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Male infertility - Jay Jay and Dom story

Husband-and-wife Dom Harvey and Jay-Jay Feeney are known for their out-there antics and quirky personalities as co-hosts of The Morning Madhouse on The Edge radio station. But off the air, the couple have struggled for three years to conceive a child. Here, Dom and Jay-Jay talk to Katherine Granich about their journey with male infertility.

Dom Harvey isn't shy about things. Barely five minutes after I've met him, he's already pulled up his shirt to show me the scar from his operation three years ago. While I politely try to avert my eyes from his washboard abs - after all, his wife Jay-Jay Feeney is right here in the room with us - he tells me, quite honestly and openly, that it wasn't until after he had surgery to remove a tumour in his abdomen that he found out he and Jay-Jay weren't able to get pregnant the conventional way. This exuberant, good-looking guy with the larger-than-life personality and the obvious affection for his wife is affected by male infertility.

I'd been up late the evening before our interview, trying to sensitively word queries about fertility treatments and sperm motility so that I wouldn't inadvertently offend either Dom or Jay-Jay by asking too personal a question - although you can't get much more personal than talking to a couple about why they can't get pregnant without medical assistance.

It turns out that I needn't have worried, though. Dom and Jay-Jay aren't afraid to open up about what they're going through, and they start off by trying to figure out why people shy away from talking about infertility.
"We're sitting in the waiting room at the fertility clinic, and there are other couples there, of course. It's obvious why you're all there - yet everyone looks down at their magazines and refuses to make eye contact," says Dom. "No one wants to talk about it. It's like they don't even want to acknowledge it in the presence of other people who are going through the same thing." "It's a taboo for some reason," Jay-Jay tells me. "But why? Why is infertility such a big secret? Are people ashamed of it?" If infertility is something that people feel ashamed of, then for a guy to admit he has male infertility seems like the social equivalent of streaking at a funeral - it's just not done. That's why it's so surprising to me that Dom and Jay-Jay, both high-profile radio personalities, are so open about Dom's condition, and so willing to go on the record talking about what they're going through. But like I said, they're not terribly shy - a week after our interview, Jay-Jay shaved her head bald, fundraising more than $11,000 for the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation. And they did, after all, announce their baby-making plans in a women's magazine article in mid-2005.
"We sort of started planning it around the time we got married," explains Dom. "We thought, 'This'll be the year we'll have kids.' Then Jay-Jay decided she wasn't quite ready." "I was putting it off until after the ratings. After this, after that..." Jay-Jay trails off, then laughs. "You know, life intervenes. We weren't really trying, but we weren't not trying. We were sort of thinking, 'If it happens, it happens.'"
"So then we did finally get around to it, the 'trying' thing," Dom says. "We did the magazine story, and even though it didn't work out - we didn't get pregnant - I don't regret making it public."
A few months after they actively started trying for a baby, in November 2005, both Dom and Jay-Jay competed in the Auckland Marathon. Only 4km into the run, Dom started to feel unwell and dropped out of the race. After having his blood pressure checked, he was whisked off to hospital where doctors were unsure whether he'd had a heart attack, a stroke, or something else. It took them two weeks to find the grapefruit-sized tumour that was lurking in Dom's adrenal glands.
Fortunately, the tumour was benign, and the doctors were able to remove it. Unfortunately, a complication during the surgery meant that Dom wasn't able to have children naturally.
"Four days after the operation, while I was recovering in the hospital, the doctor came in and said to me, 'You're not going to be able to have kids naturally any more. You have a condition called retrograde ejaculate.' Basically it means that when I have an orgasm, instead of the sperm coming out, it shoots back into my bladder. Where the tumour was located had messed around with some stuff 'down there'," Dom explains.
"I was with him when we found out, and I was devastated," Jay-Jay says quietly. "I couldn't believe it. For the first few days, I just sobbed. Dom was pretty cool about it, but I was heartbroken."
