So you are finally at the doctor’s office after years of unsuccessful copulating, seeking an answer with a side of treatment. Admittedly it’s been a relief to share with someone who’s not going to run off and tell everyone you know your intimate secrets. Especially if it means your doctor is going to DO something.

The tests he sends you for are both embarrassing and painful but because they’re going to shed fluorescent light on what ails you and your partner you’ll live with them, even welcome them.

“You want me to put my feet, where..THERE, but they won’t fit….auuuggghh!”

“How long did you say the needle had to stay in?” “Do I get anaesthetic?” “It’s been twenty-four hours – should I still be in this much pain?” are all pressing questions you find yourself asking the doctor, whilst for your partner it’s, “But how do I get it in there?” and “Do you have anything else but scotch/Penthouse?”

A couple of weeks later you’re back, all anticipatory that they’ll have found something and an indicated treatment will be offered.

Your partner is the first to receive his results and has to refrain from doing a Toyota ‘Oh what a feeling’ leap out of his chair at the news that his ‘boys can swim’. Whilst happy for him you realize that this must mean it’s you with the problem and nervously await the verdict.

It takes a while as there is much frowning, paper shuffling and throat clearing and mumbling on the part of the doctor.

‘CHRIST,’ you think, ‘what’s going on? Do I have a whole range of fertility issues?”

Eventually, as if he suddenly remembers there is a couple sitting in his office and it is not, after all, time for a leisurely Sunday-morning-paper type-browse of your notes, he looks up.

Both you and your partner stare at him, dry mouths slightly ajar.

“I’m afraid,” he says, and you nod, feeling quite afraid yourself.

“I’m afraid that you have what we refer to as…um..”

Your hands grip the chair and you lean forward.

“It’s ….er…UNEXPLAINED INFERTILITY.”

“What’s that???” you demand an explanation.

“It happens to about one in ten couples.”

“What does?”

“The unexplained infertility as I’ve just said. It means basically that the tests didn’t find anything untoward. Your tubes are clear, there’s minimal endometriosis, and you’re ovulating very month.”

You realize it’s like the answer to a multiple choice question – ‘none of the above’.

“But are there other tests you can do, you know, something else…?”

“No those are the main ones we use.”

“So what now?”

“Well it’s up to you.”

“Up to me?”

“Yes, you have three options. We can do a course of fertility drugs or we can try a cycle of IVF or we can do nothing.”

Nothing, of course is out of the question, otherwise you wouldn’t BE here. But IVF???? Already? When there’s nothing discernibly wrong?

“T-tell me about the f-fertility drugs,” you stammer.

“Well you take a course of Clomid which boosts ovulation, producing more eggs so increasing your chances of conception. But.”

Why is there always a ‘but’? “But what?”

“You also increase your chances of multiple births.”

“Oh, is that all.”

“Yes, I just had to inform you so that you make an informed choice.”

“One more thing,” you say after he’s written a prescription and is holding it there in front of you like he’s a game show host and you’re about to take ‘the money or the box’.

“How, if we have ‘unexplained infertility’, do you think this may work?”

“By boosting ovulation…”

“But you said I am ovulating.”

“As I said, you’ll produce larger and more eggs which increases your chances ..”

You and your partner leave the office, taking the prescription and your unexplained infertility with you.

That night you pour a glass of water and open the packet of pills. Opening your mouth you pop the pill in, move it to the back of your tongue and take a large gulp of water.

There, you’ve swallowed it.

Dejection hardly describes the state you’re in when, after two rounds of fertility drugs that left you cranky, bloated and empty-armed, you get around to making an appointment with that naturopath.

Two years and five months of forced copulation and a diagnosis of ‘unexplained infertility’ have played havoc with your well-being – if anything, right now you are an unwell being.

Along with unexplained infertility you’ve developed an unexplained reluctance to go back to your doctor. IVF is pending and this may have something to do with it though you can’t be sure.

Every time you hear that combination of letters- I-V-F you go into a kind of dissociative fugue state. The best you can do is deal with it as an abstract theory, as something that happens to ‘other people’. Your partner thinks you suffer from ‘NIMO’ or ‘Not in My Ovaries’ syndrome and you suspect he may be right though it’s not something you’d ever admit.

Before you can even get in to see the naturopath you have homework – called temperature charting. It is explained that this will give clues as to why you’re failing to conceive.

“But I have unexplained infertility,” you bleat. Regrettably, these days you often sound more like a sheep than a woman.

“Everything has an explanation,” comes the measured human reply.

Well, charting a temperature can’t be too painful, at least it involves sticking a thermometer in your mouth as opposed to unspeakable instruments of torture in your pelvic region.

After weeks of waking in the morning at the same time to take your temperature in a religious though not godly manner, it is time to meet your naturopath. You slip the temperature chart into a plastic sleeve and drive off.

The ‘clinic’, whilst slightly alternative and rustic, manages to look professional and trustworthy. The naturopath, an unassuming gentle woman, ushers you in to her room.

It is very reassuring to note the absence of steel pointy objects and the smell you’ve come to think of as Eau d’Anaesthetique.

“Let’s see what you have for me,” she says, and you hand her the detailed history you’ve filled out, far more detailed than what you filled out at the doctor’s, and the chart.

After a lengthy period of scrutiny, she beckons you to look at the chart.

“From the history you’ve given, you’ve suffered for years from dysmenhorrea and irregular menses and looking at your charts, ovulation’s coming in too late.”

“Late for what?” you ask stupidly whilst attempting to picture an irregular yet long-serving Prime Minister.

“Successful fertilization. What it means is that by the time your eggs come out of the follicle they’re too old so they’re not going to make a good embryo.”

“That’s it?”

“From what I can see, yes. And it’s a common problem. Your irregularity and dysmenhorrea’s never been treated.”

“C-can you actually treat it?”

“Of course – there’s a herbal formula for most things.”

You can’t believe it – suddenly you’ve gone from having unexplained infertility to having unpronounceable and unspellable infertility. You feel like rejoicing. You share this with the naturopath.

“Ahh, that’s where we need to speak of diet…no alcohol is part of it. And no caffeine and you must have blahblahblah vegetable proteins blahblahblah fish oil blahblah..”

You’re barely listening you’re so happy. The whole things is like an epiphany and you find yourself humming Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World.’

The naturopath interrupts the bit about ‘I see babies cry and watch them grow’ to tell you that your partner must also follow the strict pre-conception diet. This will not go down well but at this point you’re too joyful to care. Your partner’s still in the middle stages of recovery from the stress of ejaculating into a small jar so to have to take on further challenges at this stage will be an enormous ask.

The naturopath takes leave to mix your batch of herbs – you are pleased to note they are individually tailored to your needs and not from a large imported vat that hails from a country where people are paid a dollar a day for their labour. Especially when you, the consumer, pay fifty dollars.

The herbs leave a bitter taste in your mouth but nothing that can’t be eradicated with the insertion of a peppermint.

When all is said and done, the herbs, you find, are easy to swallow.

By Jodi Panayotov, author of In Vitro Fertility Goddess which is available at http://invitrofertilitygoddess.com