Diagnostics

Most fertility screening is uncomfortable if not downright painful. Some of the easiest screening you will go through involves having blood work done. Your doctor will draw some blood, analyze it, and then call you with the results. For the woman's side of fertility screening, that's about as easy as it gets.

What kinds of hormones will the doctor be examining through your blood work?

Estradiol (E2)

This test helps to evaluate whether your ovaries are functioning correctly. See Estradiol - test for more on this topic.

Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)

FSH is involved in the production of eggs. The level varies throughout the menstrual cycle but should be highest right before ovulation. See Follicle-Stimulating Hormone for more on this topic.

Luteinizing Hormone (LH)

A woman's… [more]

I have undergone two laparoscopies for diagnosing my infertility as well to clean out endometriosis and scar tissue. They are not fun. Here are the things I wish I had known before having the procedure performed:

1. Be careful about what you eat after the surgery.

I made the mistake of eating Chinese food after the surgery, and I spent the next several hours vomiting it back up. Different people react differently to anesthesia. Some people can eat like a horse afterward and be just fine, but other people, like me, really need to eat very gentle foods like soup after having surgery. Err on the side of caution. When you have just had an incision in your navel… [more]

Some fertility clinics require you to obtain a semen sample on the premises. However, if you live fairly close to your clinic, you might be able to obtain the specimen in the privacy of your bedroom. I was so relieved that this was an option for us. While it is helpful for a man to be able to "take care of business" at home, it does create an interesting dilemma - how to transport the specimen over to the clinic.

Here are things to remember if you find yourself in the awkward position of transporting specimens to the clinic:

1. Make sure you can get the specimen to the clinic within 30 minutes.

My fertility doctors told me that the specimen needs… [more]

A reader sent me a link to an interesting news release that was published yesterday: Couples Quiet When it Comes to Concerns about Fertility. The news release contains many interesting statistics based upon a survey conducted by Genosis Inc., the company that created a product called Fertell. The news release also talks about this product and its ability to begin the fertility process in the privacy of your own home.

Let's start with the product in this post, and then I will discuss the statistics in my next post.

According to this news release, Fertell is an "at-home fertility screening test for men and women." How cool is that? I could have saved a good six months of time if this product had been available… [more]

While we were waiting for the adoption agency to match us with an expecting mother, we moved to a different state. We had already been waiting to adopt for 7 months, so my husband suggested that we get a second opinion on my infertility.

I struggled with whether it was ethical to pursue fertility treatments while waiting to adopt. My friends assured me that it was not a requirement to refrain for sexual intercourse while waiting to adopt, so it was okay if I got pregnant while waiting. I also figured that I could still go through with the adoption and raise two children who were close together in age.

My in-laws referred me to Dr. F, a fertility specialist with… [more]

Dr. M told me to schedule an HSG as soon as my period started so that we could have the test performed as soon as my period ended. This test would tell us if my fallopian tubes were blocked.

The procedure had to be performed at the hospital because we needed to use the X-ray equipment. He said that this was an outpatient procedure that would be uncomfortable but not painful enough to require prescription medication. He said that pain was actually a "good" sign because the procedure would be less painful if the tube was blocked.

I do not usually go into procedures hoping for pain, but I was hoping for good results this time. So far, we… [more]

By the time we were referred to an infertility specialist (Dr. M), we had already been trying to conceive for a year. I was feeling very frustrated, but, at the same time, I was hopeful that this specialist would "fix our problem" so that I could finally get pregnant.

I came to this initial meeting alone, which both frustrated and relieved me. I was frustrated because this was our problem and yet I was the only one seeing a doctor about it. However, I was also relieved because this meant that I was in control of what we did or did not do. (Have I mentioned yet that I can be a control freak?)

In the initial meeting, we mostly talked about… [more]

Dr. H said the next step was to do a post-coital test. I have several friends who have been through the infertility process more recently than I have (I started trying to conceive in 1996), and they have told me that their doctors have not ordered this test for them. This was a completely disgusting test and one that I would never want to repeat.

Dr. H told us to wait until my fertile time of the month - roughly day 14 of my cycle - and then schedule a post-coital evaluation. His instructions were to have intercourse and then not clean up afterward - EWWWW! He wanted to determine how many sperm were getting into my cervix.

I have undergone… [more]

My blood work results came back on the low end of normal. My hormone levels were not low enough to explain our infertility.

The next step was to do a sperm count on my husband. Considering my husband thought that screening for infertility was premature, you can imagine his reaction when I asked him to provide a semen sample. His initial reaction was so negative that I feared our infertility screening was dead in the water. It took quite a bit of cajoling over a period of several months to get him to agree to do it at all.

The doctor's office was located close enough to our house for us to obtain the sample at home. I do not believe… [more]

After month 6 came and went with no pregnancy, I was really getting frustrated. I told my husband that I feared we had a problem. Mr. "Deer in the Headlights" was perfectly content for conception to take a while because -

1. He was scared to death of becoming a father.
2. He was enjoying the "perks" of trying to conceive.

So, he was not very happy when I told him that I had made an appointment to see an OB-GYN for a screening. My husband asked around and learned that most doctors will not screen for infertility until the couple has been trying to conceive for a year. I told him that this doctor (Dr. H) agreed to see me, so… [more]