The couple knew pretty quickly that IVF was their best option for conceiving. But, as Dom says, "To be honest, it didn't hit me at the time. I probably wasn't thinking about the full repercussions. You hear about IVF and it seems like a fairly simple sort of thing. A lot of people like us - in their 30s, getting older - talk about it and say, 'Oh, well, if I can't have a baby, I'll just have IVF.' It always seemed like an easy 'Plan B'. But when you start getting into it a bit more, you realise there's more to it than meets the eye."
Jay-Jay says she knew right from the beginning that IVF wouldn't be a walk in the park. "I didn't think IVF would be easy. My first thought was, 'Holy shit, this is going to be tough'. I was terrified. It was so daunting," she admits.
"I have to go through a month of injecting myself in the stomach with hormones. Then I have to have lots of internal scans to see if the eggs are at the right size and how many there are. Then once the eggs are produced, I have lots of blood tests and more uncomfortable scans. And then they remove the eggs, but they have to do it through the wall of my vagina with a needle into my ovaries. It is so painful. The first time I was awake and sedated, but the second time I asked them to put me out."

It's painful for Dom, too. In order to get sperm from him to fertilise Jay-Jay's eggs, "he has to have it cut out of his testicles," Jay-Jay tells me, as we all cringe. "They call it a testicular biopsy, which is as painful as it sounds," Dom explains, grimacing. "It makes me want to cross my legs just thinking about it and saying it out loud."
"Then they try to get as many healthy-sized eggs out of you as possible. The first time I only had three, and the second time I had six - eight is a more common number. Then they inject each egg with a sperm, and they leave it overnight to see if it multiplies and fertilises. The first time, one did," recalls Jay-Jay. Her voice falters. "I had one embryo, and they put it in, and I miscarried it. It was the only one. And then the second time, not one of my eggs fertilised. "It was quite sad at the time. To realise what you've lost, when you've gone through so much."
Dom remembers, "For me, the first time was sad, but it wasn't devastating. But the second time, when there were no embryos returned, we were both really bummed out. We had a couple of days off work afterwards. It was just so much work for nothing." "It's painful, and a lot of people are affected by the hormones, since you're injecting yourself every day. I got headaches, but I never really had the emotional highs and lows, the bad mood swings and other side effects. I've been lucky so far. But this time they've told me they're going to give me the maximum dose offertility drugs, so who knows!" Jay-Jay says, with a nervous laugh."I think many people find IVF really, really overwhelming and emotional. I did at first, before I started it. It's a bitch, but you just get through it. You have a goal, and you have to aim for it. I think the worst part is the egg collection, and the recovery from that. The next part, finding out that it didn't work… It must be awful, being the person to make that phone call. "The nurse said, 'Um, Jay-Jay, I'm really sorry, but…' and then I just lost it. I didn't hear anything after that."
"But the staff at the clinic are really, really good," Dom interjects. "For example, when it's in the microscopic, petri-dish stage, they call you all the time and give you updates." "They tell you, 'It's divided into two!'" Jay-Jay says. "'Some of them have got no tails, and some of them have, and this percentage are alive and kicking, and this many are slow…'" "It's very funny how much you learn about sperm, doing that," she concludes with a laugh.
This is a hard reality for many couples facing IVF - it's a huge, emotionally draining commitment, and it doesn't always work on the first try, or the second try, or even subsequent tries. In New Zealand, qualifying couples are typically granted two attempts at IVF through the public health system.
"Since our second cycle of IVF didn't return an embryo, which means it doesn't count, our third attempt is still covered under the public health system," Dom explains. "After that, we have to start paying, and it costs heaps - around $10,000 per cycle. And there are so many couples out there who have to take a loan out on their house, or sell their car, or do something drastic to raise the money to try IVF again if those two 'free' attempts don't work.
