Though this story comes from a married woman, through our Choice Mom allies at American Fertility Association, it is yet another example of how, sometimes, our doctors don't always think through the reasons we might be facing fertility issues. And why we need to learn as much as we can from each other so we can ask the right questions.
Posted December 29, 2012 at 11:35 AM
Do you know about celiac disease and infertility?
"My husband and I underwent five years of unnecessary infertility treatment. This included 10 rounds of IVF, six IUIs, countless surgeries, procedures, flying across the country, and four miscarriages, including a devastating loss at 20 weeks from a pregnancy from our 8th IVF attempt. We were diagnosed with "unexplained" infertility, as we were perfect on paper, young, and every single diagnostic test and procedure yielded no cause for my not getting pregnant. After the loss, we tried variations of donor egg and donor sperm, for lack of other options, and even those failed.
We furiously researched adoption and other methods to build our family, until one day my sister happened to mention that she saw an episode of Dr. Oz discussing Celiac disease and how often it goes undiagnosed. Dr.Oz explained that symptoms could include unusual stomach issues, unexplained infertility, and recurrent miscarriage. We figured, why not get a Celiac test, we've certainly done everything else! To our sheer astonishment, my test came back positive, and a very famous Celiac doctor looked us right in the eyes and said, "you never had a fertility issue. You have Celiac disease. Be gluten free for at least six months before trying, and go home and make a baby."
We could barely comprehend what he was saying after all the trauma my husband and I had experienced. We decided to try again, with our own eggs and sperm, but use a gestational carrier because the gluten free diet was so new to me and I was terrified I would do something wrong. Six months after my Celiac diagnosis I underwent my 11th round of IVF, and everything was different. We yielded more embryos then ever before, transferred two into our surrogate, and both were healthy and ended up implanting and growing into two beautiful babies.
The American Fertility Association is one of the only nationally recognized organizations that has assisted me in my advocacy efforts to explain the relationship between Celiac disease and infertility. They are a strong, empathetic and amazing ally for those of us living with this disease. I am grateful and comforted in the knowledge that this organization exists, and will continue to help fight the ignorance surrounding this disease. Every day The AFA impacts thousands of people. What an amazing institution.
With much love,
Marisa Horowitz-Jaffe
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