Do you ever think about how much money you would have in the bank if fertility treatments came with refunds? Considering I paid for over 20 intrauterine inseminations (IUIs), three surgeries, and over two years worth of three different types of hormones, I probably do not even want to know the total cost. It might make me really ill.

Isn't it annoying how most things come with money-back guarantees but fertility treatments do not? I am paid for each post that I write on this blog. I do not get paid ... more

One of the hardest parts of dealing with my fertility issues was hearing about women becoming pregnant who were not even trying. Jamie Lynn Spears' recent pregnancy announcement is a good example of this. She is only 16 years old and clearly was not trying to become pregnant. And yet, here she is figuring out at sixteen how to raise a baby when thousands of married infertile women would give anything to have that kind of surprise. Sometimes life is just not fair.

My son watched ... more

If you are checking this blog today, then you are probably looking for some emotional support. The message you probably need to hear the most is that you are not alone and that you are going to be okay.

I know how badly you are hurting because I have been there. I tried to focus on the joy on my nephew's faces. I tried to be appreciative of the great presents I received. I tried to enjoy the delicious food and appreciate the family that I had, but there was an empty place at my table. More importantly, there was an empty place in my arms. ... more

Photo Credit: Lynda Bernhardt

I am sending out prayers, positive thoughts, and positive energy to all of my readers who are facing another Christmas with empty arms. I remember the pain all too well. I spent four Christmases choking back the tears.

On the first of these painful Christmases, I had announced a few months prior that we were trying to have a baby. My mother-in-law poured wine for all of us and asked if it was okay for me to have some. It was hard to tell her that I, unfortunately, could imbibe.

On the second of these painful ... more

When I was going through fertility treatments, I kind of thought becoming pregnant with twins would be great. I would get a "two for one" deal and not have to worry about conceiving a second time. Twins actually run in my family, so I thought it would be great.

However, I was not willing to try in vitro fertilization (IVF) because, at the time I was going through fertility treatments, multiples of three or more was too common for my taste. I did not want to carry a "litter" inside of ... more

Unexplained infertility is a very frustrating diagnosis for many couples. According to the article Unexplained Infertility, 10% of all infertile couples have a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility," which is just a more professional-sounding way for a doctor to say, "You've stumped me."

As the article points out, some couples have nothing physically wrong with their reproductive systems but are just plain unlucky. However, in other cases, there is a reason ... more

Are there any perks to being infertile? Maybe the use of the word "perks" is a stretch, but I have found some benefits to the delay in starting my family.

By the time my son came along, most of my friends had already completed their families. This meant that they had a lot of boy clothing that they no longer needed. I did not have to buy any clothing for my son until he turned four years old. In fact, I received so many hand-me-downs that I had enough to share with others. I could not even fit all of the clothing into my son's closet.

Because most ... more

Some couples spend a very long time trying to conceive. Birthdays and holidays pass year after year, and people who are struggling with their fertility feel like they are just spinning their wheels. Several years seem like one big blur of pain and disappointment.

Meanwhile, the lives of their friends continue to grow and change. They watch their friends' children go from diapers to preschool to Little League. Friends meet their spouses, marry, and have babies in their arms during the span of some infertile couples' quest for parenthood.

Then there are ... more

One of my struggles as an infertile woman is controlling my temper at the arrogance of some fertile couples. Some people who have never faced fertility challenges fail to appreciate the blessing that being able to conceive a child really is. I just want to smack them when I hear their complaints about things not being completely "perfect" when I would have given anything to be in their shoes.

For example, there are the people who really want a particular gender and spend a lot of time complaining about what they don't have rather than ... more

It is not often that I wish I lived in New York. I am a Southern gal through and through and enjoy the milder temperatures of the South. However, my geographical location is causing me to miss out on seeing an interesting off-Broadway play about infertility. I hope that some of my readers can check it out and let me know what they think.

I received an e-mail from Andrew Kaplan about his one-man play, He's Having a Baby, that that he is performing Off-Broadway in Manhattan. In his e-mail, he told me ... more

One of the most frustrating parts of the fertility process is when your doctor becomes stumped by your inability to conceive. If each attempt to conceive has a certain chance of succeeding, then you should statistically conceive after a certain number of attempts. For example, if a particular procedure has 20% odds of succeeding, then five attempts ought to fix the problem, right?

