DENVER — Some people make getting pregnant look easy, but that’s not always the case. The path to pregnancy is different for everyone.
Amber Flora, who lives in Colorado, is one of the about 10 percent of women in the U.S. who have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant. It took about 13 months of trying before she conceived her son.
“I had heard like a month before we got a positive test with him that 12 months means you’re infertile,” Flora said. “I was so upset, and then we were pregnant with him and we didn’t think we had a problem.”
In about a third of U.S. infertility cases, doctors can’t say why a woman isn’t getting pregnant.
“It was really hard to be infertile and not have an answer,” Flora said.
When Flora’s son Paul started kindergarten, she and her husband tried for baby number two. That’s when they found out she had undiagnosed infertility.
“We didn’t really feel compelled to do in vitro,” Flora said. “We’d looked through it, we did [intrauterine insemination], a round of hormonal treatment and … that didn’t work. So I thought maybe we were done. I decided I was just going to focus on me.”
So, that’s what she did. Flora began a weight loss program and reached out to her friend Dr. Jillian Ciocceti. This led to something unexpected: a positive pregnancy test.
But, Flora miscarried. Two months later, she was pregnant again. This also resulted in a miscarriage, but she said she got pregnant again a few months later. She was able to carry that pregnancy to term, and has a nine-month-old son named Joseph.
Flora, who lost 25 pounds through Ciocceti’s weight loss program, credits her healthier weight to a healthier pregnancy.
“My family was kind of shocked I wanted to lose any weight because in our culture I did not look heavy,” Flora said. “You know, it’s sort of a different perspective on what healthy looks like versus what true health is.”
Ciocceti said Flora’s case is not an anomaly. She said patients who get their nutrition dialed in have an easier time. This is backed up by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which said 12 percent of all infertility cases are because the woman either weighs too little or too much.
Dr. Ciocchetti worked at North Point Aesthetics in Northglenn. You can reach her office at 303-457-6710.