I just received this email from a very upset patient. " All my tests are normal, and yet I can't get pregnant. My doctor says my infertility is "unexplained" ! What does this mean ? The very fact that I cannot conceive means there must be something wrong somewhere ! "
This was my reply.
" Yes, you are right. Unexplained infertility is simply a confession of our ignorance, and means that our technology is not good enough to be able to identify the problem. For example, a semen analysis can show that your sperm count is normal. However, it tells us nothing about the functional competence of the sperm - whether they are able to fertilise the egg or not ! In any case, I feel the question should NOT be "Why am I not getting pregnant ? " Rather, it should be - What can I do in order to get pregnant ?" After all, no one cares about problems - we only care about results - about having a baby ! Fortunately, our technology for solving problems ( by bypassing them in the IVF lab !) is much better than our technology for identifying them - and perhaps this is just as well ! This means that rather than waste time trying to pinpoint the problem, we can just bypass it altogether ! "
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