Zen Fertility Center works closely with Fertility Specialists Medical Group (FSMG) to improve success rates of IVF and inseminations. 

Dr. Wendy Shelley is a board certified infertility specialist at FSMG.  In audio and video below, Dr. Shelley explains unexplained infertility and clears up common misconceptions people have about it. Unexplained infertility is defined as the inability for a woman to get pregnant after more than a year of engaging in unprotected sex.

To evaluate the reason a woman may be suffering from unexplained fertility, Dr. Shelly studies the three components of conception, which are the eggs, sperm and mechanics involved in the individual situation. Evaluating unexplained fertility starts with studying a woman’s eggs. The quality and quantity of her eggs is taken into consideration, as well as the woman’s ovulation. The first step in this process is to perform blood work or an ultrasound to establish if a woman is ovulating regularly or not. The task of assessing a woman’s eggs is not an easy one. There is no physical way to test a woman to determine how many eggs she is producing. This number is determined by evaluating a woman’s clinical history and taking her age into consideration. Tests are then performed to determine the quality of a woman’s eggs. Performing an ultrasound allows doctors to determine how many antral follicles are present in a woman’s ovaries. Assessing this information allows doctors to determine the cause of the infertility.

To evaluate a man’s sperm, semen analyses are performed. This tells doctors how much sperm a man has and whether his sperm is healthy. Then the sperm and eggs must be evaluated together.

If all the necessary steps are taken and the infertility still cannot be explained, a woman can still undergo infertility treatments. Lack of relevant data makes unexplained infertility a mystery to many.

Watch or listen to Dr. Wendy Shelly talking about what unexplained infertility is and medical treatments available to address this issue.