I'll admit that I'm partially posting to ease my fears, but I began HRT about three months ago when it occurred to me recently that I do have a desire to possibly have children, thus to go to a sperm bank. I've stopped HRT briefly, for sperm count to increase and am waiting for a test. What do studies show though? Am I up the creek? Did I go too fast, or should I still be in a safe window?
Rosie
I didn't bank sperm until 5 months on HRT. Sperm analysis came back "low" in almost all areas but not subfertile in any. I didn't even bother stopping HRT, just stopped taking the T blockers for about 3 days (still took the estradiol). I'm also young though, I know it is certainly not unheard of to go sterile in a shorter period than that, although a lot of what I've read suggests that stopping HRT will probably remedy that before a year or so on HRT. In other words, as long as you aren't 40+ or had fertility problems pre HRT, you should probably be just fine.
You can use the best guess sliding scale that tells you that after between 3/4-1 1/2 years on estrogen and anti-androgens you should remain fully infertile ever after. Although that scale is said to be, like most else with us, not 100% accurate.
At this point you should be able to summon some live sperm for banking, although going off both AAs and E for 6 weeks would prolly give the testes a chance to re-load better than remaining on the hrt and trying to get viable sperm.
Nichole