Two attempts is not enough for a guaranteed 'baby return'." Jay-Jay agrees. "If IVF fails, you have to think about when you would draw the line. When do you stop trying? Because, if you pay $10,000 to try again, what if it doesn't work? Do you pay $10,000 again for another attempt? What if that doesn't work? "We haven't decided what we're going to do if this round doesn't work. I'm thinking, 'Do I spend $100,000 and try 10 times if it doesn't work?' Do you ever give up? It's a difficult scenario that, possibly, we'll have to face - but I'm just hoping it does work so I don't have to worry about it!"
"Maybe if this cycle doesn't work, we'll do an Angelina and go to a remote village somewhere," Dom jokes. "Actually, we don't really have a 'Plan C'… But at the end of the day, we're doing this because we actually want to have kids. We have a really nice life at the moment, even without kids. So the worst-case scenario is, we continue having a really nice life without kids. "But it may feel a little bit empty, like something is missing or incomplete," he acknowledges. "Especially later in life, when you feel you need family around and there are only two of you," says Jay-Jay. Her eyes well up. "When you feel like it would have been such a cool achievement to bring someone up, to nurture a child, to be a parent."
"I always assumed I would be a parent," Dom adds. "In my 20s, of course, my worst fear was that I'd get someone pregnant. But I did always assume that I would someday be a father, and have children of my own."
Jay-Jay, on the other hand, hesitates a little before speaking up. "I never really had that maternal desire of always wanting kids. I was too busy being young to really think about having children. But when I met Dom, it was different, because I love him, and especially because having children is something that he really wants too. In the last couple of years, I have gotten really clucky." "She will be a fantastic mum," Dom asserts, gazing at his wife with such adoration and pride that I find myself blushing. Jay-Jay's five-year-old nephew, Seven, has been living with the couple for a few months, and Dom says that Jay-Jay has been "just brilliant" as Seven's foster parent. It's surprised both of them that they've risen to the challenge of parenting a five-year-old so well, and it strikes me that they obviously complement each other perfectly.
"We want the same things," Jay-Jay asserts. "We give each other space. We're relaxed with each other. I love him for who he is, and he loves me for who I am."
Many couples undergoing fertility treatment find that their relationship, especially their physical relationship, suffers as the emotionally draining nature of IVF takes its toll. So I decide to go for broke and ask them, flat out, whether the rigours of IVF have affected their sex life.
"Well, when my ovaries are swollen with lots of eggs, obviously I don't want anyone to go near me," Jay-Jay says. "Your mood, your personal mood, affects your sex life. Some people are so affected by IVF and the fact that it's so emotional, that they find they just aren't able to connect on that physical level while they're undergoing treatment."
"We've always had sex for fun, not just to make a baby," Dom affirms. "We're still having sex just for fun!" "Oh, but I'm just dreading doing it again," Jay-Jay groans."Which - sex or IVF?" asks Dom, and they giggle.
A sense of humour, Dom asserts, is the most important tool they have during this difficult time. "The more open you can be about it, and the more of a sense of humour you can have about it, makes things so much easier," he says.
"I can imagine that, for people who have gone through IVF 10 times, it can really wear you down emotionally. But I think you have to try to maintain a good attitude about it. But come talk to me in a few years' time. Maybe after we've gone through five more cycles of IVF, we'll be bitter and grumpy."
"I've probably been a little bit less positive than Dom," admits Jay-Jay. "Now that we're facing our third cycle of IVF, I said to Dom, 'If it doesn't work this time, I'm just going to give up.'
"He replied, 'How can you say that? You can't just give up.' I realised how upset he was about it, and that he wants this so badly. I really do want to have children, and I want to have Dom's children - especially if they look like him and not me," she grins as Dom rolls his eyes. "If this means so much to him, I am willing to go through this all again, because I love him."
