This blog is mostly for me to look back on and refer to, but I know I’ve had people asking me about my family history considering genetics plays a huge role in fertility and health. I believe a little background of my family history would help to bring my infertility to light. First I’ll start by saying that as far as I know everyone in my blood-related family was able to conceive except for one, which would be a cousin on my mother’s side. She knew at the age of 14 she would never have kids due to the fact she had many issues. She was born with no rectal opening, no vaginal opening and had to have immediate surgery as a baby. She had about 12 surgery’s by the time she was 3. When she was older she had a double uterus. One was filling up with blood that had no where to go. She then developed a cyst the size of a cantelope in her uterus and at 14 years old everything was removed . That being said, a lot of the older females in my family had difficulty conceiving and conceived at an older age in life.

My mother and her sister both had fertility problems. My Aunt on my mom’s side had her children at a younger age but immediately after had to have a  hysterectomy due to Endometrosis which led to Endometrial cancer in her late 20’s. She was still able to conceive 3 children. My mother was told she might not ever have children due to Endometriosis which caused little to no cycles and severe pain which led to Uterine cancer at a young age. She had to take Provera to induce her cycles and also to stop her cycles. My mom was the type to never worry about things or take medications to help with her fertility. She figured it would happen if it was meant to happen and she ended up conceiving my sister at 27 after being married for 6 years and then later conceived me at 34.

On my fathers side I’ve noticed that most of the woman are extremely fertile, but I know of three woman that had issues including one of my aunts and also my great aunt and her mother. My great grandma didn’t conceive my grandpa until the age of 30 and 9 years after that my great aunt came as a total surprise. My great Aunt also had very irregular menstrual cycles and ovulation. She was placed on Clomid and after many failed attempts she got off the Clomid and shortly after conceived her first daughter. Even though she was not on Clomid her daughter was considered a Clomid baby.  Three years later her son was born without any fertility medications. One of my dad’s sisters also went through many fertility treatments including, Clomid,  Provera and other treatments. They told her she most likely had cystic ovaries because she was so anovulatory. After many unsuccessful attempts, her doctor told her that in rare instances the body realizes it is being “faked” into ovulation and wouldnt respond to the medication anymore. She then had a test that injected dye up into her fallopian tubes to see if they were open. The left one was but the right one wasn’t so they scheduled sugery thinking she had a bicornic uterus with a septum up the middle. When they got in there they realized that she had a birth defect and the right lobe of her uterus never developed and her right fallopian tube was mangled and deformed as well, so they removed it. Her doctor thought she would never conceive and if for some chance she did that she would miscarry because of her abnormally formed uterus.  She did not have cystic ovaries though. At this point she could no longer continue fertility treatments and started looking into adoption, but became pregnant 4 months later. After bed rest and complications she successfully completed her pregnancy and was 30 when my cousin was born. She than surprisingly, but naturally concieved again at 40 with a leading too a much healthier pregnancy.

This is the reason I am seeing a specialist. It’s not because I am in a hurry to get pregnant. I want to be married before I conceive, BUT it is very important for me to find out now what is wrong with my hormone levels, especially if I have some bigger health issues to deal with. The fact is when I do get married I don’t want to have to wait ten years to conceive. My doctor tells me that age is on my side and if you can figure out what’s wrong at a younger age, the better chance you will have.