Unexplained Infertility

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When you are first deciding to attend a fertility clinic this is the first step, it is hard, and you feel like you have failed. This feeling will be constant, and I encourage you to not dwell on it as this is not a productive as it increases stress. I suggest looking into tools to help you stay focus, you will have lows and highs throughout your journey and these tools will help you stay on track. I encourage women to go earlier than the normal after one year of trying to conceive to a fertility clinic. I am not a doctor or claim to be one, I just feel that there are information women need to process and to move forward with their lives. I personality felt that I should have went earlier to know any issues sooner than later. As the waiting to conceive is very consuming to a person.

The first couple of months are full of expectations for yourself.  After 3 months comes the research you still haven’t gotten pregnant and the shoulders have started to be heavy. 

Fertility is a whole wide web of confusion. There is nothing in the world that seems more daunting and helplessness. 

I spent hours researching going to appointments and doing the steps people tell you to do. 

I’m not here to tell you there is a light at the end because I remember reading blogs, stating hold on there is a light or God will hear you. And other blogs of how people moved on to not ever conceiving.  I am here to give you my experience and to tell you that you must first just work on yourself. 

Every feeling you have during the struggle is fully justified no matter what. 

This article will be a brief summary along with links to articles on more detail as a women with fertility issues I understand taking in too much information is extremely over whelming. I hope this blog will help you on your journey.

Summary 

My husband and I took 4 years to become pregnant and every person has their own issues to research. I was diagnosed with unknown fertility. Yes there is such thing as unknown infertility. If you have POS or endometriosis, please skim through my blog below for some insight of other options for treatments and lifestyle changes. 

With infertility appointments there will be a lot. So start to clear your schedule. These appointments are regular and depending on your technician can be uncomfortable. 

1. Make a list of questions- even ask the questions you think are silly. As they will only give you information if you ask.
2. I finally had a technician who told me to make sure you go #2 (poop) before the transvaginal ultrasound. So in the morning I would wake up and drink a ton of water to get my system up and going in the morning and boy for me it made a difference when they are doing the transvaginal ultrasound. 
3. Be prepared to be uncomfortable, I rarely had anyone to come to my appointments with me and I wish I had some one that could have come. Second eyes and question can help you process the information.  
4. Next health I researched a ton on fertility and you have to start taking care of yourself through nutrition, physical and mental. I have put in the blog of juice plus story for additional nutrition. Nutrition is a very important factor and there is no one certain way, I only suggest to look into healthy as natural as possible for your nutrition.
5. Expenses, fertility treatments can be expensive depending on your issues and where you live. I currently live in Canada so there are some coverages. Do not be afraid to ask up front of price for treatments and weigh the pros and cons to each step. As not everything is going to work.

We ended up going to a fertility clinic for about a year and a half. The first 3 months of treatment where for me was to ovulate as I was not ovulating. They gave different medicines to get my process started. After 3 months I did not need an ovulation needle. Along with attending the fertility treatments I attended to my lifestyle changes.  In the lifestyle changes I started using Juice Plus for my vitamin intake. Click here for Juice Plus story for more information. At the three-month marker for the fertility clinic was also the 3-month marker of me using juice plus for vitamins, is when the injections for ovulation were not needed. I started to ovulate on my own.

Along the way for about 6 months there were tests to be completed besides blood work and ultrasounds. I also attended sonohysterogram, this was painless for me.

After three-month the fertility clinic started to increase dosage for hormones to produce more eggs. After 6 months of me creating more eggs successfully and my husband and I constantly trying to conceive. The Clinic suggested to start trying IUI (Intrauterine insemination) this process is where they take the sperm and wash it (this process is to take out the bad sperm, so they only have good sperm) for insemination. This procedure I only did once as it is costly, and for me it is the same as having sex at home.

After a year and a half at the clinic they suggested the only way for us to become pregnant was through IVF. I had a gut feeling this was not the only way as I still found my periods were still horrible. The only improvement I saw was they were regular-ish. I still had long periods and the cramping and clotting where large and painful. Once they wanted to start having us to be ready for IVF, I decided to stop the treatments with the fertility clinic as now the medication expense was becoming very high for a low chance of success. I am not trying to discourage you to stop any treatments from medical professions, I just felt something was still not right and before I started to spend serious money I wanted to investigate. Also, at this point it would be 2.5 years in I needed an emotional break as well.

After 6 months from leaving the clinic and living my life with less doctor appointments. I decided to research other options for my cycle treatments. As my periods where still not the greatest and cause many weeks of clotting and pain. I found online about acupuncture, there were different success stories and even improvement of cycles. Along with starting acupuncture my father-in-law gave me homeopathy medicine. I will not list the medicine he gave me as he consulted with a homeopathic doctor. I am not a medical professional and do not claim to be, so for any treatments with medicine please consult with your doctor.

I visited Christine from Acupuncture Shiatsu Clinic https://www.acupunctureshiatsuclinic.com/ .

Personality I did not think this was going to be some miracle cure. I only was interested in fixing my periods first then possible going to start IVF. So, I met Christine she did a consultation and stated I had some blockages. She asked questions of my cycle and looked at my togue and asked only of what the clinic said was my diagnostic of my fertility. This was odd to me because I did all the fertility tests and there were no blockages on their end of testing.  She recommended I come in once a week at minimum and take herbs to clean my blood, increase circulation to release the blockages.  I agreed to the treatment, after 4 months I became pregnant.

During my treatment with Christine I notice huge improvements with my cycles. I highly recommend women even with cycle issues to investigate acupuncture to elevate pain or clotting. After the first month my cycle had large clots and seemed to not have much change, but the second is where I noticed a huge change as this was the most  as the cycle was much shorter, and I had one day that was horrible or morning I should say. I woke up with diarrhea and felt the worst cramping I have felt. After a couple of hours, I passed a huge clot and felt total fine after that. The rest of the 4 days were probably a normal period to everyone else but seemed supper light to me. The 3^rd month my periods were painless and no clots. I was shocked and felt so much better to have made this choice. Now I felt I could look into fertility treatments again. But at the 4^th month I was pregnant and shocked.

Now I am not stating acupuncture is the only solution to fertility. I encourage you to try anything to help as I am sure there are many steps as I was improving my health throughout the entire time of my journey. With the improvement of nutrition, exercise and treatment for my cycles. In the 4 years I lost a good amount of weight, improved my sleeping, state of mind, energy and self-love. In conclusion I encourage any treatment for your journey through infertility.