At the age of 34, you were beginning to become concerned. Although you and your husband had not been using any birth control during the first three years of marriage, no pregnancies had occurred. An annual visit to your doctor indicated a possible thyroid problem, but that did not necessarily indicate infertility problems. Further tests, however, indicated that the your thyroid levels were so high they were actually making your body produce enough pitocin that it thought you were nursing. These levels, it seemed, could be causing the infertility issues.
Testing to make sure that your husband was producing viable sperm indicated that was not the problem, so after your thyroid had been ablated you finally decided to go in for a formal fertility evaluation. Ten months later, after discussing several fertility treatment options, your doctor decided to implant fertilized eggs. The fertility treatments worked, and at the age of 36 you were finally a mother for the first time.
Fertility evaluation waiting rooms are full of interesting and hopeful stories. In addition to helping infertile couples finally have success, fertility evaluation appointments are even able to evaluate the possibility of pregnancy after tubal ligation. In fact, some tubal surgeries have success rates that are as high as 65%. This percentage is determined by the number of women who achieve pregnancy within the first year after surgery.
What used to be known as having your tubes tied, tubal ligation is a surgical procedure for female sterilization where fallopian tubes are clamped and blocked. They also can be severed and sealed, but both of these methods prevent eggs from reaching the uterus, therefore preventing implantation. Although many women decide on tubal ligation after they feel they have finished their childbearing years, sometimes these same women change their mind. The death of a child, a second marriage, or another life altering event can be the reason for the change. Luckily, this procedure can be reversed. In fact, through surgery many of these tubal ligation reversal procedures have a 75% pregnancy success rate.
We live in a time when medical accomplishments often seem like miracles. In many cases of infertility, however, the reason for success is not a miracle, but simply the result of asking for help. Did you know that only 44% of women with infertility even seek infertility advice or medical assistance? Of those women who do see a doctor for a fertility evaluation and other advice, approximately 65% of them end up becoming pregnant and giving birth.
Making the decision to have children is obviously a personal choice, but if you and your partner want to have children but are not successful getting pregnant, doesn’t it make sense to at least ask for advice and explore your options?