May 2007: I Don't Like Crying in Stirrups

Until recently, I had very unrealistic expectations about what a good gynecologist knows about infertility. Now I see that it makes sense that they don't know that they're not that well informed. After all, they're used to seeing the 90% of normal people who have sex at leisure and come into the office because they're pregnant, not the 10% who are tracking it like clockwork and still aren't.

I was armed and ready when I went to see my gyn, Dr. J, for the very first time, which means I’d been doing my research and self-diagnosing up a storm. I’d come to the conclusion that I didn’t have a serious problem, like endometriosis, but a “weak luteal phase.” The luteal phase is the period of time after you ovulate up until your period starts, and it needs to be at least 11 days, spot free, to get pregnant. If it’s any shorter, meaning you start bleeding, it can mean your uterine lining is starting to shed too soon, and you won’t be able to implant a fertilized egg. This often occurs because your body isn’t producing enough of the hormone progesterone, or responding well to the progesterone it does produce, after you ovulate. This isn’t too uncommon—for reasons I’ll explain in a future post when I lecture you about eating meat raised on hormones and drinking from plastic bottles—but it can prevent you from getting pregnant.

About a year later I’d learn I was probably right, but not from Dr. J. Dr. J let me blab on and on about my theories, and then she brought me back to reality. She made me start at the beginning, at the same place every other woman who can't bear children starts, with a rote series of tests. She didn't say my self-diagnosis was wrong, but she didn't say she thought it was right, either.


I liked Dr. J, but I ended up having to change doctors, months later. Not because I didn’t think she did a perfectly fine job, but because she always made me cry. Granted, it’s fairly easy to do – I’m sort of a crybaby. But at each visit, beginning with the first one, she’d explain that if they couldn’t find what was wrong, after all the tests and maybe some surgery, I could always try IVF and that would probably work. She’d accompany this with an exaggerated sad face, kind of like a clown or a mime. I’d start crying. And crying in stirrups is the worst.