GET ME PREGNANT………PLEASE!!

I often have patients come in to my office after I have ordered some tests, to discuss their results, and to review their future plan of care. Last week, a young lady (35) came in to discuss her journey with fertility. She and her husband had been married 2 years, and had been trying “ever since” to get pregnant. Immediately my opinion of her as being a “young” lady shifted a bit, because in the world of pregnancy and fertility, 35 is actually the beginning of what is considered “old”, or, in medical terms, even “elderly”.

When I do fertility management, I have a very definite set of ideas and a care plan that I would like to implement with my patients, of course with the end goal of a safe and healthy pregnancy. So who is fertile? What is “trying”? How do we move from “I want to be pregnant” to “I AM pregnant”? It’s actually not all that complicated. There are many parts to the fertility puzzle, and I feel it is my job to help my patients put it all together.

First, it is important to note some definitions. While I totally understand the frustrations of a couple who have been trying several months for a pregnancy, and especially those couples that have already had a (quick) successful first pregnancy and now seem to be having trouble conceiving a second time, not all worry about fertility actually signals a reproductive problem. If the woman is under 35, we don’t…