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Results
By Mayo Clinic staffYou can resume sexual intercourse once the incisions are healed — usually a few weeks after surgery. If a vasectomy reversal is successful, sperm usually appear in the semen after a few months, but can take as long as 15 months with some procedures. Vasectomy reversal leads to pregnancy in about half of couples within two years.
Sometimes problems with conception are due to female infertility. When the female partner doesn't have fertility problems, couples are more likely to conceive a child after a vasectomy reversal.
Your surgeon will want to examine your semen after surgery to see if the operation was successful. Unless you achieve pregnancy, a sperm count is the only way to tell if your vasectomy reversal was a success. Your doctor will likely want to do a semen analysis every two to three months.
If vasectomy reversal doesn't work
Vasectomy reversals sometimes fail if there is a sperm blockage that wasn't recognized during surgery, or if a blockage develops sometime after surgery. Some men have a second-attempt vasectomy reversal if the procedure doesn't work the first time.
You may also be able to father a child by using frozen sperm retrieved during your vasectomy reversal, which is injected into your partner's egg (in vitro fertilization). If you didn't have sperm frozen or your frozen sperm doesn't work, in vitro fertilization may be possible using sperm retrieved directly from your testicle or epididymis — the structure at the back of the testicle.
- Lipshultz LI, et al. Surgical management of male infertility. In: Wein AJ, et al. Campbell-Walsh Urology. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/113319552-2/0/1445/23.html#4-u1.0-B978-0-7216-0798-6..50022-4--cesec30. Accessed Dec. 10, 2008.
- Boorjian S, et al. The impact of obstructive interval and sperm granuloma on outcome of vasectomy reversal. The Journal of Urology. 2004;171:304.
- Vasectomy reversal. UrologyHealth.Org. http://www.urologyhealth.org/adult/index.cfm?cat=11&topic=154. Accessed Nov. 13, 2008.
