The amount of over-the-counter testing options available to people trying to conceive is endless and continues to grow. Fancy basal body temperature thermometers, sperm test kits, and enough ovulation prediction kits available at the pharmacy to make your head spin. With so much to wade through, it’s only natural to wonder – where do you […]
An Important Message For Infertile Women On Mother’s Day
This post is for all of the women who want to get pregnant – but can’t. It’s for the women going through IVF for the first – or fifth time. It’s for women who are in the middle of the surrogacy process. It’s also for those who were pregnant – even for a short time […]
How One Gay Latino Fertility Doctor Is Changing Lives
Dr. Juan Alvarez works at Fertility Centers of Illinois. I chose to do a profile on Dr. Alvarez and highlight his work because of his unique perspective – as one of the few fertility specialists who is both Latino and openly gay. After his interview, I now consider Dr. Alvarez to be not just […]
The Cost of Delaying Motherhood
I was told from a young age that a woman’s main purpose in life is to have and raise children. Most of the women in my family were stay-at-home moms, who married young and had children before they turned 30. That wasn’t my life plan. My passion was to have a successful career. I figured […]
Why An Oscar Nominated Director Made A Film About Infertility
It turns out that getting people to support a documentary film, about people who are struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss, isn’t easy. Infertility is still considered a taboo subject that’s often associated with feelings of shame. The topic also sparks controversy, partly because a section of our society still finds the methods of treating […]
Talking To Your Kids About Their Donor or Surrogate
There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids and young adults in the world who are either donor conceived or carried by surrogates. And that number grows larger everyday. Although some parents are reluctant to tell their children about the unique circumstances of their conception and birth, most are talking to […]
What Is Natural IVF and Is It Right For You?
For a woman struggling with infertility, hearing that there might be a way to increase your chances of getting pregnant, without having to inject yourself with drugs, sounds almost too good to be true. Well, that’s exactly the claim made by fertility clinics that perform Natural Cycle IVF. So, what is Natural IVF? It’s basically […]
Infertility: The Emotional Tsunami
The psychological, biological, social and cultural expectations to have children are quite strong in most people and, for many it is a question of “when” and “how many” rather than “whether”. When faced with the painful reality that they may not be able to conceive, it is a crisis of paramount proportions and most people […]
When Is It Time To Stop Trying and Move On?
Figuring out how long to keep trying to conceive – which usually means how long to keep doing fertility treatments- is one of the most difficult and important questions to answer. As everyone knows, fertility treatments are expensive, intrusive and emotionally exhausting and there is always something new to try. It is easy to get […]
Miscarriage Changed My Life: One Father’s Story
During our 20s, we usually have an experience that puts us in our place – and sometimes changes the course of our life. Most of my friends say this happened to them between the ages of 22 and 28. Something caused an imperfect storm that forced them to find out who they really are, what […]
