That Recommendation May Not Be 100% Pure
Quite awhile ago, I read a post at The Fertility Advocate that really stirred me up. (The Fertility Advocate is an excellent blog, written by Pamela Madsen. One of those blogs where you never want to miss a post.)
The post, “What You Need to Know When Posting on an Infertility Message Board”, revealed that recommendations you may get on fertility message boards for a particular clinic may not be coming from real fertility patients. Really, they may be fertility clinic employees, pretending to be fertility patients.
When I read this, all I thought was yuck, yuck, yuck. It’s not easy choosing a fertility clinic, and given that most people don’t have a lot of “real life” friends going through infertility, seeking out recommendations online has always been a way to make connections and get the “inside scope”.
But how do you know if the person recommending their clinic is a real fertility patient – or an inside-guy? Honestly, there’s no sure way to know.
I’m sure that this extends to other fertility businesses as well. See a post on a message board talking about supplements that helped? Or maybe a post recommending a particular acupuncturist? Perhaps those posts are also coming from “clever marketers”.
Sometimes these types of posts are obvious, but not always. My question is – how can you know if a recommendation you get online is genuine or not?
While there is no sure fire way to know, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, I’m betting that recommendations from a fertility board member who has a very low number of posts are less likely to be genuine.
Second, I think it’s important to always do your own research into a clinic or product before buying, even if you get a five-star recommendation from someone online. I still think fertility message boards are a good place to get advice – just be sure to take that advice with a grain of salt, especially if you don’t “know” the poster.
What are your thoughts on fertility clinics “planting” people in forums? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you!
More Frequent Sex Improves Sperm Health
A new study shows that more frequent sex can help improve sperm health. There's been a debate over whether it's better to have sex frequently, or refrain from sex for a few days before a woman's most fertile time. The logic was that refraining from sex may help build up more sperm.
Turns out that sperm health deteriorates over time. In the study, they looked at the sperm quality of 118 men, who had above average DNA damaged sperm. They found that if the man ejaculated every day for seven days, the quality of his sperm went up.
So, don't wait until your fertile days to have sex! Warm up in the bedroom for a week before, and you just may boost your chances of conceiving.
More about timing sex for pregnancy:
Infertility Insurance Guaranteed for Everyone?
Could insurance toward infertility treatments be soon available to everyone? Maybe, if the Family Building Act gets passed.
The Family Building Act, introduce by U.S. Sen. Kristin Gillibrand (D-New York), would require insurance companies who offer basic OB/GYN services to also provide infertility treatment. You can read the bill here.
Personally, I think this is an excellent idea. The ability to have children is a basic right, one which shouldn’t be limited to only those who can afford fertility treatments.
In a press release, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-New York) said, “The costs of having fertility treatments can be staggering, but children are priceless. Wealth should not determine who can and who cannot fully exhaust the medical treatments available to people who want to have a child.”
What do you think? Should infertility be a condition insurance companies must cover?
More about infertility treatment:
(Hat tip to the About.com Guide to U.S. Government, where I first read about this new bill.)
On the Fertility Forums: Confused about Timing Sex, Downtime Between Cycles, and Ovulating Too Early
Have you check out our fertility forums lately? Well, ya should! The lights are on all day and night, and it’s a great place to find support from those struggling to get pregnant.
Here are a few topics on the message boards now.
Member Marietta6000 is ovulating too early in her cycles, on day 9 or 10. She writes, “I'm just wondering, is there anyone else on here who has a problem of 'racing' ovulation? My cycle is totally regular, every 28 days, but I ovulate (with good sized follicles) around day 9 or 10, instead of day 14, and so this is why I had to use injectables with my daughter.”
Can you relate? Reply to her message with your experiences (or just words of support!)
Confused about Timing Sex for Pregnancy
Katy just started trying to conceive last month, and is feeling confused. She writes, “Quite a few websites say to try every other day but I'm worried in case we miss the actual day I ovulate…. I'm already 33 and this would be our first baby, and we desperately want to have a baby. I'm getting scared in case time is running out. Can anyone give me any reassurance or suggestions?”
I know many of you are basic-TTC experts. Can you come offer your advice and support to Katy?
Another question from Marietta6000 is about downtime between injectable cycles. She writes, “I had my first IUI with drugs to try to conceive our third child. I responded crazily to the mild 75iu of puregon, producing around 11 or 12 follicles, of around five were a volume ranging from 18mm up to 26mm, so my cycle had to be cancelled due to high risk of high order multiples.
