Hey Everybody,
My sister and her husband have been trying for three years. They went to doctors after doctors and they all can not understand why they are not pregnant yet. Well they just found out a family member is pregnant and she called me upset and crying I was just wondering if you could give me any advice on ways I could help her and talk to her?
Thanks in advance
Sadie :wave:

You are such a good sister!

I don't know if it is redundant to ask, but when you say they have been to doctor after doctor does that include a reproductive endocrinologist? No one could tell my husband and me why we couldn't get pregnant either, but we got tired of banging our heads against the wall (not to mention my emotional break downs everytime one of my over-fertile friends got pregnant...again). We finally decided to go ahead and do IVF. Which has worked for us once so far (failed the first time). Maybe you could help your sister by encouraging her to look into fertility treatments - sometimes there simply is no apparent cause for infertility. There are a lot of options. You could start with something as simple as vitamins that increase fertility and verility (there are lots of choices if you look online - you'll need to do a bit of research). The next step might be to look into the various fertility clinics in your area, and elsewhere if they are able and willing to travel. Fertility treatments can range from taking medications like Clomid which makes a woman ovulate, IUI (intrauterine insemination) which actually increases chances of pregnancy because they "wash" the sperm, making the individual sperms better able to swim toward the egg, and they inject it right up at the top of the cervix so it doesn't have as far to swim. Another alternative, albeit an expensive one, is IVF. I don't want to go into too much detail about it - you can read more on the sticky at the top of the Infertility boards.

Another way that you might be able to help is to encourage her and even help by making phone calls to her insurance company to see what kind of fertility coverage they have. Insurance companies are slow-going about it, but some have actually started to cover some treatments, and some states even require insurance companies to cover it for certain people, depending on the situation. This is a little known secret that insurance companies don't want spread around!

Lastly, perhaps it wouldn't be out of line for you to help them explore the very viable and wonderful option of adoption. We certainly haven't ruled it out for our family. There are lots of kids out there that need really good families!

I hope that all goes well for your sister and her husband. I think that it's great that you so desperately want to help. Good luck becoming an auntie!

Thanks for the advice!!!!!!!!!! :angel: Hoping that she will soon become pregnant or that they find out whats wrong:angel:

Just a cautionary note: don't assume you're covered just because you live in a state with mandated coverage (like Illinois). In my state the law applies to the "location" of the PLAN, not the workers. And the plan can exist on paper in a different state. Insurers have teams of lawyers looking for loopholes like that. BC/BS or Illinois plans usually will provide coverage, as will CIGNA plans, but your employer's plan may not, due again to loopholes. For instance, the insurer may be required to OFFER to coverage, but your employer may not have to TAKE the coverage and OFFER it to the workers.

To anyone who's job-hunting, I suggest that if you accept or reject a job offer you should communicate to HR the fact that fertility coverage was a factor. I got an employer to switch from Humana to BC/BS by confidentially bringing up this issue and providing stats on how many people have fertility problems.

(Been there, done that, make infertility coverage a deal-breaking criterion in last year's job search.)

I really feel for your sister. I just found out my 2 best friends are pregnant (they told me within a week of each other) and whilst I was happy for them, I have never cried so much as I have in the last few weeks. When I first found out I cried for days.
So your sisters reaction to this really is very normal.

Tell your sister to come and look at this board so she might not feel so alone.