I've experienced infertility: AMA

[NowTimetoGiveUp]

Took us three+ years to conceive our first - AMA.

At what age did you start trying to conceive?

You had trouble conceiving. That does not mean you were infertile.

Infertility is actually classified as one year of trying to conceive and being unsuccessful so three years absolutely fits this definition. The term subfertility is sometimes used (and perhaps may be what you’re getting at) but infertility is widely understood and accurate in this case.

Deleted duplicate post.

did you finally conceive with assistance or naturally? What were the problems that caused the infertility?

We started trying when we were both 30.

We had a lot of assistance/intervention to finally conceive. We went into our first IVF cycle with 'unexplained infertility' but we had bad results (no day 5 blastocysts and a uterine infection, which I understand is a very rare complication these days). The clinic weren't prepared to do further investigations/change their protocol so I did a lot of research and found a urologist for DH and an alternative IVF clinic for myself. Further tests revealed that DH had very high levels of DNA fragmentation, which the urologist thought was likely caused by a varicocele, and testicular cancer. We then paused treatment while DH underwent surgery for the cancer. We had a second round of IVF when DH had recovered (no chemo needed luckily) and this was much more successful. We froze the blastocysts while I also had surgery for some fibroids, and to check on the health of my uterus post infection. We then had a successful frozen transfer after I was recovered. The first clinic said that I had poor egg quality but the second clinic was a bit sceptical and thought the problems were more on DH's side. We'll never know for sure.