New here, trying to conceive for two years

[conceptionimpossible]

Hi, my husband and I (both 28) have been trying to conceive for two years now with not even a whisper of a positive test. He's had sperm tests come back normal (one showed slightly odd morphology but was done and then fine) and we've had a consultant refer me for tests, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to cope as our doctors have been very negative and hands-off.

I've had no tests so far, despite having longer periods and spotting and mentioning this to my doctor, and I'm starting to feel embarrassed and like a nuisance. I'm also finding it increasingly challenging emotionally and feeling very isolated, and the doctors not offering me any tests and outright saying no NHS support is available for people our age, even after two years of nothing, is leaving me feeling pretty hopeless. Does anyone have any tips for trying to start taking control of the process and how to find support?

[Birdbaby]

I’ll send you a message to let you know about my experience so far.

[Mycatsaremykids]

Are you using your GP? Could you try a different doctor at the surgery?

Thankfully ours was happy to refer us but I saw two different doctors at our surgery and one was definitely much more knowledgeable and was able to give us much more support with getting blood, sperm and STD tests done whilst we waited for the fertility clinic appointment.

Good luck xxx

[soccerkt6]

Hi 28, I'm sorry you guys have been having trouble ttc and even more sorry that your doctors have been so unhelpful and negative! It's a scary feeling going through all this and you really want someone to reassure you and offer some guidance. Hopefully the wonderful ladies of this forum can help with that. 💛

You mentioned that a consultant has referred you for tests but you haven't had any so far. Are you just waiting for appointments now or is there something else going on? You're certainly entitled to testing for infertility (blood tests, ultrasounds, etc), even if your local area doesn't have IVF funding available at the moment, so definitely push for that.

After our failed IVF cycle, we looked outside the NHS to try to figure out what's going on (we'd been diagnosed with unexplained subfertility up until that point) and it's been the best thing we did. We've been working with a fertility clinic in Ireland for six months now -- pm if you'd like their details -- who have been supportive and available for all my thousands of questions(!), and the first thing they did was have me start charting my cycles closely and going for monthly blood tests. Through this, they've been able to identify several hormonal issues that I have and we've started treating them. If you have long cycles and spotting mid-cycle it's an indicator that something's not right (as you know, since you mentioned it to your doctor), but unfortunately most doctors aren't trained to know what to do with this type of information. It's such a shame because cycle tracking gives you a huge amount of data about what's going on in your body and a doctor trained in charting can really help piece together the puzzle.

The only other thing I would mention is that you might want to consider further testing for your husband. My husband also had a normal sperm test except for slightly low morphology (which the doctor brushed off) but after our IVF cycle we did sperm dna fragmentation testing for him and it turns out that he has very high dna fragmentation. We weren't expecting this because of his normal sperm analysis results, but apparently 10-15% of men with normal sperm tests have high dna fragmentation. So just keep that in mind.

Good luck. There's definitely support out there, you might just need to look outside the NHS for a while xx

PS - We're in England but working with the fertility clinic in Ireland hasn't been a problem. We get our blood tests done locally and just send the results to the clinic, and all our appointments and correspondence with them are via Skype and email.

[Weareback2]

Hi you need to ask to be referred to the fertility clinic. You then get a variety of tests done. However everything takes time, there is lots of waiting for appointments to come! Good luck xx

[Running79]

When we started our journey I was 37/38 and my husband was mid 50’s, we had been trying for about a year.

Our GP referred us to our local hospital. I had bloods done, scans and laparoscopy and hyscospocy. All came back fine.

The consultant fobbed us off with 12 months worth of clomid. Then told us the NHS wouldn’t fund any IVF because firstly their clinic was closing down and secondly my husband had a son from a previous marriage.

My advise to you would be get what tests you can out of the NHS - as a lot of them are costly and then go private - I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time with the NHS, they are just pretty useless when it comes to fertility issues - unless it’s something glaringly obvious which smacks them in the face!!

[JA-fnuk Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Hi 28andttc Have you looked at the fact sheets on fertilitynetworkuk Your GP should be able to refer you on for fertility treatment after you trying for 2 years - so ask again Good luck for the future

Janet