About one in six couples in the United States experience infertility at some point in their lives. Infertility is the inability to get pregnant after having sex without contraception for one year, or — if the woman is over age 35 — for at least six months.
If you suspect or know that you and your partner are “infertile,” that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to try in vitro fertilization (IVF). Depending on your situation, you may benefit from simpler interventions to help your body conceive.
At Enrich Family Practice, our medical experts, Kelly Burrows, APRN FNP-C, and Lee Ann Garza, FNP, want to help you grow your family. We offer fertility testing and treatment at our office in Odessa, Texas.
As part of June’s Infertility Awareness Month, we prepared a brief on infertility and first-line treatments. Read below to find out why you might struggle with infertility and what you can do about it.
Usually, when the average woman or man thinks about infertility, they assume the problem lies in the woman’s more intricate reproductive organs because there are more variables.
However, both men and women experience infertility. In one-third of cases, it’s the woman. In another third, it’s the man. And in yet another third, it may be both, or the reason for infertility is indeterminable.
Hormone-disrupting chemicals that abound in the products and artificial environments we’ve created affect infertility in both sexes. Low sperm counts, low testosterone, and sperm abnormalities have increased by about 1% per year in Western countries. Toxins affect female fertility, too.
When you come to us with fertility questions, we test both partners. We conduct sperm analysis on men and blood tests to determine ovarian reserves in women. We also analyze hormones and look for structural abnormalities in both sexes.
A common cause of infertility in women is polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). If you have PCOS, your hormones may be unbalanced because your body produces too much testosterone, but not enough estrogen, progesterone, and other “female” hormones.
We might recommend oral hormones that help regulate your menstrual cycle and trigger ovulation. You might take clomiphene (Clomid®) and letrozole (Femara®) between days 3-7 or 5-9 of your cycle.
We check for egg development with a transvaginal ultrasound on day 10 or 11. We then either use bloodwork and ultrasound to let you know when you should try to get pregnant, or send you home with an ovulation predictor kit.
If oral medications don’t work, we move on to injectable gonadotropins. Gonadotropins include follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH).
If you haven’t gotten pregnant on your own despite hormone therapy and timing, or if your male partner has low or abnormal sperm, we may suggest intrauterine insemination (IUI). If your partner is low in testosterone, we may also recommend hormone therapy to try to raise his sperm count.
Using a sperm donation from your partner or using donor sperm, we place the sperm inside your uterus with a catheter. An IUI increases the chances that sperm reach your egg and fertilize it. It’s a relatively pain-free procedure, too.
If you or your partner has structural abnormalities that prevent your reproductive organs from functioning optimally, we may refer you to a specialist, such as a urologist or gynecologist, for surgery. After your surgery, you may then want to try hormone therapy and IUI.
When you can’t get pregnant after multiple rounds of IUI without success, you don’t have to give up your dream of a biological family. We refer you to a fertility clinic for in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Are you eager to get pregnant but unsure why you can’t or what you should do? Contact us today for a fertility evaluation and treatment by phoning 432-200-9052. You can use our convenient online appointment form.
