No one ever envisages themselves seeing a fertility specialist. The road to pregnancy can be a long one for many women, and unexplained infertility has to be one of the cruellest things to go through. I, like many other women experiencing miscarriages or having no luck falling pregnant at all, turn to TikTok, podcasts, blogs and any other piece of anecdotal data we can find. I eventually decided to see someone rather than wait to “see what happens next month”.
Getting an appointment with a fertility specialist
In 2023, after two miscarriages and a lot of questions, I was recommended to see Dr Nicole Hope. The person who recommended her had created a very robust spreadsheet of the best fertility specialists in Melbourne, and Dr Nicole Hope was prominent on the list. Armed with this name and her seemingly infallible reputation, I asked my GP for a referral to her clinic. My GP knew that we had been trying for over a year to fall pregnant and had had two miscarriages, so she felt comfortable referring us.
Later that day, I heard from one of the intake nurses who scheduled an appointment for the next week. This was in late 2023, and I do know that fertility specialists can have a waitlist, but I managed to get in very quickly. It’s also worth noting that Dr Nicole Hope is a private doctor, so this was an out-of-pocket expense, and you can always get in quicker with private when you are not waiting with the public system.
Before the initial consult, I had to fill out a comprehensive questionnaire about my health, my first pregnancy with my eldest son and some information about my husband’s health. I sent across all of my genetic testing results from my first pregnancy, too, so we could see which tests I had done and which ones I wouldn’t have to do again.
The initial consult
Our appointment with Dr Nicole Hope was at her Box Hill office (Suite 17, 28-32 Arnold Street, Box Hill), and she also sees clients at Newlife IVF in Clayton (for IVF). The initial consult was a chance for Dr Nicole Hope to chat to me and my husband about our genetic testing we had previously done, the nature of our miscarriages and a chat about my cycle.
Since I was tracking my period and any changes in Flo, I was able to give Nicole almost a year of data. I was so focused on my ovulation days and the length of my period that I had not realised that my cycle was actually only 21-22 days on any given month. This short menstrual cycle indicated that I was not producing enough progesterone, which is crucial for maintaining a healthy pregnancy. Nicole ordered some bloods for me to complete and said we would be in touch again when they came back, and validated her plan.
Letrozole for fertility and progesterone pessaries
Dr Nicole Hope prescribed letrozole for me and my unique circumstances. I had not heard of letrozole for fertility before (but knew it was a common drug for breast cancer treatment), but learned that taking it increases ovulation and the chance of you becoming pregnant. I also learned that lots of studies have found that using letrozole for ovulation induction has better rates of successful letrozole.
Due to the potency of the drug, you are only meant to take it on days two to six of your cycle, which I did. I would then, with the support of Dr Nicole Hope’s nurse team, make an educated guess as to when my ovulation date would be and confirm this with blood tests. Basically, I would get a blood test on the predicted ovulation date, and based on those blood results, if I were ovulating, I would immediately start taking progesterone with the rationale being that my cycle would extend and give me a better chance of the pregnancy sticking. I took the progesterone morning and night as a pessary (inserted vaginallly).
My experience with Dr Nicole Hope
As I said at the top of the article, you can never compare apples with apples when it comes to fertility and really anything pregnancy-related. However, Dr Nicole Hope brought me and my husband a lot of clarity in a time when we had none and gave us a roadmap that we could follow. We ended up having a successful pregnancy with Dr Nicole Hope, and she and her incredible team of nurses are the reason for that, I believe.
This is just a personal testimonial to my experience with a fertility specialist in Melbourne, and it’s always recommended to see your GP to see if this is right for you. Be sure to check out our pregnancy articles to learn more.
