Michelle answers:

Hi, in most cases where people are having trouble conceiving you need to change your lifestyle. Do you both work lots? Have lots of stress in your life? Do you eat well? Stressing about not being able to get pregnant makes it harder too.

You always hear the stories about people who have tried everything, even IVF and failed and then once they give up they fall pregnant! You hear this all the time. It’s about letting go.

You can conceive naturally but you’ll need to maybe make a drastic change to your lifestyle and attitude.

Check out my blog article below for 5 tips on how to get pregnant naturally. It also has some further links for useful detailed resources on how to get pregnant.

Good luck.

Michelle answers:

Medical advances and our abilities to protect ourselves have led to a reduction in deaths that might otherwise reduce the incidence of certain genes in the population. People with these genes survive long enough to have children.

On the other hand we are getting better at detecting certain genes and parents may decide not to have a baby with one of them, or want a baby with certain characteristics. This can be dangerous because of our imperfect knowledge of how genes work. As an example of one we do know about, the sickle cell trait, if you inherit it from just one person you are better protected against malaria than someone who does not have it. Unfortunately if you inherit it from both parents you get sickle cell anaemia. If we were to eliminate the sickle cell gene people would end up less protected against malaria.

Morally where should we draw the line? In some cultures boys are favoured over girls. Should parents be able to choose the sex of their child? What imbalances would this lead to?

When a scientist discovered how to make human growth hormone (which previously was in short supply) he got bombarded with calls, not from parents with unusually short children, but from parents with average children who wanted them to be tall.

Things like intelligence are very hard to determine genetically at the moment. But there was a web site offering for sale sperm from Nobel prize winners. Should people be allowed to buy genetic material like that? Should people be allowed to sell their genetic material?

These cases suggest that people will make use of such things if they are allowed to. Currently someone’s name can give you a clue as to how old they are as names go in and out of fashion. Perhaps in the future certain shapes of body will come into fashion and go again (influenced by popular stars as names are at the moment.)

There is a danger that we select ourselves to much. There are problems already with farmers growing a limited number of strains of some plants. If a new disease emerges that a common strain is vulnerable to, crops can fail on a massive scale. In the past when farmers grew more strains, only a few farmers would be affected as only one strain would fail and not many farmers grew it. Nowadays vast amounts of food production can be damaged at once.

Hope that gives you something to think about. Sorry it is a bit pessimistic.

Michelle answers:

First off, let me say how sorry I am for your losses.

Do make certain you have had every test under the moon before proceeding. I thought that my RE tested me for everything yet I wasn’t. Three losses later, I asked for further immune testing and found I have compound heterozygous MTHFR, and test positive for anticardiolipin antibodies. Here is a comprehensive list of some testing to do http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/miscarriage/rpl.html Also, Dr. Beer was the pioneer for doing immune testing for women who are TTC via IVF and naturally. Check out his book “Is Your Body Baby Friendly” and his website http://www.repro-med.net/repro-med-site2/ You can find a wealth of information on his website. Do know that women higher AMH values will tend to have better response to the stimulation medications making more eggs giving you a higher success rate. Another book to check out just because I think it is great is “The Infertility Cure” by Randine Lewis. She has helped many women conceive before starting IVF. Just make sure you have done all the testing you need to do!

Talk to your RE about using a low-dose aspirin, Lovenox protocol. Low dose aspirin is an easy fix for many unknown recurrent pregnancy loss issues. I am prescribed a low-dose aspirin/Lovenox combo if I do conceive for my immune issues, as well as Folgard for my MTHFR. Hopefully that is the trick for me.

I do have a good friend who had similar issues as yours. She had 5 miscarriages and no explanation. She had every test available and nothing came up. Our RE (I met her at my clinic) put her on low dose aspirin her next IVF cycle. Her twins will be 1 in July.

As someone who has gone through 4 IVF cycles, and one frozen transfer, I encourage you to get into the Shared Risk program if you can. I was not able to. Other than loans, there are a few companies that do offer help to a selected few. Here is the link to those, http://www.nobabyonboard.com/options.html. I have a contact that has a great answer for those asking for financial help. I’ll star your question and hopefully she chimes in.

I took out a loan for my first cycle and then just dug deep in pocket for the others. Do ask for donated meds from your clinic. I got $500 worth of med for one cycle. Shop around for meds you have to pay for. I love ivpcare.com and freedomdrug.com. They are the cheapest aside from ivfmeds.com that are in Europe. I know a few who have bought from there and they swear by them.

Our first IVF cycle was $9,700 not including meds, ICSI, or cryostorage of embryos or sperm. My meds for one cycle costs about $2,500. Your meds will depend on your dose. I am on high doses and need lots so pay more than some pay. I stayed at the same clinic for additions cycles and those are $8,800 each not including meds.

As for Shared Risk, you can drop out of the program between cycles for any reason. Here is a link to their website
http://www.integramed.com/corpinmdweb/content/cons/shared.jsp

Hope this helps! Please take care of yourself!

Michelle answers:

To be honest since my mother is an herbologist she has some people that she sugested to take Solaray Fertility Blend SP-1 and Red Raspberry Leaves. Mom said that 5/8 people she reccomended it to got pregnant within the 2nd cycle of trying. I listened to her as well, and am taking the same thing. I wont know the results for another 9 days 🙁 since I am 5DPO. But I will keep everyone posted! I do have cycts on my ovaries which is common for my family BUT my mother did get pregnant of an herb called Damiana, which is made in Mexico it is in the Fertility Blend I am taking. It is a natural known herbal remedy to increase fertility. It worked for my mom as she took it for 1 month and got pregnant with both my brothers off it.

Good Luck And Babydust to you! Hope this helps!