were you diagnosed with "unexplained infertility"?

[littleturnip]

I want to share my story in case it's helpful to anyone. BTW, I'm 35.

After 18 months TTC -including an early MC last year- we finally went to a fertility doctor. She did "all the tests", which were really just DH semen analysis, my bloodwork, and a water sonogram to check that everything was normal inside.

Since all tests came ok she diagnosed us with "unexplained infertility" and wanted to put me on fertility drugs to start trying AI, followed of course by IVF if that didn't work.

I didn't see the need for fertility drugs when I knew I OV every month, so I found this doctor who wrote a book about natural/healthier ways to get pregnant and how the whole IVF is a multimillion dollar business (at least here in the US).

The doc is expensive and doesn't accept insurance, but even that would be cheaper than IVF, so we decided to give it a try. Turns out there are many more things to check for, and one of them is the cervical mucus.

One of the things he did was a postcoital test. Basically you have sex the night before, then come to the office and he takes a sample of your CM. Then right there in front of you he checks the PH of it, since sperm won't survive if the CM is too acidic. Mine turned out to be really acidic, and he immediately said to me "I bet you all the sperm is dead by now". Then he put it on a microscope and I could see the death sperm!

It was sad, but at the same time a relief to know someone had found the cause of my infertility! an acidic CM can be caused by infection or diet, but test for infection came out negative and my diet is generally healthy, no caffeine, etc.
So he taught me how to do a douche with baking soda and told me to try it the next day which was OV day a few hours before having sex.

guess what? I got pregnant that very same day! now I'm 9W and so far things are good, and hopefully will continue that way.

all I'm saying is, try to find a doctor who is more concerned about finding what your problem really is and less concerned about how much easier -and how much money he'll get- giving you tons of drugs and IVF.

If you're interested in the book by my doctor, it's called "making babies" and his name is Dr. Sami David

Good luck ladies!

 

[lola13]

Thank you so much for sharing. I've wondered if hostile CM is my problem. It seems most doctors don't test for it - too often doctors disregard things that seem perfectly logical. You're absolutely right - sometimes you need to dig on your own to get your answers.

Congrats for taking the steps to figure out your situation. I'm so happy it worked out for you. I'm definitely going to check out the book.

 

[TrixieLox]

This is really interesting... and sometimes I'd always wondered I have. I might see if our clinic will do this test. Thanks for the post! x

 

[magicvw]

All CM is acidic when you are not fertile. Are you 100% sure that this guy was not scamming you by asking you to come in with a sample a few days before you ovulate? Were you getting EWCM? Creamy cm is hostile to sperm but ewcm has a lower acidity and is sperm friendly, (of course). I really hope this guy was not just trying to take your money.

 

[littleturnip]

magicvw,
I understand your concern as there are so many people out there taking advantage of people TTC.

This doc is totally legit, he's a well known fertility endocrinologist. He was one of the first docs in new york to do IVF back in the day.
I had the postcoital test the day before OV, when CW should be already basic (not acid).

I also don't see how this could be a scam if I was trying for so long and once we found this out and he had me do the baking soda douche (which cost me $2) I got pregnant!

He just doesn't accept insurance, which means you assume all the costs, instead of your insurance company.

 

[magicvw]

Fair enough x

 

[ArticBaby]

magicvw,
I understand your concern as there are so many people out there taking advantage of people TTC.

This doc is totally legit, he's a well known fertility endocrinologist. He was one of the first docs in new york to do IVF back in the day.
I had the postcoital test the day before OV, when CW should be already basic (not acid).

I also don't see how this could be a scam if I was trying for so long and once we found this out and he had me do the baking soda douche (which cost me $2) I got pregnant!

He just doesn't accept insurance, which means you assume all the costs, instead of your insurance company.

Baking Soda

There was posts on this a month ago. They said dip your finger, put inside you without touching your cervix.

I thought about trying this. Not expensive at all. I like this idea better than the egg white thing

Congratulations on your BFP

 

[wannabemum123]

Magicvw, it is actuallly phenomenom that cause infertility. Sometimes a woman's CM can attack the sperm of her partner. There are plenty of cases where there have been unexplained fertility and the issue has been the CM has been a hostile environment for sperm.

Proof is in the pudding - littleturnip fell pregnant afterwards.

A big congrats littleturnip and thank you for sharing your story. I already knew about this but a lot of women haven't and sometimes they are trying for years, not knowing this.

 

[magicvw]

As far as I have read, hostile cervical mucus is when the cm is too thick for the sperm to be able to move freely. It can be controlled by diet (and caused by Clomid etc). Where have you read about CM attacking sperm? (other than during the non-fertile times, of course)

My concern really was that this doctor "proved" the problem by testing the PH of the CM. I can't find anything on google which correlates cm PH with hostile CM. As I said, all cm is acidic just prior and also after ov.

There is no proof in anything if it's only about one person. The OP believes it was the case for her and I'm glad she got lucky.

 

[miel]

i heard it to Magicvw my obgyn had mention to me as well and i think we did the test with Daniel ..we did so many i cant remember ! but it was something about diferent Ph and CM bad ph killing sperm so people who have this problem will have to go via IUI ...insimenation...

Trixielox nice to see you

 

[floofymad]

So, if your cm is acidic, would pre-seed or zestica do the trick?... or is it specifically the baking soda thing that works?......
We tried the pre-seed thing last month and didn't work for us......

 

[Samantha675]

So I downloaded this book onto my kindle app and it is really interesting to be honest. There are lots of little things that I never thought of or knew that could make a difference in TTC. One was that if you take more than 1000 mg a day of Vitamin C, which I was that it could affect the acidity of your CM. hmmmmm Then my new MW recommended Maya Abdominal Massage, so I went, and enjoyed, then a few days later I read the section that discusses MAM. Kinda crazy!

 

[skye2010]

I was really inspired by your story but not sure who would work similar way to Dr. Sami David in London cause going to the US is a big thing for my DH (taking time off from work etc) Congratulations on your pregnancy )) What a great feeling it must be after all those years ))