TIME

Infertility is a man’s issue too

WHEN A COUPLE CAN’T CONCEIVE, IT’S NOT ALWAYS BECAUSE OF THE WOMAN. BUT MEN REALLY DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT
Goldman took steroids for years, which depleted his sperm count. Now he and his wife want kids

BRADLEY GOLDMAN HAS FILLED OUT a size large T-shirt his whole adult life. As a bodybuilder, he knew that a steady stream of lean, bland proteins, heavy weights and steroids would make his muscles pop.

But over the past six months, Goldman, a fitness and nutrition consultant in Los Angeles, has watched his jacked physique soften and shrink. “I cracked a couple of weeks ago, and I had to buy a shirt a whole size smaller,” he says. He tried it on for his wife Brittany, and it hung loose on his frame. “I just kind of shook my head,” he says. He knew she saw the changes too.

Goldman, now 30, began taking steroids at 18. He’d heard they could interfere with fertility—steroids can shut down the body’s natural production of testosterone—but like many young men, he was more concerned with not having babies than with having them. Now he and his wife are trying to get pregnant, and though

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