Carrie Sopata:      Infertility in women is when a couple has been trying to conceive for 12 months unsuccessfully. So that means they haven't been using any birth control, no barrier contraceptive like condoms, for 12 months and they just haven't had a positive pregnancy test. Fertility is multi-factorial. And sometimes it's more than one thing that's going on, so the workup for infertility includes trying to figure out, first of all, from the history, what might be the problem. 

If the history is that a woman isn't having regular periods then I would focus more on ovulation and trying to figure out why not. If there's a history of pelvic infections or other abdominal surgeries then we might look at determining if the fallopian tubes are open. Similarly, if I have any concerns about the size or shape of the uterus then we might do some imaging to determine if that's a factor. And then we also talk about male factor infertility, so if everything else seems normal then we also look at the partner and try to help determine if that's an issue.