I believe my doctor said our odds were 10% of conceiving with each intrauterine ... more

When hub and I were going through fertility treatments, the holidays always seemed to bring with them an added level of stress. We were doing intrauterine inseminations (IUIs), so we (obviously) needed a doctor involved in order to complete the procedure. One year, my ovulation period fell right on top of Christmas, so my doctor told me to take the month off of trying to conceive, but we could still try to become pregnant conventionally. Of course, all I could think was, "Thanks a ... more

My son had a program at his school. All of the children were cute, and I was enjoying myself until I saw my "dream child" walk onto the stage. This little girl looks exactly like I imagined hub's and my daughter would look. Her hair is the same color as mine, and the shape of her face looks very much like mine, too. Even though I have been a mother for almost seven years through adoption and have no desire to parent a second child, seeing my dream child hurt.

I have a friend whose daughter also reminds me of what my daughter might have been like. ... more

When my husband and I married, we put ourselves on the "five year plan." We would both work full-time and save up money to start a family. When we married, I had no desire to be a mother yet but figured I would want it someday. Then, my nephew was born, and my biological clock started ticking. Unfortunately, my nephew's birth did nothing to get my husband's clock going. All he saw was a whole lot of work, sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and one big fat expense.

After four years passed, I started counting down the days until we would start trying to conceive. ... more

During the holiday season, it seems safer to crawl under a rock for a month than it does to venture out of your house. You simply cannot get away from the reminder that Christmas is here, and seemingly everyone other than you is celebrating the holidays with a child.

You turn on the radio, and the disc jockey is talking about a "Breakfast with Santa" fundraiser. You see holiday decorations that appeal to children in many yards as you drive out of your subdivision. Forget about going to the mall unless you want your heart to rip apart when you see the long line of ... more

In my last post, Fertility Challenges: Relatives at Holiday Gatherings, I talked about the struggles involved in getting together with relatives during the holidays while you are going through fertility challenges. In this post, I will focus on the similar struggles involved when attending holiday parties with friends.

As with getting together with relatives who know about your fertility challenges, friends can also cross the line of inquiring about the ... more

If you have informed anyone in your extended family about your fertility issues, then chances are that word has spread throughout your family. This can make holiday gatherings particularly difficult as you face relatives who have questions about your fertility status.

For some reason, many relatives believe it is okay to ask very personal questions because "we are family," so holiday gatherings with relatives often involve inquisitions. Relatives want to know if you are pregnant yet (Don't you think we would have announced the happy news?), how long you have ... more

Shopping during the holidays is tough when you are struggling with your fertility. Stores are filled with all sorts of cute toys and clothing for children. You see children lining up to talk to Santa at most malls while songs like All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth play over the speakers. So much about this time of year centers around children, and this is very hard for people who long for a child of their own.

If you have nieces and nephews, you are thrown right into the midst of the places you want to avoid, such as toy ... more

The holidays were always a difficult time of year for me when I was going through fertility treatments. While my friends were busy shuttling multiple children to various holiday events, I spent my time at home alone watching made-for-TV movies. I hoped that losing myself in a holiday movie would help take my focus off my grief in not having a child of my own. This did not work.

It seemed like every made-for-TV holiday movie had the same basic theme. The main character was so caught up in the things that don't matter that he or she had lost sight ... more

When we were going through our fertility treatments, the doctor gave me a list of fertility options. I was fascinated with one of the options for couples in which the husband has a low sperm count. The doctor said he could supplement the husband's sperm with donor sperm and use both in the intrauterine insemination (IUI) process. The couple could select a donor who closely resembled the husband, and nobody would ever know which sperm actually fertilized the egg.

I had never heard of doing ... more

When you are struggling with your fertility, it is easy to fall into the misperception that you are "just an infertile woman." Because so much of your life winds up revolving around trying to conceive a child, particularly if you are going through fertility treatments, it is easy to lose sight of the other aspects of your life.

You are a wife, a daughter, an employee, and a friend. You are a neighbor, a church member, a pet owner, and (hopefully) a law-abiding citizen. None of these aspects of your life ceased to exist the day you were ... more

Is it possible to have positive thoughts while you are going through fertility treatments? I am the first to admit that I was not very good at it. I seriously doubt that I even tried. I truly believed that I needed a baby to be happy and that my life was going to be miserable until I held my baby in my arms.

I have been through other equally as challenging life circumstances since my infertility years, and I have learned that the thoughts we generate have a lot to do with how good or bad we feel in our current circumstances. Even when we are ... more

When you are in the midst of battling your fertility, it is easy to buy into the lie that every single moment of your life is terrible. As I was living through it, I believed that my entire 4-1/2 year journey to parenthood was one big dark cloud of pain. However, in retrospect, I realize that I have happy memories from events that happened during the time that I was going through fertility treatments.