It's hard to know what to say to a couple who are facing infertility, and I mention this to Dom. He agrees that because it's such a personal topic, it's difficult for most people to know how to relate to them, or what's appropriate or helpful to say. "It does bother me a bit when, in an effort to relate to what we're going through, people who have a child or even two children say to us, 'We've been trying to get pregnant again for six months now, but it hasn't happened, so we're going to start seeing a fertility specialist.' It's just not the same situation."
Jay-Jay says her most-hated piece of advice is when people tell her that she needs to relax. "I think that when people don't know what to say, and they're just trying to make you feel better, they say, 'Oh, look, don't worry about it. If you just relax, it'll happen.' "I had a friend who was having fertility problems. She finally 'relaxed' and she got pregnant. I want to say to those people, 'No matter how much we relax, we will still need medical help. Shut up already!' But I never say that. Instead, I just grit my teeth and say, 'Thanks, I'll try in future.'"
So what would their advice be to other couples who are facing IVF? "Just relax! It'll happen!" they cackle. Then Dom gets serious. "I would say to guys, 'Don't worry about it. Don't beat yourself up about it too much.
"Everyone assumes that having male infertility would challenge my masculinity, but it doesn't. A lot of guys probably feel that way, though, and I think that's the wrong way to feel. Guys who think that way need to realise that their partners are going to have to go through a lot worse than they will with IVF. "Although, since it's a male infertility problem, I do feel a bit guilty, sitting there watching Jay-Jay inject herself." Jay-Jay says that she knows Dom feels badly, but that she doesn't think he should blame himself at all. Her approach to coping with infertility and IVF has been to get online and talk about it.
"Visit a forum and chat to other people going through the same thing. That honestly saved me, talking to other people. You feel so alone when you first find out. You don't know anyone else who is going through it. You usually find all this stuff out after you are going through it yourself and then you meet lots of other people who are going through it, so talk to other people."
Which brings us back to the start of our conversation - why are people so afraid to talk about infertility? Dom says that since he admitted his condition and started talking about it, the people he meets do seem to be more open about the topic.
"We do get a lot of emails from people who have heard us talking about infertility on the radio. They are so grateful to hear it brought out in the open, because it's such an 'unmentionable' topic," says Dom. "We do a lot of promotional work, presenting things in bars, and I do get guys coming up to me afterwards wanting to talk about male infertility. Usually they're shouting to be heard because it's so loud in the room and I have to say, "Mate, this isn't really the right time. Here's my email address!" "Mind you, you do find that once you've talked about it, it can be annoying because people are constantly asking you about it," says Jay-Jay. "'When are you doing it next?' 'How's it coming along?' That sort of thing.
"Sometimes you think, 'Oh, I wish I hadn't said anything.' I get sick of people asking me if I've had my pregnancy test yet. They get really personal with you, because you've opened up about it - you've opened yourself up to that."
Dom and Jay-Jay are hoping that, when it comes to IVF, third time's the charm. And, like many other couples in their position, they're interested in doing whatever they can to increase their chances of getting pregnant. Some of the advice they're taking is, admittedly, a little bit unconventional. "I read in a feng shui book that if you sleep on green sheets and put a couple of wooden elephants by your bedroom door, you'll get pregnant," Jay-Jay says with a wistful smile. "I've got the green sheets - I've had them for a few months. But Dom won't let me get the wooden elephants yet."
"After two rounds of IVF, you start feeling like if someone told you eating bananas with the skins on would make a difference, you'd do it," says Dom.
Dom says he's given up hot baths and red wine, and Jay-Jay's stopped drinking coffee and alcohol, and she's been trying to lose weight from her midsection. Looking at Jay-Jay's already-slim, beautiful figure, I wonder where she'll manage to lose the weight from - but then again, if it helps, it helps.
"You get pretty desperate," Jay-Jay concludes. "People have been saying I should try acupuncture. That's the last grasp at desperation for me. If I really feel desperate, I'll do that, because I don't really like the sound of it. But you get to the stage where you listen to this advice and you think, 'Well, what have I got to lose?'"
Nothing to lose, everything to gain.