Is it unusual to never have a BFP at all?

[willywallaby]

I've been trying for my second child for two years and in the total 33 months I've tried for a baby (9 months with my first and 24 for a second) the only pregnancy I've ever had was my daughter. Never had a chemical pregnancy or anything. I've had investigations and the only thing they found was my progesterone is a little low but not terrible, and 6 months with Cyclogest hasn't helped so I don't know if that's the real problem or not. It seems to me that most people who share their infertility stories have at least one loss along the way, I don't read many like mine where there are no pregnancies. What I'm wondering is whether this gives any kind of clue as to the cause of infertility? Like if you aren't getting pregnant at all whatsoever but there are no problems showing up on tests, does this point to a different likely cause than for women who have early losses?

We tried for 7 years and in that time I didn’t once conceive naturally. Only via IVF did I get pregnant.
Our diagnosis was unexplained, on paper everything was as it should be, in fact for my age (now 40) my AMH etc was looking good, my partner already had children so I was the issue.
Now currently 22 weeks pregnant with my first, I can’t really offer any advice as still we don’t know what prevented a natural pregnancy.
What I will say is that it happened once for you so there’s every chance it can happen again. Good luck x

You say you've had investigations but what about your partner?

We tried for just under 4 years before IVF started and never once had any pregnancies. I don't think it's very uncommon at all. It suggests there's a problem somewhere but doesn't really give any clues as to what the problem might be.

Hi @willywallaby sorry to hear you are struggling. I’ve been ttc my first for a year and never had so much as a glimmer of a bfp, and no losses or chemical pregnancies or anything. Starting to really fear I will never be pregnant, or at least not without ivf. I have also worried what exactly this ‘means’ in terms of tests etc, but doctors so far have been less keen on investigating it and more just told me to wait until we feel ready for ivf…

Hi @willywallaby
It was the same for us: never a BFP except the IVF cycle that gave us our son. Our infertility is unexplained. The only clue was that our first round of IVF we had 8 good embryos on Day 3 and none on Day 5, and research suggests that could be down to male factor, like DNA fragmentation. We never got that tested, but assumed it was that and my partner took supplements, made lifestyle changes, etc, and then it worked next time round. But, there are so many different variables including luck that we'll never really know.
I don't think it's so uncommon to never have a BFP though.

Before starting IVF we tried naturally for 3 years with absolutely no BFP. No male factor issues - only issue found so far is low ovarian reserve. That on its own surely can't cause the infertility so I suspect there is an issue with egg quality too - we're looking to transfer our 2 embryos later this month, so will see how that works out!

2 years ttc and not even been close to a BFP! Currently waiting to start IVF. Good luck

@willywallaby I know this post is a bit old but how have you got in since last year? I’m 24 months TTC number 2 with zero positive tests as well. I was lucky to conceive first time on my second month so it’s blowing my mind what could be wrong that I can’t even get a positive test. Did you manage to get to the bottom of your issues?

Another one for the "no BFP ever" Club. We're something like 17 cycles in for TTC #1 and not so much a faint positive.

It's pretty demoralising, but then a miscarriage would be even more devastating. Fingers crossed for everyone.

Hi @nodnol87 I'm 30 weeks pregnant from our first round of IVF! I would still say our issues are unexplained though. We got good embryos and have a few frozen, so egg or sperm quality not the issue. Also the first one implanted which suggests not an implantation issue. It seems like once you put our eggs and sperms together everything works after that point so...I think it might be they were never meeting, somehow. I've read since about caesarean niche, how an indentation from the previous scar gathers period blood and makes the environment toxic to sperm and I seemed to have symptoms that fit that. I'll probably never know for sure though. Best of luck to you and @Tintinuviel and anyone else on the thread who's still struggling xx

Hi all,

I never got a BFP in nearly 2 years of trying naturally, periods were all over the place but I would never go more than 40 days without one. GP referred us for fertility services but 13 months wait for that. In the meantime had some bloods done and progesterone never high enough to confirm ovulation but FSH was normal. They also found my TSH to be high but I'd had that tested many times so it seemed a recent thing. I also have low AMH.

I asked my fertility consultant why I wasn't ovulating and felt like despite the evidence he still isn't convinced I'm not as he replied with 'the reason for your irregular periods is either your thyroid or low AMH'. Can't do anything about the low AMH but my AFC is actually not too terrible. Have been taking thyroxine for 8 months which did improve my PMS but still didn't get pregnant whilst waiting for IVF.

My point is even if there are obvious reasons for infertility they won't necessarily investigate them and even if they can be 'fixed' it still won't necessarily end in a natural pregnancy.

We didn't get good results from egg collection but we got 100% fertilisation and one developed to day 5 so they transferred that so I can produce eggs and it seems our sperm and eggs are at least compatible!

@willywallaby thank you for replying and congratulations! Although I am pleased for you I suppose my anecdotal research is leading me to conclude that ivf will be inevitable for me as I don’t see many stories of those with secondary for the duration we had all of a sudden falling pregnant naturally. I suppose some things cannot be explained 🙁