Let’s make fertility a normal conversation.

Testing gives you a record of your reproductive health today. A hormone test can give you information about ovarian reserve, thyroid function or early-cycle hormones. A semen analysis shows how many sperm are present, how they move and their shape.

AMH is a useful starting point for understanding ovarian reserve, especially when you’re planning ahead. It gives an estimate of the pool of eggs remaining. Our women’s ProStarter kit includes AMH and thyroid markers, and ProAdvance and ProComplete build on those results with a wider range of hormones.

For men, ProStarter measures eight core semen indicators. ProAdvance gives more detail about sperm movement and includes a video of your sperm. ProComplete adds testosterone and FSH, bringing your semen and hormone results together.

Where to start

• Write one sentence before choosing a test: “I want to understand…” Bring that question to us.
• Gather previous results with their dates, units and reference ranges, plus a list of medicines and supplements.
• Check sample timing and collection instructions before ordering or collecting; different tests answer different questions.
• Ask: “What would a high, low or reassuring result change about my next step?”
• If a result seems reassuring but symptoms continue, ask our clinical team to review the whole picture.

A question can be well meant and still be painful. Someone may be trying privately, deciding against parenthood, managing a diagnosis, grieving a loss or simply enjoying life as it is. A birthday, wedding or family gathering does not entitle anyone to an update on their reproductive plans.

You do not have to explain your medical history to set a boundary. Decide in advance what you are comfortable sharing, who can know, and whether you want a partner or friend to help redirect the conversation. If you are a couple, agreeing a response together can reduce the pressure on one person to manage everyone’s expectations.

For friends and relatives, useful support starts with listening. Ask what would help rather than offering diagnoses, comparisons or promises. Even a thoughtful health gift is best discussed first. A voucher should offer choice and support, rather than imply that somebody ought to test, marry or have a baby.

Where to start

• Try: “We’re keeping that private, but thank you for caring.” You do not owe a longer explanation.
• Agree who may hear an update before sharing a partner’s test result or treatment news.
• Ask supporters to check in about you, not only about pregnancy or treatment.
• Offer a specific choice: listening, company at an appointment, a meal or help with practical tasks.
• If conversations feel overwhelming, ask our team about the support available alongside clinical care.

Needing to change protection every one to two hours, use two products together, bleed through clothes or miss everyday activities can be signs of heavy periods. Our clinical team, including Dr Katherine (Katie) Sloane, our in-house GP, can discuss the pattern, possible causes and whether checks for anaemia or other investigations would be useful. Tracking changes helps describe what is happening; an app cannot diagnose the cause.

Menopause-type symptoms before 45 deserve a clinical conversation. Before 40, clinicians consider premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), particularly with absent or infrequent periods, flushes or vaginal dryness. Assessment also matters for bone and cardiovascular health.

NICE recommends diagnosing POI from the clinical picture and raised FSH on two blood samples, taken four to six weeks apart. A single home hormone result cannot establish it, and AMH is not routinely recommended for diagnosis.

It helps to describe the impact, not only the number of bleeding days. Pain that means missing work, planning journeys around toilets, doubling up protection or avoiding sex is useful clinical information. Treatment decisions can take account of whether you want contraception, pregnancy now, future fertility or symptom relief alone.

Where to start

• Keep a short record of bleeding days, protection changes, clots, pain relief and activities you miss.
• Bring the names of medicines and contraception, possible pregnancy information and relevant family history.
• Ask our consultants or Katie about ongoing pain, heavy bleeding or unexplained cycle changes; a kit alone may not answer the question.
• For possible early menopause or POI, ask what needs confirming, what else could explain the symptoms and how health beyond fertility will be supported.
• Seek urgent assessment for sudden severe pelvic pain, fainting or heavy bleeding with feeling very unwell.

For some people, speaking to a faith leader and asking for prayers is the most natural first step. Parents or elders may encourage prayer, share a family remedy or suggest a practice that carries meaning in their community. The advice often comes from care and from people whose judgement matters to you. What feels right can vary even within the same family or congregation.

