The topic of unexplained infertility hits very close to home for me: I was diagnosed in 2017 after my husband and I had been trying to conceive for almost a year and a half with no luck. At the time, it felt like I’d walked face-first into a brick wall.
Unexplained infertility? Seriously? As a PhD-wielding cancer researcher whose day job was in personalized cancer therapy, I couldn’t wrap my head around why unexplained was an acceptable diagnosis. In the beginning, I was depressed. Then I got angry. We’d been running in place for over a year, and the professionals we turned to for guidance came back to us with little more than a shrug. Then our doctor handed us a $10,000 loan application to start three months of intrauterine insemination (IUI).
I was okay undergoing treatment if they were solving a problem. Unexplained infertility meant they had no idea what the problem was - so how could they offer me a solution? I set out to try to explain it for myself. Buried in the scientific research, I found out there were several options for getting pregnant with unexplained infertility before giving up or shelling out. There are no guarantees, of course, but with the right approach, you can dramatically up your odds without breaking the bank.
You Could Keep Trying Naturally
This may seem like an obvious path, though it’s not always the most productive way forward. What “unexplained” infertility means is that the doctors don’t see a reason why you’re not getting pregnant, but there’s no obvious reason you can’t.
That being said, if you’ve been trying without success, something is clearly off. Some will say, wait until you’ve tried for years, but you know your body. Approach it like science. Eliminate causes like variables. For example:
-
Is there an interference of lube or saliva? That could hurt sperm.
-
Is your timing correct? Start tracking your ovulation.
-
Are you hydrated? Your body first makes fluid to survive, then reproduces in that order. So if you are dehydrated, your body is making fluids to keep you alive, not cervical mucus or seminal fluid.
If the above don’t produce results it may be sperm motility, vaginal mucus and biome, or hormonal imbalances. In those cases, all it may take is a little help from an intracervical insemination (ICI) kit to bypass the challenges the first leg (well, vagina…) of the journey presents. These options are inexpensive, effective, and give your sperm-to-egg game the best start possible.
Then There Are Clinical Options…
Of course, IUI and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are two of the most common (and expensive) procedures for infertility, especially when there’s no clear-cut answer. Your doctor might have suggested IUI or IVF alongside your diagnosis, which makes sense: these have long been the go-to fix for women dealing with infertility, as they have the highest success rates—and price tags.
The problem with these costly options is that they’re typically presented as the obvious next step after an unexplained infertility diagnosis. A jump to $10,000 without trying ICI first is pretty tone-deaf in today’s world, especially when, in its very best category (women under age 35), IVF has less than a 40% success rate in the best case.
And even if insurance covers it, as it likely won’t, it still overlooks many intermediate options that are less costly and invasive. IVF involves harvesting your eggs after pumping you full of hormones. They determine if embryos can form, grade them on how well, and see if they develop far enough along to implant; all of that takes a few months for one attempt, so this isn't a small process.
I’m a scientist, first and foremost, so I won’t stomp around proclaiming that IUI and IVF aren’t valid treatments—they definitely can be. But for me, I couldn’t get over the fact that they didn’t know what was wrong - why can’t we at least try to explain it? I needed to start smaller, with a low-stakes yet scientifically sound method—and that’s what I did.
Exploring All Your Options
For us, Plan A hadn’t happened, Plan B wasn’t for me (yet), so Plan C was to see what I could do for myself to eliminate the variables between sperm getting to the egg. At the top of the list was an ICI kit, but none on the market met the basic criteria for any biologist, namely being sterile. Worse, what was available was fallic-shaped or designed (tell me you were invented by a man without telling me) and had obviously not been anywhere near an FDA regulator or scientific laboratory.
I was left with ube launchers and dusty turkey basters and none of those things seem like a logical way to cleanly and safely perform a science experiment on myself to eliminate variables between sperm and egg.
So, I used my determination, spite, and PhD expertise to create my own fully sterilized, anatomically ideal ICI kit to address our unexplained infertility puzzle. By eliminating the variables to get sperm closer to the egg without interference we - tested our hypothesis on ourselves and it worked.
It was a miracle breakthrough for us, and today, the PherDal kit is the only 100% guaranteed, sterile, FDA-cleared kit on the market.
PherDal Does Things Differently
An ICI kit is designed to provide you with the most efficient possible method for bringing sperm directly to your cervix. Yes: it’s a better penis (and one you actually have some control over!)
During traditional intercourse, less than 1% of sperm make it through the cervix, and that’s if things go perfectly. However, PherDal’s needleless syringe is designed to go all the way to the opening of your cervix to push 95% of the sperm sample through the cervix toward your waiting egg. It’s like dropping Michael Phelps off halfway down the pool at the start of the race.
It’s a significant step up in efficiency that contributes to its 37.9% success rate over 6 months —nearly the same rate as in-clinic IUI. Of course, there are many other factors that contribute to having better or worse odds of success, and when you’re dealing with unexplained infertility, covering all your bases is the name of the game.
-
Ovulation tracking. You can only get pregnant—ICI kit or not—when you’re ovulating, and PherDal’s kit comes with a science-based ovulation tracking journal and/or course.
-
Multiple attempts from one kit. Not all ICI kits are created equal: PherDal gives you the materials for three separate attempts per cycle to maximize your odds.
-
100% guaranteed sterile. Your vaginal microbiome is a carefully balanced environment, and PherDal protects you from the manufacturing grime and the handprints of everyone who’s handled it along the way. This is important because putting any bacteria into your vaginal microbiome further hurts your chances of getting pregnant and is the leading cuase of unexplained infertility.
Does PherDal cost a little more than some other kits out there? PherDal costs more than a turkey baster, lube launcher, or non-FDA cleared kit because we are regulated device with standards to uphold.
We're more affordable than IUI and declared a substantial equivalent to IUI by the FDA.
When it comes to your health, safety, and success, we’re not compromising because you shouldn’t have to either. After all, I was the first to use this kit, and I know exactly what’s riding on it.
Unexplained Infertility Isn’t the End
Self-insemination is the answer that completed our family for a fraction of the cost that IUI would’ve set us back, and it launched our labor of love to creating PherDal and making what worked for us available to everyone.
Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey or your next step is the clinic, PherDal gives you an affordable, safe, non-invasive option at conceiving at home.