There was my friend's wedding, where I was a bridesmaid and had to wear a knee brace that prevented me from bending my leg. Meanwhile, another bridesmaid ... more

One of the fertility myths that annoys me the most is the misperception that adopting a child will cause you to become pregnant. The media continues to perpetuate this myth, which might be one reason that people seem to buy into this nonsense.

I adopted my son almost seven years ago, and I have not become pregnant. I know many other adoptive parents, and very few have conceived babies after adopting. While there are some adoptive parents who do go on to have a biological child, most do not. According to the ... more

In an effort to comfort the fertility-challenged woman, some insensitive people will ask, "Do you really need to have children?" This often comes from experienced parents who focus on the struggles in raising children rather than on the joys.

I have been a parent for almost seven years, so I am very familiar with the struggles involved in raising a child. My son also has some special needs - attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and asthma - so I am very familiar with the additional challenges of parenting a child with special needs. ... more

In my last post, Fertility Comments: "You Can Always Just Adopt," I talked about how choosing to adopt a child is not a casual decision. The same is true of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In an effort to comfort a person facing fertility issues, many people will say, "Why don't you just try IVF?", as if the procedure is just another choice. IVF is a much more complicated procedure that cannot and should not be undergone lightly.

IVF is Expensive

Most people do not appreciate ... more

I know many women who have struggled with their fertility. Most, if not all, have had people try to comfort them by saying, "You can always just adopt." Most infertile women do not find these words comforting and certainly not in the early stages of exploring fertility treatments.

I am an adoptive mother. I have been through the adoption process, and let me tell you - there is no "just" to the process. When people say, "You can always just adopt," they make it sound like, if you cannot have a hamburger, then a hot dog will do, too. Choosing to adopt is not ... more

Today's post is a special one: This is my 100th post on this blog. Can you believe it?

As I was scanning over the Fertility blog to think about a topic, I noticed that one of our sponsors is a fertility loan center. What a great idea!

I have never heard of a fertility loan, but I have no doubt that there are many people who could use one. With insurance companies limiting their coverage of fertility procedures and many procedures costing thousands of dollars, many couples will need to find ways to finance their dream of becoming parents. There are not ... more

Before I ever tried to conceive a baby, I used to watch the TV show Coach. The main characters, Hayden and Christine, tried to have a baby. After going through diagnostic tests, they learned that Hayden had a low sperm count. The doctor told him to switch from briefs to boxers, stay out of hot tubs, and do other things to keep his swimmers "cool."

I thought this storyline was rather funny, but I did not know whether it was based in reality. I just thought it was an amusing comment, leading to some of the funniest episodes of the series.

A few ... more

Infertility is a topic that comes up quite a bit on television shows. While fertility procedures are stressful and emotionally painful for those going through them, the procedures can be portrayed quite comically by the entertainment industry.

Take the television show Coach as an example. Their fertility treatment episodes aired before I went through fertility treatments myself, and I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard at Hayden walking around with a cold water device down his pants to cool his swimmers. I also found it ... more

I have not written much about IVF because I never did the procedure. Also, my predecessors on this blog have covered this topic in the IVF category. However, I stumbled across an article about IVF yesterday that caught my attention.

This is not your typical IVF story. In fact, it starts out with a terrible tragedy. Lori Coble was driving on the highway in her minivan with her mother in the passenger seat and her three children, a boy ... more

My predecessor, Karianne, wrote some interesting posts on the mind/body connection as it relates to fertility. That got me thinking about the mind/body connection and how big a role that the mind plays in being able to conceive.

Generally speaking, I see a big connection between the mind and the body. For example, when I was repressing my emotions from a traumatic childhood, I had a very poor immune system. Now that I have dealt with my past, my immune system has become much stronger. ... more

On my favorite morning radio show, the disc jockeys were talking about a new study showing that breastfeeding does not cause saggy breasts. They talked about how this is great news because the benefits of breastfeeding are well known, but many women choose not to breastfeed their babies because they do not want their breasts to sag.

This news story would have set me off when I was trying to conceive. I would have been so angry that some women would put their vanity over what was best for their baby. I would have railed at God about the unfairness of allowing women ... more

When I was going through fertility treatments, I often felt out of the loop. Most of my friends were already parents. When they would talk about different things that interested their children, I was completely clueless. I had no idea who "Blue" was or why he was off looking for clues. The equivalent today would be not knowing who lives in a pineapple under the sea or why High School Musical is such a big deal. Until you are a parent, you have no reason to watch Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel.

