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Fertility is a dodgy subject among us spinal cord injured. It is definitely a possibility, for at least a fraction of male spinal cord injured victims have managed to procreate the normal way, and with modern fertility techniques such as artificial insemination, the world is open to an even wider array of possibilities and options. For women with spinal cord injuries, pregnancy and fertility is generally not a problem, but an informal survey of the guys I know with SCI, there is a 50-50 chance that they may or may not have a) a reliable erection or b) the ability to ejaculate on their own or c) if they can ejaculate, they may be shooting blanks. Within a few months following my injury, with the help of a few back-dated issues of Playboy and lots of idle time, I had come to the conclusion that I was a solid “c”, with the question of “blanks” yet to be determined.

But I would get a chance to get closer to the truth.

While still in my first marriage, I heard that a doctor at a nearby hospital had obtained a grant to perform fertility studies on spinal cord injured patients. The subject of raising kids had been broached routinely by my first wife, so I figured now was as good a time as any to find out for sure if, as Seinfeld put it, my “boys were still swimming”. The only catch was that the doctor was using a method of obtaining sperm samples known as electro-ejaculation; although I was fuzzy on the exact details, I knew that it involved hooking up an electrical current to something down there. This was supposed to produce much more reliable results than by obtaining a sample using the “low-tech” method (which only required back-dated Playboys, idle time and my left hand), since as spinal cord injured males, certain spasms and other complications from the SCI might prevent a true representation of the sample from ever seeing the light of day; in other words, what you’re shooting may not necessarily contain quite everything needed to conceive, and what’s left inside might be critical to determining overall fertility. Speaking for myself, ejaculation wasn’t always 100% reliable anyway – more like a 50-50 shot on any given occasion (no pun intended) so I had to admit that the prospect of possibly knowing for sure whether or not I had viable sperm was enough to override my apprehension about the electronic stimulation part of the procedure. How bad could it be anyway? Maybe there would even be hot-looking nurse assisting the doctor with the placement of the electrodes and such.

Apparently, if a viable sample could be obtained, then it would be potentially possible to have it frozen and stored to be used for artificial insemination, so even if I was unable to conceive the natural way, at least there might be options for later on down the road. Needless to say I contacted the doctor, who was delighted to have my participation in the study and I arrived for my first session at the hospital full of a renewed hope for a question that had been dogging me since the very day I had become spinal cord injured.

The doctor was young, very enthusiastic and spot on with his knowledge of spinal cord injury. We conversed about my existing sexual function and he agreed that it was certainly appropriate to know what was truly happening with my fertility. He was slightly concerned about my dysreflexia, the elevation of blood pressure and the burning, skin-crawling sensation that was my body’s way of interpreting any noxious stimulation below my level of injury, anything from having to pee to pulling a few hairs on my leg to spilling a hot cup of coffee in my lap (for a guy with no normal sensation, I could unfortunately interpret pain extremely well).

Once we had moved into the exam room after our initial consultation I soon realized the cause for his concern, for the “electrodes” were not some stick-on EKG type appliqués, but actually a single phallic rod about 8 inches long, stainless steel at one end, and electrical cord at the other, which was hooked up to a strange looking console with some round dials and meters that looked like it was stolen from the movie set of “Fantastic Voyage”. He explained that the sample was obtained by electrically stimulating the prostate, which was achieved by inserting the implement into - you guessed it – my ass!

About an hour later, somewhat light-headed from the extreme discomfort of spiking blood pressure from dysreflixia and the sickly, skin crawling and cold, uncomfortable sweat that accompanied it, the doctor and his male assistant had obtained a decent sample, probably more than I could have gotten on my own. My consensus was that this experience ranked up there with some of the most unpleasant medical procedures I had endured thus far. But I was encouraged when the doctor reappeared after taking a quick view of the sample under a microscope. As it turned out there were live sperm! Overjoyed, I tried to imagine them on the microscope slide in their microscopic world– were they robust and happy, doing little flips like tiny dolphins, or were they beleaguered and tired, malformed and moping after enduring the horrors of my compromised body?

The doctor would need to do an extensive evaluation to determine exact counts and overall health and quality, so we couldn’t conclude anything other than at least some of my fighter jets were scrambling (well Jerry?). I returned for one or two more sessions over the course of a couple months, and in comparing all samples obtained, it looked as if I had viable sperm, but with low density. I was advised not to feel too bad, for millions of healthy, normal males suffered from exactly the same thing, and many had gone on to conceive just fine. In his view, as long as there were live ones, the possibility existed, no matter how slim; just how slim in my case – I was something like 20 million, to the normal average of 80 million – would have to be determined in our efforts to conceive. He recommended that we first try extensively to conceive the good old fashioned way first, through timing of the ovulation cycle trying to hit it at the right time; then we could try the freezing and artificial insemination methods.

Unfortunately I never got to the freezing stage, for a few weeks later the doctor abruptly left for another research assignment in Texas, discontinuing his project here, possibly because the grant money had run out. It didn’t matter though, because my first wife would be moving out soon anyway, and anyhow the few months of unprotected sex (before, of course, the many recent months of no sex) had yielded no results of a pregnancy.

(This is an excerpt from "They Call Me Wheels", a memoir by Geoffrey E. Matesky, NOW AVAILABLE from iUniverse, Amazon.com, & Barnes & Noble (bn.com). If you are a bookseller and wish to obtain copies, please contact the sales department of my publisher, iUniverse.com for more details.)