Chapter 1: When Masculinity Faces Reality

The Diagnosis

“Well, the test results are in,” he says, and pauses. I’ve had enough conversations with doctors to know that a pause like that never leads to good news.

My wife and I are sitting in the office of the doctor everyone called “the best fertility expert” after a year of trying to get pregnant. For twelve months we had a lot of sex, but no baby. Not that I’m complaining about the sex—it’s just that the goal was different, and it didn’t happen.

I glance at the wall behind him, covered with smiling baby photos and thank-you notes from grateful parents. “What did they have to go through?” I wonder.

“Your sperm count is very low. Extremely low.” He looks at me, then at my wife. “Based on these results, I don’t see a natural pregnancy happening.”

And in that moment, time froze.

The Stigma

Male infertility is one of the last taboos. We talk about IVF, egg freezing, surrogacy, even miscarriage. But when it comes to men and sperm—silence.

If a man can’t father a child naturally, he isn’t just infertile—he’s “less of a man.” At least, that’s what society whispers.

The message is everywhere: a real man makes babies. Masculinity is tied to virility, to DNA, to numbers in a lab report. When you’re told you have a low sperm count, it’s not just your fertility under the microscope—it’s your identity.

The Breakdown

I storm out, trying to process what I’ve just heard, but all I can feel are the tears burning in my throat. My wife comes after me and holds me tight. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. “There are a million ways to become parents. We will be. Trust me.” I want to believe her, but I can’t.

The drive home takes about 45 minutes. On any ordinary day it would have felt far too long, because all I’d want was to get home. But now it feels as if someone pushed the clock into fast-forward.

We step inside the house and, just after I close the door, I look at the walls and they suddenly seem different. The whole house suddenly feels too big.

We had moved in a year earlier, thinking it would be the perfect place to raise children. Neither of us imagined that a year later, we’d still be here - just the two of us - with a massive question mark hanging over the future “residents” who were supposed to fill it.

I sink into the couch, close my eyes, and all I see is that doctor, as if asking me: “What kind of man are you?” And then I hear myself asking the very same question.

And then - silence.

Because there is no answer.

I have no answer.

Little did I know—this was only the beginning.