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Trouble Conceiving

It's Been a Year: Now What?

Part I

By Lyn Mettler

(For Dummies, 2003) and three-year infertility patient, sought medical help at age 36 after six months of trying to conceive. By the year mark, she and her husband had already completed an intrauterine insemination (IUI).

First, are you timing intercourse appropriately? Contrary to popular belief, a woman does not always ovulate on day 14 of her menstrual cycle. To be more accurate, you might check out the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility (Quill, 2001) by Toni Weschler to learn how to monitor your basal body temperature and gauge your cervical fluid for indicators of ovulation and fertility. "Properly timed intercourse can cure a fair number of patients of infertility," Dr. Keye says.

Those methods are not an exact science, so some women turn to ovulation predictors for a more precise time frame. Ovulation predictors, both saliva based and urine based, help you determine when you are about to ovulate and give you a two-to-three-day window of optimum fertility.

However, Dr. Barmat does not recommend these products, citing the fact that there is no evidence that they do anything to enhance a woman's fertility. In fact, he says using such products may even increase the couple's stress level, and they are expensive. "It's cheaper to buy a bottle of wine than a urine LH kit and have a romantic evening," Dr. Barmat says.