That closeness can make the next step feel complicated. You might worry that booking an appointment will be read as a lack of faith, or that seeking a test before you have tried everything your family suggested will seem disrespectful. You can be grateful for their support and still choose to find out what is happening in your body. There is room to pray, stay connected to your community and seek medical care without guilt.

A fertility difficulty is not a verdict on faith, character or worth. Prayer and community can give you comfort through uncertainty. A consultation or fertility test can give you information about your reproductive health and help you decide what comes next. You can book while you continue to pray. If you are weighing choices about treatment or donor conception, our specialists can explain the options and give you space to consider them alongside your beliefs.

Before an appointment, write down any questions about treatment, timing, privacy or involvement of a partner or faith adviser. Our consultants can explain what an investigation can show and what choices it may open up. You can then decide who, if anyone, you want alongside you when considering those choices.

Where to start

• If a relative suggests waiting, you could say, “I appreciate your prayers. I’m going to book an appointment too, so I can understand what’s happening.”
• If you want support from a faith leader, you can ask them to pray with you as you arrange an appointment.
• Tell your specialist about any religious observances, traditional remedies or supplements that are part of your life so they can take these into account.
• Agree with your partner, if relevant, what you want to share with family and what you want to keep private.
• Seek clinical advice when symptoms or a concern need attention, alongside the support you value.
• Ask: “Can you explain the options and give me space to consider them alongside my beliefs?”
• Choose carefully who receives updates. Spiritual support does not require sharing every test or result.

Age affects fertility, especially with eggs, and can influence treatment options and pregnancy risks. A label such as “geriatric mother” does not explain someone’s individual health or choices. Ask for a discussion of your age, history and options that informs without shaming.

If you’re considering solo parenthood, you may be thinking about donor sperm, treatment costs, work and who can support you. A planning consultation can help you compare donor insemination and IVF, understand what a clinic may ask you to check, and put those decisions in an order that feels manageable.

For LGBTQ+ families, the first conversation should reflect who you are and how you want to build your family. Two partners may want to discuss donor sperm, who might carry, or reciprocal IVF, where one provides the eggs and the other carries. If your plans involve donor eggs or surrogacy, you may want to talk about sperm testing and which professionals to speak with first. Trans and non-binary people may also want to discuss fertility preservation, including how it fits around gender-affirming care.

Testing can give you something concrete to work with while you plan. AMH helps you understand your ovarian reserve and can inform a conversation about egg freezing or IVF. Our women’s ProStarter kit pairs AMH with thyroid markers, with more hormone detail available in ProAdvance and ProComplete. A semen analysis can give you a baseline for sperm count, movement and shape if you’re planning to use your own sperm or considering sperm freezing.

Age and timing can matter whether you’re single, partnered or still deciding. You can use a ProFertility consultation to talk through your timeline, health history and results. If a donor, clinic or preservation service will be involved, ask what you can do now and which steps to arrange with them.

Where to start

• If you’re planning solo, list the decisions you want help with first, such as donor options, costs, timing or the support you’ll want around treatment.
• If you’re planning with a partner, discuss who might provide eggs or sperm, who might carry and whether you both want a role in treatment decisions. It’s fine to arrive with some of this still open.
• If you’re exploring egg freezing or IVF, bring any previous hormone results or choose a ProFertility kit that includes AMH to start a conversation about ovarian reserve.
• If sperm is part of your plan, order an at-home semen test to see your starting point. Bring the results to a planning or preservation consultation.
• Tell our team the names, pronouns and family terms you use, and what you’d like the appointment to focus on.
• Ask what age, treatment or a diagnosis changes about the options available to you.
• Discuss fertility preservation before a foreseeable medical treatment when relevant.
• Bring a rough timeline rather than a deadline: what are you considering in the next year, and what remains undecided?
• Ask our consultants to explain likely benefits, limits, costs and alternatives for the options relevant to your circumstances.

In some families, marriage comes with an expectation that pregnancy will follow quickly. Women may be asked for updates, blamed for delays or expected to arrange every appointment. There can be pressure around when and how often a couple has sex, even in families where talking openly about sex, pain or pleasure feels uncomfortable. Those pressures can make intimacy feel like a duty and leave little room for either partner to say what they need.

