I recently discovered that I have a luteal phase defect, meaning that the second half of my cycle is too short to allow a fertilized embryo to implant. In fact, this is almost certainly what happened this past month, when I had a multitude of pregnancy symptoms, and "felt" pregnant, only to get my period a few days earlier than I would have expected to. There were only about 9 cycle days after I ovulated, and an embryo doesn't fully settle in the lining until closer to 10-12 days. If not for this short luteal phase, there is a very good likelihood that I would be 5 weeks pregnant right now.
Supposedly, the luteal phase doesn't change, unless forced to. Pregnancy can change it, as it clearly did for me, in a negative way. In my case, it seems to be caused by high levels of Prolactin (the hormone that makes breastmilk), as my supply never fully dried up, even now 15 months after breastfeeding. B6 vitamin supplements can fix it, though. When I found out about this defect, I went ahead and started supplementing with B6 vitamin, just to at least try to get things back to normal. However, I don't think this is something I want to take longer than a month or two. I'm mostly taking it to try to finally dry up the rest of my breastmilk, because I'm tired of constantly leaking.
So, after that point, if my luteal phase isn't fixed, I will remain infertile. The odds of officially conceiving would be very low. However, I am okay with this. If it doesn't happen, then I kind of feel like it's God's will, and we should simply honor that. I'm not "treating" it now for the purpose of conceiving, I'm just trying to lower the Prolactin levels so that my body can get back to what it was pre-baby.
I don't think fertility treatments are bad, or unethical, and if I didn't already have a child, I'd probably be very tempted to do whatever I had to in order to conceive. But, I do already have a wonderful child.
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