Sometimes you need the facts

Ok, this is going to be a post just about all the fertility stuff so for those of you who finds this beyond boring I promise a baby making free one next time. (And might be a bit too detailed for you dad)

One thing that strikes me about all of this though is how little you know about this as a woman. In school we pretty much get told we’ll get pregnant as soon as someone sneezes on us but no one talks about the other side of the story, when it doesn’t work.

There is a whole lot of tests since there is a WHOLE lot of things that can be wrong.

I’ve already done the blood test, looking at general issues like thyroid gland or anything else weird showing up. It also seems like im ovulating (I have my period every month even if it’s very irregular) so the two tests I have still to do is an investigation scan looking at the general health and shape of my uterus to see if there are any endometriosis issues or wrong with the shape of my uterus (yeah, that’s a thing) and the mother of all tests – the HSG.

The HSG (hysterosalpingogram) is when they put some liquid into your Fallopian tubes to see if there are any blockings. Apparently this is the big, scary one. If your tubes are badly blocked it’s either surgery or no can do.

Depending on the results you then look at next steps. Medication, surgery or ivf.

If you end up down the ivf route I had no idea that there is only about 23% chance per try if you are my age and when you hit 40 about 9% meaning that NHS won’t fund it since the odds are too low.

So yeah, you live and learn. I just wish I’d known some of this earlier. That people spoke about it. That I didn’t feel like such a failure for being broken until I realised how many actually have issues. Also, since people start trying for babies later in life it would be good to know how long this stuff take. You need 6 months of hormones and suppressing your period before you can even start an ivf treatment. With 23% chance…

Also, massive shout out to NHS for being awesome in this. For referring me, getting me all the tests and helping me free of charge. All of these tests etc are not cheap if you are going private.

So next Tuesday if I’m off to the scan and the Thursday after is the HSG and then George and me are off for holiday only thinking about beaches and sun and cocktails. My brain will need that break from all of this.