Men can face their own pressure. Where fertility is tied to masculinity or virility, being asked for a semen sample can feel like being asked to prove something. A man may feel embarrassed about collecting a sample or worry about who might see the result. His partner may want him to test and still be anxious that raising it will sound like blame. These conversations can feel particularly exposed when relatives already feel entitled to ask for baby news.

When fertility is hard to talk about, people may wait until a concern feels urgent or see testing as proof that something is wrong. Men’s involvement matters here too. Partners can learn together and share the work of arranging tests and appointments, so the responsibility doesn’t fall to one person.

You can make the conversation smaller and more private. A ProFertility home semen kit lets him collect the sample in private and learn about sperm count, movement and shape. If you’re testing as a couple, both partners can choose a check and agree how they want to discuss their results.

A private appointment can give you space to ask questions you would not raise at home. If sex has become stressful, painful or difficult to talk about, you can bring that up with our clinical team. You can also tell us about family expectations, cultural practices or privacy concerns that affect how you’d like to receive care.

Where to start

• Choose a private moment away from a family gathering or a disagreement. Try, “I’d like us to understand both sides of our fertility. How would you feel about doing a check together?”
• If he is unsure about a semen test, ask what feels difficult. Talk through collection, privacy or results one at a time. A home kit may make the first step feel more manageable.
• Share the practical work. One person could look at the test options while the other arranges a time to talk through them or books a joint consultation.
• Agree a reply to relatives. “We’re keeping this between us for now, and we’ll share an update when we’re ready” gives you a line you can both use.
• Talk about how you’re both feeling about sex as well as about conception. You can ask for a private appointment if it feels easier to raise a concern on your own.

Periods can give you useful clues about ovulation. Long gaps between periods can sometimes reflect infrequent ovulation, which matters if you’re trying to conceive and is worth understanding if you aren’t. PCOS can affect ovulation. Endometriosis can cause pelvic pain and affect fertility, while some fibroids can change the shape of the womb cavity. It’s common to start asking how these things fit together when you begin planning a pregnancy. You can start that conversation sooner.

If you’ve taken the pill for years, your usual cycle may be hard to picture. The combined pill suppresses ovulation while you take it, and different contraceptives can change the bleeding you see. If you decide to come off contraception, keeping track of when your own periods return can help you understand your cycle. If you want to stay on it, you can still discuss symptoms, changes and future plans with our team.

Gynaecological health also affects how you feel today. Heavy periods can deplete iron stores over time. Pelvic pain can affect sleep, work, exercise and sex. If you’ve been organising your life around bleeding or pain, those are reasons to get support in their own right, whether you want children, are undecided or your plans change later.

Our at-home hormone kits give you information about ovarian reserve and thyroid markers, with early-cycle hormone results available in ProAdvance and a wider hormone panel in ProComplete. If you’re trying to connect cycle changes, bleeding, pain or an existing diagnosis with your plans, our consultants can review that history alongside your results.

Where to start

• Record pain, bleeding, bowel or bladder symptoms and their effect on work, sleep and sex.
• Note long gaps between periods, how often you change protection and any fatigue. Include your contraception and when you started or stopped it.
• Tell our consultants about symptoms and goals; ask what assessment, examination or imaging fits your situation.
• A normal test does not cancel out symptoms that continue to affect you.
• Ask for a plan that addresses symptom relief as well as any fertility goals.
• If you’re looking for a starting picture of ovarian reserve and thyroid health, explore ProStarter. For more early-cycle detail, explore ProAdvance.
• Bring previous hormone results, scans and diagnoses to a consultation. Ask our specialist to explain how they fit together and what you can do next.

Many people with chlamydia have no symptoms. Untreated infection can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which may affect fertility. Confidential sexual-health testing and treatment are routine health care, without judgement. Condoms help protect against STIs; hormonal contraception does not.

Most contraceptive methods do not cause a lasting delay in fertility after stopping, but the injection can delay its return for up to a year. Discuss timing when choosing or changing a method. Contraception does not stop ovarian ageing or “save up” eggs.

