Years of Infertility

When I was officially diagnosed with primary amenorrhea in my late teens, I was also told I would likely have a problem with fertility. For many years, that was not a concern. By my early thirties, however, I had already decided that I wanted to be a mother. That’s when I learned how true the doctor’s words were.

Irregular Periods

I have struggled with irregular periods all my life. Ovulation was difficult to predict, even when I diligently charted my temperature and vaginal discharge. None of the OB/GYN doctors I had seen over the years was able to explain my difficulties to conceive. They could only assure me that I was infertile and not sterile.

The advices I got varied greatly. Some urged me to take birth control pills to regulate my cycle for a few months, then discontinue the pills and try to get pregnant naturally within the next couple of months, when my ovaries were still likely to respond in a somewhat predictable manner. Others claimed that if I had been on birth control pills for years, I should expect to spend roughly the same amount of time off the pill before my ovaries were able to function properly on their own.

Infertility Later in Life

By the time I reached my mid-thirties, none of these experiments had worked. I visited yet another OB/GYN specialist, one of the best in town. We went over my history, and she ventured a guess: Based on her experience, she expected to find ovarian cysts. The physical exam, however, revealed none. My blood clearly indicated a hormonal imbalance, but with no knowledge of the root cause, the best she could do was tell me to . . . get back on the pill for six months and then try again to conceive.

Frustrated, I went home and called my insurance provider, asking for names of other specialists in my network. The customer service rep asked me if I had already consulted a reproductive endocrinologist. I told her I didn’t even know such specialists existed. She gave me a few names, and I went on the Internet to both check their credentials and educate myself on what these experts could do for me.

To learn more about what reproductive endocrinologists do, please visit my post “Reproductive Endocrinologists: Infertility Specialists Who Might Have an Answer for You.”

Expert Opinion

Based on online reviews and clinics’ website information, I had identified the reproductive specialist I wanted to see. The appointment was easy to schedule, and there was virtually no wait time (no double- and triple-booking as in regular OB/GYN offices!). As I soon learned, that wasn’t due to a lack of patients but was instead a sign of respect for patients’ time and privacy.

The initial consultation started as many others before it with a review of my overall health history and then veered to the specific problem at hand: my unexplained infertility.  After listening patently to my narration and studying my latest blood test results, the reproductive endocrinologist asked me to describe my diet. I promptly announced it was healthy—I ate lots of fruit every day, didn’t much care for red meet, and consumed multiple small meals throughout the day. The doctor disagreed.

Although I was well within the healthy weight range for my height (in fact, I was bordering on being underweight), the doctor believed I could be one of those people who seem slim on the outside but have lots of fat on the inside. He warned me about the dangers of becoming diabetic, particularly in relation to fertility, and advised me to adopt the eating habits of a prediabetic. (Click on the link to read more about the special diet my doctor proposed.)

 

Next was the transvaginal ultrasound test. It revealed that I was a textbook case of a patient with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). We now had an explanation for my infertility and could proceed with an appropriate treatment.