“The female body is truly mysterious.”
The infertility specialist spoke lightly, almost kindly, from behind the desk. I was there because my partner and I had been trying to have a second child, but had not been successful. My son was two years old at the time. We conceived him naturally and relatively quickly, so after months of negative pregnancy tests, we knew something was wrong.
I told my specialist that I was experiencing severe pain every month and that it was getting worse. But the pain I was describing seemed to belong to some unknown realm beyond medicine, rather than to the pain of my actual body sitting across from him.
I went to another fertility specialist and was told pretty much the same thing. Pain was again seen as incidental, irrelevant, and something to be endured rather than investigated. I left the country after receiving a prescription for ovulation stimulants.
Over the next three years, I met with several specialists. The pattern repeated itself every time. Blood tests, charts, timelines, and they always end up coming to the same conclusion: unexplained secondary infertility. I followed the advice. I took medication and hormones. I changed my eating habits and lifestyle. I tracked my cycle obsessively. I continued to have blood drawn, had hormones injected into my stomach, had internal ultrasounds, had sex on time, and had IUI. I’ve tried acupuncture, Oriental medicine, and just about every fertility supplement the Instagram algorithm throws my way. I was watched, measured, poked and prodded. My body became a site of constant intervention. Meanwhile, I was told to relax. Stay positive. Don’t think too much about it. I waited and hoped and like clockwork every month I watched another pregnancy test turn negative.
Each negative outcome brought its own sadness. But there was something more difficult to name above that. It was the fatigue that came from not trusting. The psychological damage of being implicitly told that your pain is irrelevant, irrelevant, or simply “one of those things.”
IVF was presented as the logical next step: efficient, protocol-driven, and almost inevitable. But something inside me resisted. It wasn’t denial, fear or lack of understanding about IVF. It was a quiet but persistent intuition that we were overlooking something fundamental. That my pain matters. It’s just that my body is trying to tell me something.
Just when I was about to give up on that intuition, I heard an interview with an American gynecologist who challenged the concept of “unexplained infertility.” Not all rocks are overturned. This thought was buried deep somewhere. It crystallized what I had felt all along: that I was missing something. I booked an appointment with my last fertility specialist. One more comment. One more rock.
So I explained the pain again in another consultation room. The pain had a huge impact and truly affected my ability to work and function by then. I expected the same reaction, but something different happened. She paused for a moment. She listened. And then, almost casually, he said, “You need to do a laparoscopy.”
Within a month I had surgery. Within a few weeks I was pregnant.
The surgery itself revealed just how much had been missed. What was supposed to be a relatively simple procedure took much longer than expected. Laparoscopy revealed extensive endometriosis, some of which had surrounded nerves and formed its own blood supply. It was both devastating and vindicating. What I had felt in my body all along and finally had a name for was there. The mystery evaporated immediately. My infertility was no longer “unexplained.” It was simply ignored.
I wish I could say that moment brought simple joy, but instead it opened something. Along with relief and gratitude came a sadness so deep it took my breath away. I mourned the lost years. Years of pain. Years of work opportunities lost when my body failed to follow a timeline that assumed a woman’s body would not impede its progress. Years of emotional whiplash – hope, despair, repeat.
Endometriosis affects one in nine Australian women but takes an average of seven to 10 years to be diagnosed. Women’s suffering is routinely minimized. In infertility medicine, these layoffs are exacerbated by an industry structured around efficiency and throughput rather than curiosity and interest.
IVF itself is not the villain here. For many people it is life changing and essential. But if it becomes the default response – that is, given before the root cause has been thoroughly investigated – it runs the risk of becoming a conveyor belt. Women are processed rather than listened to. Symptoms are managed rather than understood.
“Unexplained” is not a diagnosis. It is a failure of imagination, time and will.
I am pregnant now. I am grateful. But that doesn’t mean the cost of getting there is gone. What remains is the knowledge that if I hadn’t trusted my instincts, if I hadn’t refused to accept ‘mystery’ as the answer, I might still be waiting.
When women’s suffering is repeatedly minimized, in health care, in the workplace, and in systems designed for efficiency rather than care, it should signal that something harm has occurred. Sometimes that signal is anger. Not as an overreaction, but as evidence. It is not something that needs to be appeased, but something that is asked to be reflected upon.
Yes. I’m angry at myself, but I’m also angry at the countless women who are still gently and confidently told that their bodies are a mystery. They don’t – they’re just worth listening to.