If pregnancy is a goal, our preconception consultations can review your health history, medicines, supplements and practical preparation. The usual advice is 400 micrograms of folic acid daily before conception and through the first 12 weeks; some people need a prescribed higher dose. Katie, our in-house GP, and our consultants can help decide what is appropriate. Keep taking prescribed medicines unless a professional advises a change.

For STI testing, tell the clinician about symptoms, the type of contact and when it happened, so they can discuss the right samples and timing. A negative test taken too early may need repeating. Our STI and preconception services give you a place to ask these questions confidentially; you do not need to be trying for a pregnancy to use them.

Where to start

• Speak with our consultants about confidential STI testing or a preconception review; you can ask for Katie’s GP input where appropriate.
• Bring a list of prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and any performance-enhancing products.
• Discuss when you might stop contraception and what to use until you are ready; the best method depends on your circumstances.
• Ask which infections are being checked, which samples are needed, when testing is useful and whether a repeat is advised.
• If planning together, include both partners’ health. A general fertility hormone or semen kit does not replace a specifically requested STI test.

If you’re planning a family, thinking about freezing sperm or curious about where you stand, a semen test gives you a baseline you can keep. You’ll see how many sperm are present, how they move and their shape. You can collect your sample privately at home and fit the check around work and training.

If you take testosterone or have used anabolic steroids, sperm health is worth checking. Testosterone taken from outside the body and anabolic steroids can suppress the signals that drive sperm production. If you’re on testosterone now, a semen test can show where your sperm measures stand while you’re on it. If you’ve stopped steroids, you can check where things stand today and discuss when it would be useful to check again.

ProStarter gives you eight core semen measures. ProAdvance adds a more detailed breakdown of movement and other measures, with 16 in total and a video of your sperm. ProComplete gives you the full ProAdvance analysis plus testosterone and FSH from a finger-prick blood sample. It gives you sperm and hormone results to discuss together, especially if testosterone or past steroid use is part of your story.

Keep your first result and the date you tested. A follow-up can be useful after a change in treatment or to track changes over time. If you’re on prescribed testosterone, discuss your fertility plans and results with your prescriber before changing your treatment.

Where to start

• Choose ProStarter for a first look at your core sperm measures, or ProAdvance if you want a more detailed breakdown and video.
• Choose ProComplete if you’d like testosterone and FSH results alongside your semen analysis.
• Follow the collection and return instructions, including the abstinence interval for your kit. Keep a record of what you were taking and when you tested.
• Bring your results and any past results to our male fertility team if you’d like to understand changes or plan a follow-up.

The postcode gap is visible in who gets funded treatment. In 2024, the NHS funded 28% of UK IVF cycles. The share was 54% in Scotland and 25% in England. Within England, it was 51% in the North East and 20% in the South West and East Midlands. For people working out what they can afford or how far they can travel, those differences matter.

The HFEA also reported a gap in birth rates per embryo transferred across 2022–24. Among patients aged 18–37 using their own eggs, the rate was 30% for Black and Asian patients and 36% for White patients. Those figures make it worth asking whose concerns are being heard early, who can get to appointments and what support people have along the way.

For many people trying through regular unprotected sex, a year of trying is the usual point for an NHS fertility assessment, with earlier assessment in some circumstances. With ProFertility, you can order an at-home test now. You can check ovarian reserve and hormones or get a view of sperm health before trying, while you’re trying or while you’re waiting for another appointment.

Virtual appointments and at-home kits can reduce travel and scheduling barriers. If you live far from a clinic, work shifts, care for family or need more privacy, you can compare kit prices and what each test measures online, then collect your sample at home when it fits your day.

Our online consultations bring a range of specialists to you, including clinicians in reproductive medicine, gynaecology and male fertility. You can speak with the right specialist from home, talk through what’s on your mind or review your test results together. You can get the conversation started sooner and leave with a clearer idea of what to do next.

Where to start

• Start with the kit range and compare what’s included. ProStarter offers a focused baseline, with more detail in ProAdvance and ProComplete.
• Check the collection and return instructions so you can plan around work, travel or a busy household.
• Book a virtual consultation if you want to discuss a concern or have your results explained. Tell us about any accessibility, language or scheduling needs.
• Keep a copy of your results so you can bring them to future appointments and spend more time discussing what to do next.