"Was disappointed when my doctor told me I can't start the second round once I get my next period (in around two weeks), but have to wait for the period after that (so have to wait six weeks to start next cycle). He told me that my body needed time to recover. Is this the normal protocol? Has anyone else been told they have to wait this long to restart?”
Did your doctor ask you to take a break in between treatment cycles? Come and share your experiences.
How About You? Do You Have Questions?
Have questions of your own? Just want to vent, or have a success story to share? (We love to hear the good, too, of course!) Or just want to hang out with others like yourself, who are trying to get pregnant? Please come on by to our fertility forums. We’d love to have you!
Fertility Charting on Your iPhone? Why?
I’m a big fan of FertilityFriend.com’s ovulation tracking website. The free version is great, but I also happen to have a paid V.I.P membership. I feel that their site offers tons of support, great Q & A, and easy to use BBT charting software. I’ve used their website for years.
So I was curious when I heard they were offering an application for the iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone, so their software isn’t something I’ll get to use. That said, even if I did have an iPhone, I’m not sure I’d want to do my BBT charting on an iPhone.
How often are you away from home when you decide to check your fertile days? Or mark down that you “baby danced”? (I’m assuming that’s not something you do at the office!) And since you take your temperature in the morning, I can’t imagine filling the data in later in the day. I’d forget by then!
Then again, based on the description at FertilityFriend.com’s website, their iPhone application doesn’t actually do fertility charting, or BBT charting. It’s an ovulation calendar, which is not the same thing.
The website description says you can input the day you get your period, and it will guess about when you’d be fertile based on that information. You can also input when you've had sex, and I'm assuming the program will let you know if you've possiblity timed things right. However, this would not be as accurate as BBT charting (like on their website). Also, for those with irregular cycles, it’d be practically irrelevant.
The iPhone description does say you can sync your online account, if you have one, with your iPhone. But I don’t think it will allow you to do BBT charting. In fact, their website says that if you want to use their BBT charting program, you should become a member and log on to their mobile access site.
Have you tried their iPhone application? Even if you could do actual BBT charting on your iPhone, like through the mobile access site, is this something you’d want to do? I guess it’d be a fun toy, but it doesn’t seem practical.
iPhone users, fill me in – what do you think?
More about BBT charting, in general:
Can Female Orgasm Help You Get Pregnant?
I’ve seen a variety of answers to this question in articles and magazines – can orgasm (for the woman) improve your chances of getting pregnant? We know the man must have an orgasm (unless high-tech fertility treatments are being used to extract sperm from the testes), but what about for women? Does orgasm help?
I just recently watched a fascinating lecture on the topic of orgasm at TED.com. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and in short, it’s a forum for people with great ideas to share their research and inventions. (Be warned, their website of videos can become addictive!)
They just recently put up on their site a video lecture by author Mary Roach, entitled “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm”. One of the ten things she talked about was the relationship between orgasm and fertility.
She says that in the early 1900s, doctors routinely prescribed female orgasm to help couples with fertility problems. The theory was that orgasm helped the semen get “sucked up” from the cervix into the uterus. They called this “up suck”.
In the 1950s, researchers Masters and Johnson wondered if “up suck” was real, and decided to conduct an experiment. They made artificial semen, mixed with radiographic dye, and placed it inside a cervical cap inside the woman. Then, they had the woman self-pleasure herself to orgasm in the lab. They then took x-rays, to see if the artificial semen had been sucked up.
The fake semen did not get sucked up, and so Masters and Johnson declared that the “up suck” theory was untrue.
This isn’t to say that enjoyment of sex may not improve fertility in other ways. But at least as far as “up suck” theory, female orgasm does not seem to be a must-have ingredient for getting pregnant.
Personally, hearing about this research made me feel so much better. As if we didn’t have enough pressure in our lives when dealing with infertility, the last thing we need is pressure to orgasm.
I know some experts will say, “Yes, but enjoyment of sex is still a healthy ingredient in trying to get pregnant.” To them I say, yes... but one thing that will kill enjoyment right away for a woman is a feeling that you “must” have an orgasm. Then, it begins to feel more like homework.
More about sex and trying to get pregnant:
- When Can You Get Pregnant?
- How Often Should You Have Sex to Get Pregnant?
- Timing Sex for Pregnancy on Clomid
What are your thoughts on this research? Please share in the comments below!
IVF Behind the Scenes
Have you ever wondered what happens during IVF treatment behind the scenes? Cook Medical, a medical supply company, has a video on their new website explaining what happens in detail.
