When to Get Help! When to See a Fertility Clinic, When to Start an IVF...

Do You Need To See A Fertility Clinic? How Long Should You Try to Get Pregnant Before Getting Help...

If you and your partner have been mixing bits for a while now without a baby bump, then you might be wondering what's up and what you should do.

Women under 35 - most experts suggest getting help if you'd tried for a year and netted nada

Women over 35 - see a health care provider after 6 months of trying with no positive pee sticks

Check out our list of diagnostic tests you might want to consider starting off with. 

The CDC recommends couples with the following signs or symptoms should not delay seeing their health care provider (I'll discuss which kind of provider below...):

• Irregular periods or no menstrual periods.
• Very painful periods.
• Endometriosis.
• Pelvic inflammatory disease.
• More than one miscarriage.
• Suspected male factor (i.e., history of testicular trauma, hernia surgery, chemotherapy, or infertility with another partner).

I will personally tell you my lists of regrets while TTC to help you skip my common mistakes and get right at it (this is not medical advice, this is opinion, not to replace the advice of your doctor or your own bodies wisdom obvi):

1. My husband and I delayed taking it seriously. While trying naturally, or on our own, I wasn't super serious about knowing when I was ovulating - wups (which by the way, if you are struggling, just an app most often isn't enough, learn here how to *best* know when you are ovulating, we got your back lady, and your cervix, and your pretty ovaries...).
2. I didn't check my damn levels, or do the diagnostic tests I'm recommending you do soon enough. I.e., at one point I even had some overworked nurse who was misassigned as my primary care doc drastically change my thyroid med, it was so off that by the time I finally did test it, my reproductive endocrinologist said it would have been entirely impossible to get pregnant with levels that far off. :( That represented half a year or more lost. Test your thyroid sweetpeas. Test your vitamin D, test your folic acid.
3. I have wasted a lot of love time blaming myself. Creating a life is a generative, creative, loving act - give yourself the same gentleness and love you would your future lil' babycakes. Love begets love, work on cultivating the love in yourself and in your home. Check out our destress capsules if you need more, we have a complimentary one just for you while you are TTC.
4. We started with an OBGYN doing tests 'to save money' as it routed (mostly) through insurance and because we were in denial that we'd actually need to go to a fertility clinic/specialist, or what's called a reproductive endocrinologist, or RE. We ended up burning more time and more money (had to virtually start over and retest everything with the fertility specialist we went with). If you want to get right at it, go straight to a trusted fertility clinic (trusted, meaning one that isn't a factory that pushes you into medicated treatments, one that does proper damn diagnostics to simply assesses if there are any blocks, helps to remove those blocks and potentially recommends you go back to trying naturally again, if not at least you are in good hands to start treatment). 
5. Again, in denial, we soft-balled it by doing two IUI's - which, for us, wasted time and more money. IUI is the cheaper option and of course who wouldn't want to see if the cheaper option might work first before dropping crazy money? I wish, now, in hindsight, that we went straight into IVF or did a natural or mini IVFs. What's that? Join our newsletter for more (bottom of your screen). This is my experience though, IUI does work for many. But I'd say, if you've never been preg and your in your late 30's, mmm I'd say consider exploring your IVF options.

BTW, on our first IVF, we did get preg. Yeahhhh!! But also bummer, because we miscarried at 6 weeks. We had the embryo tested with PGS (what's that, join our newsletter - we have so much coming out you don't want to miss a beat). I personally feel the PGS harmed the integrity of the embryo, although it also gave us info that it was healthy and good to transfer. Next up! More. We are doing more. And we are now older than we started. I want you to capture your best eggs, your best opportunity. It's unfortunately, from a scientific perspective, a game of time and timing. I hope that helps you. Let us know what else you'd like to know about (in the comments).