Pregnant in a completely natural way after unsuccessful IVF

Interview Q&A

Dear Bettina, can you tell us your personal story and briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Bettina, I am a partner at VivoSensMedical and responsible for marketing and sales at OvulaRing. The reason I work for OvulaRing has to do with my own personal history. But let me start at the beginning: even as a young girl, I didn’t have a normal cycle. My cycles were always more like 40 days or longer. Sometimes I didn’t have my period for six months. That changed when I started taking the pill. After all, it was also good for my skin, and for the next 15 years I had no problems with pimples or irregular cycles, because from then on my period came punctually every 28 days.

So you were happy with your regular pill cycle at the time. What happened next?

I am a planner through and through and don’t like to leave things to chance. School, exchange year, university, career: everything went according to plan. Of course, it was also clear to me that I could plan my pregnancy. My career was going well, I had found the man of my dreams, and our wedding was just around the corner. So I stopped taking the pill. Since I had done everything I could to prevent pregnancy for the past 15 years, I didn’t give it a second thought that getting pregnant could be even remotely complicated. However, I quickly learned otherwise.

So you stopped taking the pill—what happened next?

When I stopped taking the pill, nothing happened for six months. There was no sign of my period anywhere. Instead, I looked like a teenager in the middle of puberty and my skin was literally exploding. Even this six-month period was a real challenge for a planner like me. Eventually, my period came, and the following cycles varied from 38 to 50 days. Since all the ovulation calculations I found on the internet at the time only worked for cycles of up to 35 days, I was no longer sure what the right timing should be to make it work. It was time for me to talk to my gynecologist and get some advice. My gynecologist at the time told me relatively quickly that with such long cycles, I would not ovulate and would not be able to get pregnant naturally. He also suggested that I might have PCOS. He referred me to a fertility clinic and pointed out that waiting any longer would be a waste of time.

What experiences did you have at the fertility clinic?

Since I did not doubt the doctor’s competence and had been lagging behind my plan for almost a year now, my husband and I made an appointment at the fertility clinic and, after a fallopian tube patency test, hysteroscopy, and semen analysis, we immediately started with stimulation, ovulation induction, insemination, and IVF. Six unsuccessful cycles were to pass in this way. It felt like our lives consisted only of injections, doctor’s appointments, hope, anxiety, and disappointment. A normal life was no longer possible. Not to mention the side effects that had me firmly in their grip.

How long did you put up with that?

After six months, it was clear to me that I didn’t want to continue. I didn’t have the strength for another cycle of treatment, so we decided to stop fertility treatment at that point. By then, I no longer cared about the plan; I just wanted my normal life back. Of course, I still wanted to have children, so after a short break, I began to intensively study the female cycle and alternative treatment methods. In various articles and studies, I came across information for the first time that the female cycle is much more individual than is generally assumed, that the thyroid gland has an influence on the cycle, that luteal phase deficiency can affect fertility, and much more.

And what happened next?

Through my research, I also came across a great naturopath who specializes in fertility. Together, we determined that I suffer from hypothyroidism and luteal insufficiency, but that this does not mean that I do not ovulate. Among other things, thyroid hormones and monk’s pepper meant that I still had a fairly long, but at least regular, 40-day cycle. In addition, the naturopath explained to me the negative impact that stress and the hormones released as a result have on reproduction, and that regular relaxation exercises have a positive effect on hormone balance and thus on fertility. At that time, I began to practice yoga intensively and meditate regularly. Above all, the conversations with the naturopath gave me serenity and confidence in my body. I had a whole new sense of optimism and deep down I felt certain that our desire to have children would be fulfilled and that it was only a matter of time. And that’s exactly how it turned out.

How long did it take after that for you to get pregnant?

After about six months, I was pregnant. Without hormones, without fertility treatment, completely naturally. Nine months later, our son was born, and exactly two years after that, our daughter followed, this time unplanned. I am currently pregnant with our third child, who we are expecting this summer.

What else did your intensive study of the cycle bring you, apart from your pregnancies?

As nerve-wracking as those two years of trying to conceive were at the time, I am grateful for them in retrospect. I learned a lot about myself and my body. I also realized that many women feel the same way I do. Diagnoses are often made too hastily, and treatments are rarely individualized.

When I heard about OvulaRing, I quickly realized that I wanted to help spread the word about this product. I would have loved to have had a tool like this back then, and I’m sure OvulaRing would have saved me a lot of trouble.