lot of emotions that came with that. We decided to change specialists after that and I had another micro-tese where they found a lot more sperm. We did one round of IVF and Belle fell pregnant.
That’s easily one of the most amazing moments of my life
TI was ecstatic and just in shock. I got home from work and Bel surprised me. She’d done God knows how many pregnancy tests. There was maybe 10 of them lined up on the kitchen bench. She had this cute little balloon and she was crying at end of the corridor. That moment, I’ll never forget. There’s a whole mix of joy, happiness, excitement and a big sense of relief.
It’s funny to say but not long after that there’s then a sense of what’s next, what’s going to go wrong? It’s important to acknowledge because it’s natural to feel that way and I’ve been able to work through that stuff.
Our son, Giovanni, was born in December 2024 and I’ve loved every second of fatherhood. I tell everyone at the moment, I can’t really have a bad day, which everyone sort of laughs at me and thinks I’m an idiot because having a newborn is actually really tough. But I’m just really leaning into it. I can’t wait to wake up every morning and hang out with him and get home from work and hang out with him. It’s definitely been the greatest experience of my life. Having a newborn is tough but Bel and I are just making sure we’re supporting each other.
Communication is the most important aspect of the journey
Because you’re in it together, you’re trying to achieve the same thing and you want to always support each other. I did a lot of work with my psych, who I’ve seen for a long time, around being vulnerable. That can be quite hard for a lot of people and for me it was a learned skill. It’s just not one of those things that you can turn on and off.
The biggest thing for us as a couple was identifying our triggers, learning about them and when they kick in, and how we can actually help each other through those. That was life changing for us because once you can identify that, that’s when you can really support each other. At night we would really consciously sit on the couch, have a cup of tea, no phones, no TV and just talk about how we were feeling, whether it be that day or just generally, or if we were waiting on some results to come back. So really identifying the times that we really needed to tap into each other, but there are also times where you can also tell each other, look, my cup’s really low at the moment I can’t really give you probably what you need. Then you can give a family member a call or visit someone else for support. I definitely want to acknowledge that we had a lot of bad days, hours, arguments – that is very natural. I would highly recommend that for anyone going through this journey, invest in couples therapy. A lot of people think it’s really icky or something you do when you’re going to break up but that’s actually not the case. They’re really valuable for just sitting down and just teaching you how to communicate, sit with each other’s emotions and triggers, that’s invaluable stuff that you never learn elsewhere.
At the start I felt really alone
I didn’t have anyone to talk to about male infertility, there wasn’t a lot online, I hadn’t heard much about it. I felt really isolated. Bel had shared her experience on TikTok and built a really amazing online community, which she got heaps of support from. We decided that maybe this is a good opportunity for me to speak publicly about my experience and it’s grown from there.
I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me and the common theme that comes up is this idea of shame and guilt. My message to men experiencing infertility is that they’re not alone and it’s more common than you think. It doesn’t make you any less of a man, it doesn’t make you weaker or inferior. The thing that helped me the most was the support I had around me and a lot of self-compassion.
Keep being really proactive with your journey, whether you’re at the very, very start or in the trenches. I hope that our experience creates a bit of hope for others and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
