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Why am I ovulating but not getting pregnant?

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3 fertility expert(s) answered this question

Answer from: Kate Davies, RN, BSc (Hons), FP Cert

Nurse, Independent Fertility Nurse Consultant & Coach at Fertility Industry Consultancy & Podcast Co-Host
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That’s a million dollar question! If I knew the answer to that I’d be one wealthy woman.
There are so many reasons why we conceive and why we can’t conceive and you can be ovulating completely normally but still not conceiving and sometimes we don’t necessarily know the reason why. Other times there can be other factors involved, for example, it could be that you are ovulating but egg and sperm aren’t reaching each other. It could be that it’s a male factor problem, a problem with your male partner’s sperm or it could be that you are conceiving but actually the pregnancy isn’t staying and that could be an endometrial lining issue. There’s so many different factors. It’s really difficult and like I said, for many reasons many women and couples suffer with unexplained infertility where everything on paper looks absolutely fine: women’s ovulating, sperm all looks good – can’t find a reason, yet still they’re unable to conceive and in many ways we often think that is just that perhaps we don’t have the technology yet to identify these unexplained issues.

Answer from: Christos Kleanthis, MD MSc PhD

Gynaecologist, Obstetrician and Reproductive Gynecologist
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Given that the ovulation is confirmed, there are other factors that need to be excluded if there is no pregnancy established since the ovulation takes place. These factors could be either from a female partner or male partner. We need to make sure that the male partner has enough numbers, enough quality of sperm. As far as the female partner is concerned, we need to make sure that there is no other pathology either inside the abdomen or in the tubes that transport the egg, in the womb that could affect the implantation of the fertilised egg.

Answer from: Leo Martinez, PhD Biotechnology & Biomedical Sensors

Diagnostician, Chief Scientific Officer
Pearl Fertility by Colorimetrix GmbH
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No, that has nothing to do with infertility as I mentioned it’s a process that requires different steps to happen at the same time. I would say it’s more the chance, the probability.
You’re ovulating but was intercourse at the right time? Is sperm already there? Do you actually know when you’re ovulating?
All these factors have to come together and once you know that you’re ovulating, once you know that you have intercourse in the days with the highest chance to conceive and once you know when your hormone peaks are, once you know your hormones are all okay – then you can start thinking and digging into what is really causing the problem.
For example, the immediate answer would be okay, is the ovum good to get an implant itself? Maybe test for progesterone in urine? Urine progesterone tests you can also get them with our solution and if progesterone is at a good level? If progesterone is at a good level, if the ovum has been released at the right time, it’s an ovulatory cycle and intercourse happens at the right time and you’re still not getting pregnant – that’s also okay. We are not machines so the chance for someone getting pregnant in any cycle is around 30%.
If you tried with this same method: charting hormones, knowing when to have intercourse, testing your progesterone for at least three cycles and then you can start worrying but before that I think worrying about infertility without actually knowing how your hormones look like, without actually knowing when ovulation and when intercourse you should have had at the right time, I think it’s a bit silly. Nevertheless, it’s important to check for health of course, it’s important to visit the doctor, it’s important to ask them questions – they have a lot of definitions for things like ovulatory dysfunction and all these medical terms. They will definitely help you but please, before that just consider that there is always a chance even though the sperm is there and has swam over there, maybe they couldn’t break the barrier and tracking the ovum this cycle but it doesn’t mean there won’t be an ovum so you could try again next cycle.
In reality, it’s not ovulation which defines fertility – it’s more like a process and the chance of conceiving. After you have done all these steps right then we can start looking into factors that could really affect fertility.

About this question:

May it be the first infertility symptom if I'm struggling to conceive although I'm ovulating?

Usually all couples that have decided to get pregnant are expecting to be successful for the first time or at least for the first 3 months are worry free. As the time passes and still there is no expected outcome, they reach for wisdom coming from friends or google. Some of them before proceeding to fertility specialists try the ovulatory monitors which indicate ovulation time. Only after being certain that the ovulation is happening do they start to suspect that there might be something wrong..

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