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Infertile patients cannot afford to wait for treatment while their eggs get older.

Dr. Sherman Silber, Infertility Center of St. Louis, is offering video consultations for patients who need to plan now for their treatment while stay-at-home orders are in place. He is talking to and evaluating patients in their home to comply with social distancing measures.

Dr. Silber is discovering that patients actually prefer this method of telemedicine consultation over the conventional office visit. Patients have conveyed that “it is so much more convenient and less stressful” to have a telemedicine personal consultation than to take a day off from work to travel to the doctor’s office and sit with other nervous patients in the waiting room.

The COVID-19 pandemic is thus changing much of the way we will do things in the future, and for the better. “Our patients are surprisingly much happier with this approach. Of course, at some point we need to perform hands on treatment. But with this new manner of seeing patients, we can come to the right diagnosis and treatment plan for most patients more efficiently, quickly, and painlessly, with no loss of personal one-on-one communication.” This is a very welcome new era of telemedicine that has been forced on us by the current difficult times.

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The Infertility Center of St. Louis
The Infertility Center of St. Louis
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Alexis and Daniel’s Azoospermia Success Story

August 26, 2025

Alexis and Daniel’s azoospermia success story led to two little miracles

A recent Facebook Live with Dr. Sherman Silber introduced us to Alexis, Daniel and their two beautiful children. They talked to our St. Louis fertility specialist about how he helped make their azoospermia success story possible.

The couple faced male fertility issues on their path to parenthood

When Alexis and Daniel decided it was time to start their family in 2020, they could never have imagined how their journey would unfold.

The couple tried to conceive for six months but had no luck. After an exam revealed Alexis was healthy and had no fertility issues, they wondered what to do next. They then remembered that Daniel had an old sports injury. This memory inspired them to schedule an appointment to assess his fertility.

After some testing, Daniel received a diagnosis of azoospermia (absence of sperm in the semen). “We didn’t know what kind it was at the time,” Alexis explains. “We hoped it was obstructive, though, because that meant he still had sperm.”

It turned out that Daniel did have obstructive azoospermia. To bypass the obstruction and retrieve the sperm, a doctor performed a surgical procedure on Daniel.

According to Alexis, “We thought it was the missing puzzle piece and we could just do IVF next to have a baby.” However, the couple still needed to overcome a few more hurdles.

Embryo quality was the next issue to face

A round of in vitro fertilization (IVF) resulted in just one embryo that didn’t turn into a pregnancy. In response, Alexis and Daniel did another IVF cycle. They got a few more embryos but still had no success.

At this point, their doctor recommended visiting our St. Louis fertility specialist for an azoospermia success story.

Once Dr. Silber reviewed the pictures of the couple’s embryos, he immediately saw the problem: poor-quality embryos. He explained that pregnancy was still possible. It was just a matter of getting high-quality sperm.

Dr. Silber felt confident that a different sperm retrieval procedure would yield better results, so he recommended MESA. Also known as microsurgical epididymal sperm aspiration, this procedure lets Dr. Silber retrieve the higher quality sperm that are often closer to the testicles.

Daniel immediately noticed a difference between the two procedures. “I’ll say one thing, your [Dr. Silber’s] procedure was a lot more comfortable than the first one,” Daniel says.

However, comfort wasn’t the only difference. This technique also resulted in a successful pregnancy and the birth of their first son.

A few years later, the couple welcomed their second baby with help from Dr. Silber, adding to their azoospermia success story. “We won the lottery with our children. We couldn’t believe we would be lucky enough to have not just one but two children,” Alexis says.

Can you conceive with obstructive azoospermia? Alexis and Daniel prove you can

Finding our St. Louis fertility specialist made all the difference for Alexis and Daniel.

“We 1000% thought we wouldn’t be able to have children of our own. We truly felt very defeated until our doctor recommended Dr. Silber,” Alexis explains. “You [Dr. Silber] changed our lives.”

If you need help to have your own azoospermia success story, contact us to schedule a free consultation with Dr. Silber. We are excited to help you welcome the baby of your dreams.