The video is obviously meant to advertise their products, but it’s interesting to watch. The video is also full of jargon and IVF techie speak. But even if you don’t understand every word, I think it’s clear what’s happening.
More information on IVF Treatment (without jargon!):
Male Infertility - What Every Couple TTC Needs to Know!
Male infertility is more common than you may think. If you judged based only on how often you read or hear about male infertility on the news, you might think that infertility is mainly a "woman's problem." But this couldn't be further from the truth.
I know infertility awareness week was last week, but if any aspect of infertility needs some time in the spotlight -- male infertility is it, in my opinion. About 20% of couples with infertility will discover the problem is only with the male partner, and about 40% of couples will discover the problems exist in both the woman and the man.
What does this mean for you? Well, for one thing, be sure you are both tested for fertility problems. Sometimes, just the woman is tested, since she sees her gynecologist first. The gynecologist may or may not recommend testing the man (it depends on how fertility savvy they are). Undiagnosed male infertility can lead to wasted treatment time.
I know a couple who went through several cycles of fertility drugs, not knowing that severe male infertility was a factor in their trouble conceiving. (To make things more touchy, the reason the male infertility was undiagnosed was the husband refused to be tested.) They found out that IVF treatment was their only bet -- but only after going through the emotional, financial, and physical turmoil of treatments that could never work.
Learn more about male infertility and male infertility testing in these articles:
Sarah Jessica Parker and Surrogacy
According to several news reports, including Entertainment Weekly, Sarah Jessica Parker (best known for her role in the TV show and movie Sex in the City) and her husband Matthew Broderick are expecting twins via a surrogate mother.
Word has it that they struggled with getting pregnant back with their first son, and now, with their second, they again had trouble conceiving.
I’ve seen some speculation on whether or not the eggs are hers, since a 44 year old woman’s eggs are less likely to lead to a successful pregnancy, even with IVF treatment. I did a little digging, and found sources that say that the eggs are in fact hers – but they are frozen embryos from about seven years before, when they had their now 6 year old son via IVF treatment.
Surrogacy is when another woman carries the pregnancy. The embryos are sometimes from the parents-to-be, and in other cases, they involve an egg donor. In this case, it seems the embryos are “frozen leftovers” from their first attempts at having children.
There’s been lots of speculation on why Parker has chosen to use a surrogate, anything from vanity to movie-schedule practicalities. And I have to say, people online have not been very nice in their judgments of her.
What do I think? Well, I have no idea why she chose to use a surrogate, but I’m certainly not going to right away assume it has to do with looks or movie making. After all, she did have a baby (with her own body) seven years ago, with their first son. It could be a medical issue. It might be something else.
But when it comes down to it, really, it’s none of our business.
Still, it’s exciting to see a frozen embryo to surrogacy story in the news, and in a basically positive light. The media stories around infertility and fertility treatment have not been all butterflies and sunshine lately! I’m happy to have a good story circling now.
National Infertility Awareness Week! Things You Can Do During NIAW
Yay, it’s National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW)! Sponsored by RESOLVE, National Infertility Awareness Week is April 25th through May 2nd this year, timed for the week before Mother’s Day. It’s the perfect time to raise awareness about infertility.
National Infertility Awareness Week is a week not just for raising awareness in those who are oblivious to the men and women living with infertility, but also a time to get educated about our options. The more you know about infertility testing, treatment, and coping skills, the better able you’ll navigate the infertility maze.
What can you do in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week?
- Maybe you’ll stop by our fertility forums and offer your understanding and support to others coping with infertility. Even when you don’t know what to say or how to answer, just posting a short, “Hey, I’m here, I hear you, I understand,” can warm someone’s heart.
- Perhaps you’d like to start an infertility blog. Your blog can become an outlet for your own experiences, but also, it’ll help others out there with infertility know they are not alone. Never underestimate the power of your own stories!
- You may want to check out RESOLVE’s list of seven things people can do in seven days during the NIAW.
- Sign up and attend one of the daily tele-seminars during the week, hosted by RESOLVE. (They are free, by the way.)
- Plan to celebrate on May 3rd, National Infertility Survival Day! (A bit like Mother’s Day for infertility survivors, except having children is not required.) You can also share your dream plans for the day here. (My ideal day – breakfast in bed, dinner at my favorite steak place, and a massage… oh ya.)
How will you be spending National Infertility Awareness Week? Feel free to share in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!