Unfortunately, when most of your friends are already ... more

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association about an upcoming "webinar" on fertility treatment advances. The full title of the webinar is Fertility Treatment Advances: How the Last Decade of Success is Paving the Way for the Future.

I have never heard the term "webinar" before, but I deduced that it meant a seminar that takes place on the web. (Gotta love that college education, eh?) And I was correct. This is a seminar that will take place on the Internet on ... more

Will your health insurance cover fertility treatments? The answer to this question depends upon your policy. Many insurance companies specifically exclude fertility treatments from coverage because treatments can become so expensive. Others provide limited coverage, such as covering a set number of intrauterine inseminations (IUIs) or in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempts.

When I was going through fertility procedures in the late 1990's, my ... more

When it comes to fertility issues, many couples are very secretive about their struggles. They will endure the endless "When you are going to start a family?" questions with a stiff upper lip, never letting on how painful those questions really are.

I was never secretive about my desire to start a family, so I have a hard time understanding the secrecy. Don't get me wrong: There were times when I regretted being so public about it. When I just found out that another cycle failed to produce the baby I so desperately wanted, the last thing I ... more

If you have irregular periods, you might have a difficult time determining when you are ovulating. I ran into this problem myself when I was trying to conceive. My cycles were all over the map. One month, my cycle might run only 27 days, while the next month, it might run 36 days. This made it very hard to determine when I was ovulating.

When I first decided to go off birth control pills and tried to conceive, my OB-GYN told me to make sure we had intercourse two weeks after my period started. If my cycles had been exactly 28 days each month, ... more

If you have been trying to conceive for a while without success, you might be wondering when you should contact a fertility specialist. Some people in your life might be telling you "just relax" and it will happen in good time. Others might be telling you to seek out professional assistance right away. How do you know when to seek medical assistance?

If you have been actively trying to a conceive a child, most experts consider a couple to be infertile if they fail to conceive a child as defined below:

• After one year if the woman is ... more

There are a lot of ignorant people in the world. They do not mean to be ignorant and most likely do not even realize that they are, but their insensitive comments can really hurt. When you are already stressed out about trying to conceive as you undergo fertility treatments, the last thing you need to do is field insensitive comments.

I could not believe some of the insensitive comments and the annoying, unsolicited advice I received. Here is just a sample:

• Maybe God does not intend for you to become a mother.
• Relax.
• I can ... more

Goodness knows, I could go on (and on and on and on and on) about the negative aspects of struggling with fertility. In fact, I have done just that in the Challenges category of this blog. But what about the good stuff? Is there anything good about struggling with your fertility? Believe it or not, I have found some good things about being infertile, although I could not see them until after I became a mother through adoption.

The first good thing is actually kind of funny. Hub and I went to a ... more

While I was going through fertility treatments, I became very depressed. I found myself in a deep funk and had no idea how to pull myself out of it. I was listening to a talk radio show when a woman called in to talk about her own deep depression. The radio host asked her, "What have you done for somebody else lately?"

I thought that was a really weird question until I listened to the radio host's explanation. She talked about how depression keeps us focused on ourselves and that, when we reach outside of ourselves to help another person, we find relief from our own ... more

Most women struggle at one time or another with their body image. I do not know why this is, but most women I know either struggle with it now or have in the past, even when they are healthy and beautiful. When you struggle with your fertility, body image issues become an even bigger challenge.

Before I knew that I was infertile, I saw an episode of the TV show Roseanne in which Roseanne's daughter, Darlene, first got her period. She was having a rough time and asked her mother why she had to have periods. Roseanne said, "I will give you three reasons," and ... more

In the world of fertility, we can sometimes become "snobs" about what counts as true fertility issues. For example, I have posted that some women suffering from primary infertility (unable to conceive a baby at all) do not consider women suffering from secondary infertility (unable to conceive after giving birth to one or more children) to "count" as truly infertile. This attitude has caused pain to at least one of my readers, who was "outcasted" from a fertility forum because she had previously birthed a baby. ... more

To me, the sperm wash was one of the most fascinating fertility procedures. The term "sperm wash" sounded like the doctor was going to take my husband's sperm, give it a good bath, and then put it to work. I was surprised to learn that water was not even involved in a sperm wash. (No soap, either!!)

Instead, a sperm wash is more like sending the sperm to Disneyland before they have to get back to work. The semen sample goes into a glass tube, which is placed in a machine that spins the sperm very fast for several minutes. In fact, it ... more

The post-coital test (PCT) is one of the least painful diagnostic tests but can also be uncomfortable from an emotional standpoint. Fertilitycommunity.com describes the PCT as follows:

An