I’m not remotely qualified to comment on your medical care; I have no medical training whatsoever.
However, I do feel like I learned a few really practical things about infertility in our process because we blundered through it without much guidance at first. Our journey to IVF and through IVF was really directed by Instagram ads and reading blogs. My husband and I started “trying” to grow our family in 2019, and I immediately had the suspicion it would be difficult because I was diagnosed with PCOS in my early twenties. I started buying ovulation trackers that were advertised, and we continued trying for a few more months. I was 32.
I decided to visit a fertility clinic at the encouragement of a friend, and they immediately said I had none of the markers for PCOS, so now we had a greater mystery. Then 2020 hit, and everything paused. When things opened back up, we returned to the clinic, and they suggested some more testing for my husband.
After a long wait and road trip to Maryland, we learned that we were dealing with male factor infertility. At this point, IVF was presented as our only option, and I needed to lose 30 pounds before they would put me under anesthesia. So I started trying to lose weight - like I had been since I was 10 years old. A few months later, chronic back pain became unbearable, and I saw a neurosurgeon who advised back surgery before any more attempts to grow our family.
Before I went into the surgery, they sent the anesthesiologist into my room. I immediately said, “I know this is such a huge risk because of my weight, and I’m sorry to put you in such a tough situation.” The anesthesiologist looked at me and said, “You’re the healthiest person that’s been on my table in a while…I’m not worried about your weight at all.” In that moment, I got really confused. The clinic was refusing treatment because they said I was too high a risk for anesthesia, yet it didn’t seem like this doctor thought I was in danger.
That was the first check in my spirit that something didn’t feel right about my fertility treatment. After I recovered from my surgery, I would get an email from the clinic every month about my weight, asking me if I weighed the goal so they could start treatment. I feel like that went on for 6-8 months. Some months I was 3-5 pounds away and had to say I hadn’t made the goal. It was emotionally difficult to know we couldn’t move forward in our dreams.
Finally, the month came when I could say I had reached my goal weight, and they immediately sent the bill. Thirty thousand dollars, and we needed to pay (or find financing) within the week for treatment to begin. We had access to the money - and I knew the cost- but in that moment I just thought, “I don’t like this.” I had lamented to my husband so much about the waiting that he was shocked when I told him, “We need to think about this for a week.” I can’t tell you exactly what was going on with me, but I felt like something wasn’t just or right in this situation.
During that week, I found an article that stated:
Age Matters More Than Weight When It Comes To Fertility
In that moment, I felt so seen. I had become obsessed with my weight, delayed treatment for a year, and felt so defeated. The doctor presented data that said that requiring a patient to lose weight before treatment did more damage to fertility chances than their weight was doing.
From Dr. Kiltz: “Some clinics may deny treatment until you are at an ‘ideal weight. However, statistics indicate that losing significant amounts of weight can take multiple years, and age likely has a much greater impact on fertility than weight.” He continues, “We strongly feel that denying anyone treatment based on their weight is discriminatory and unfair. Other clinics may deny patients treatment based on BMI because, as weight increases, fertility success rates go down, but at no point do those success rates equal zero! Strict weight or BMI guidelines may be an efficient way to artificially boost your success rates, but at CNY, we believe it is unethical.” Read full article here.
That made sense to me. Finally. Something made sense.
I called CNY Fertility that day, and within the month Dr. Kiltz was treating me, and I truly felt like someone was partnering with me on my infertility journey.
