What happens when you go to the dr

[Usergjdksndjsn]

Once it’s been 12 months, if you go to your dr, do they ask lots of questions and suggest other solutions first or do they just immediately do tests to find the cause?

dh and I have been told we may struggle to conceive naturally, but we have to try for 12 months still anyway. So I’m trying to do everything I can to increase our odds, and also try to preempt anything they may say when we get to that point, so we’re not delayed any further.

im just worried about having to ‘evidence’ that we’ve been trying properly (not like that! ). i mean will they try to determine for example that i know when my window was, that we’ve dtd enough in each cycle, or changed our diets, took correct supplements, or anything else? Because I don’t think I’ve always got it right and it’s making me feel stressed worrying that I’m going to delay any treatment we need.

As a GP, I just go on what patients tell me. No proof needed. A small percentage will lie but most people are telling the truth. It's not the GP's job to police people and I don't know any who would (though I'm sure they exist somewhere).

Once it's been 12 months, your GP will likely order bloods, a scan and semen analysis. What they order may vary depending on the area of the country. It all depends on what the local fertility clinic requires. For instance, we never used to do any investigations as the fertility clinic wanted to do it themselves, but they changed their policy and now we do basic tests before referring.

Our GP asked in a very sweet and awkward way if we were having regular sex, just to make sure a basic lack of knowledge about procreation wasn’t the problem. (My husband’s face was an absolute picture.) Once we’d confirmed that yes, we knew what to do and had indeed been doing it, he simply referred us for initial tests. I think that was just semen analysis (which DH never got round to doing, grrr) and blood samples for me. I’ve never heard of a GP expecting a patient to have tracked her cycle or anything like that. Actually we saw another GP when we picked up the results who, I’m sorry to say, was not lovely or well informed, and he was completely dismissive of my cycle tracking. He (wrongly) said my progesterone levels were too low for ovulation and actually snorted when I said that based on my basal temperature chart we’d probably got the day for testing wrong anyway. ‘We tend to think that sort of thing is nonsense, I’m afraid’, he said when he’d stopped laughing at me. Bit of a dick.

I had basic baseline blood test done to check hormone levels at gp then was referred to gynae . It took a long time in my area tho. I wait 2 and half years

Thank you, that’s very reassuring, I think I might just sit back and stop worrying about cycle tracking and bbt and everything else for a couple of months. I’m a bit exhausted worrying about it.

sorry to hear it was two years wait, that definitely makes me nervous!! But it’s out of my control now. Good luck with getting the help you need xx

@Usergjdksndjsn it's luck of the draw with wait times unfortunately! I scared myself with horror stories of 3 year waits when my doctor referred me back in November but the clinic phoned me two weeks later offering me an appointment the following week because they'd had a cancellation so there is hope!

One thing that will potentially delay them starting treatment is if your BMI doesn't fit into the somewhat arbitrary box. If your BMI is over 30 I believe they'll ask you to get it down before starting anything (and it can work the other way too - mine was "healthy" but at the lower end and I was advised to try to put on at least a kilo.)