A few quick questions for those who've had referrals/treatment for subfertility (particularly secondary subfertility when you'd already had one child and/or conceived previously).
How long did it take you to get a referral?
How long did you have to be trying without success first?
And what was the attitude of your GP's towards it?
I initally discussed investigation with GP after not conceiving (#1) for about 15 months - told it would have to be 2 years before they'd do anything. Finally conceived after 18 months, but m/c at 6 weeks.
Then took 30 months to conceive ds (now 3 3/4) - but in between times told that as I had conceived in the past there was "obviously no problem", so it was now 3 years before they'd look into it.
Since then 32 months ttc #2, resulting in m/c at 11 weeks - am now told that having conceived 3 times there will not be any referal, ever.
GP kept quoting statistics that even with perfectly normal fertility only 85% would conceive in 18 months, so it's "probably just totally random and down to bad luck". Am so annoyed about that, since I know enough about statistics to be well aware that the probabilty of being in that 15% who don't 3 times in a row is only 9 in 8000 (or 0.1125%). And that's without considering that for us 2 out of three times have been significantly longer than 18 months, and that I'd done all I could by way of opk's and charting to swing the odds in our favour. So even that probability is probably an overestimate. Actually the figures here do seem to suggest it's less than that given that 2 out of 3 have taken over 2 years.
I'd have thought that those odds are a pretty good indicator that just perhaps we're not in that "perfectly normal fertility" population he's assuming. Yet there seems to be nothing I can do or say to persuade him otherwise.
I'm pretty sure that at least part of the problem is down to having very irregular cycles - mostly short (as low as 15 days, typically only about 22) but about one in six 40+ days. All he was prepared to suggest for that was the pill (grrr). Not helpful in the circumstances. No suggestion that there might be some underlying cause for it, or anything that could be done about it - yet I'm sure I remember people posting here who've had treatment related to luteul phase defects and the like.
And he even suggested that there wasn't any point in testing dh because, even if sperm counts are low, there's nothing that can be done about it. Now I know from things that have posted on mumsnet before that there's good evidence that zinc supplements can help so he's definately wrong on that. (As it happens I've got dh taking them anyway, but GP didn't know that).
I'm just so angry/frustrated at this, as it seems that not only are they being unhelpful, but the length of time we've had to fail seems to be double what it is elsewhere - I keep reading that people are getting referrals after just one year of not conceiving.
I don't really know where to go now - any suggestions? Or if anyone has any other statistics, references, etc which might help the argument I'd be grateful for those too.