I can remember the exact moment where my world was pulled away from me. Trying to get pregnant for over four years and clinging on to hope that "It would happen when the time was right" and "You just have to be patient". My partner and had been working with a fertility specialist for some time and he had laid out a simple path for us to follow. If one thing didn't work there was another option to try, and 'give time' to. And then he asked the question which changed my whole view on my situation. "Do you have any other medical problems...apart from infertility?"
What?
It was the first time anyone had actually referred to me as infertile and it was like a slap in the face. If I was infertile....why were we even trying all these expensive treatments to conceive. Infertile? The word rang around my head for what seemed like ages until the specialist rephrased his question in a different way, thinking I hadn't understood(Yea..cause I'm stupid AND infertile).
It was also the point I stopped blindly following the advise of others, and started doing my own work and research. Ironically I was pregnant within 3 months of 'dropping' the medical approach, but that is a story for another day. Today I want to tell you about what it really means when your doctor calls you infertile and why that doesn't mean you should give up hope of having children.
Infertile, as defined by doctors and specialists means that you have been actively trying to get pregnant for a year or more with no positive results. Now, this is obviously very different from my take on infertility. To me, if you are infertile it means you cannot have children. Ever. At All. It's very final. But what the medical definition of infertility describes is a decreased ability to get pregnant. Reduced fertility would be a better term for it. So, if you have been told you are infertile, don't take that to mean there is no way you will ever have children. There is a very good chance that you will.
Let's talk statistics. And forgive me as I twist these a little to make my point. Between 65 and 90 percent of couples will conceive in their first year of trying. 90 to 95 will take longer than 2 years. Interpreting those figure a little - up to 35 - 30 will have conceived within a year. That doesn't sound very infertile to me!
Now, obviously I took the highest numbers of 'infertility' to twist those figures a little, but it does make my point. Just because a doctor refers to you as infertile does not mean you have to give up all hope of ever having children. You merely have a reduced fertility rate, which just means you have to try a little harder and be prepared to wait a little longer. It's a relatively small price to pay for the honor of being a mum.