Many women trying to conceive for the first time lose their head if their periods last for even three or four months. But the standard sign of infertility is unsuccessful conception after an entire year of unprotected sex. At that point, a couple should seek a comprehensive examination that is usually includes menstrual and pregnancy history, ovulation tests, semen analysis, and usually a laparoscopy to detect endometriosis or pelvic adhesions. Such testing determines the causes of infertility in 60 to 80 percent of all couples.
Fertility drugs, forms of hormone treatment, are developed to trick the ovaries into producing eggs, sometimes many eggs in a single cycle, by stimulating the woman's hormones to doperform} their appointed functions more qualitatively or by replacing them with "outside" hormones.