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Baby Mama is supposed to make you laugh, but that depends on how raw your own emotions are about the subject of conceiving a child. But let’s assume that if anyone can make you smile over fertility issues, perhaps it is Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Yet Baby Mama is only the beginning of Hollywood’s attempt to address the growing number of women who face fertility challenges and struggle to conceive a child. Miss Conception, with Heather Graham, is coming up next. If you haven’t heard, Graham will play a 33-year-old with a family history of early menopause who panics when the alarm sounds on her ticking biological clock, ringing in tones that only she can hear.
We just added 3 new features to our blog, I Am More Than My Infertility.
Across the top of the page, underneath the header, you’ll find links to new pages. There’s Our Guestbook (which we added in December) and new additions: Podcasts on Infertility; Marina’s Newsletters (which she writes quarterly); and Articles from Conceive Magazine (an archive of Marina’s regular column, Emotionally Speaking, published in each issue of Conceive.)
We hope you will enjoy these new resources and find them helpful in your journey to discover all you can be in life.
Follow this link to sign up to have Marina’s quarterly newsletter, Seeds of Growth, sent directly to your email address. http://www.marinalombardo.com/archive.asp
Ever feel like undergoing fertility treatment is like running a marathon? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone.
Infertility treatment can be arduous and challenging, both emotionally and physically. Sometimes, you wonder where the finish line is and whether you have the reserves to keep going.
And so it happened that recently, one of my client told me about an unusual source of inspiration for her infertility journey. Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner is the story of Dean Karnazes, a man who has defied limits, and challenged accepted ideas of what is possible.
The following is part of an article that appeared in Vancouver’s Online Source, Straight, on May 15, 2008. It is so good, we are including the first four paragraphs of Jessica Werb’s article exactly as she wrote it. To read the entire article, click here.
A Good Egg is Hard to Find
By Jessica Werb
When a glowing 39-year-old Jennifer Lopez appeared in People magazine in March with her new twins, insisting that they had been conceived naturally, she was just the latest in a string of high-profile fortyish Hollywood women to pop out multiple babies.
In 2007, at the age of 45, Desperate Housewives’ Marcia Cross delivered a pair of daughters. That same year, Nancy Grace, host of an eponymous tabloid legal-analysis program on CNN, announced she was pregnant with twins-at the age of 47.
These stories may make for good gossip fodder, but for Beverly Hanck, executive director of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada, which is organizing a cross-country Infertility Awareness Week May 18 to 24, they are a slap in the face.
“I think it’s nonsense to lead people to believe that these women are conceiving naturally,” she says. “It’s safe to say that anyone over 40, in all likelihood, is using donor eggs….They are only having children because they are, in most cases, using donor gametes. And what’s more, they are spending a fortune to realize their dreams late in life.”
…this is a very important message, and one that doesn’t get enough airtime!
Linda
Several readers of the I Am More Than My Infertility blog have asked where they can buy our book, without ordering it online. If your local Barnes and Noble bookstore does not have it in stock, they will order it for you at no cost; it is in their book catalog of available books.
You can also buy the book at our website, www.Iammore.net, and at Amazon.com; BarnesandNoble.com; Booksamillion.com; and dozens of other book sites on the web, that we know of, such as:
Tower Books (where it is currently ranked #5 on their list of Top 100 Best Sellers)
PS3 Links (the Japanese book site PS3ナビ)
The Infertility Treatment Center
And at Amazon’s different worldwide sites including: Amazon Japan; Germany; France; Canada; United Kingdom
Or through the website Top 10 Infertility Products of 2008 from Health Information NOW, where it currently ranks #6.
Ever wonder just how many good eggs your have? Well, now there may be a way for you to find out.
A new medical test, called Plan Ahead, is the first fertility test now being marketed that supposedly measures how many viable eggs are available for conception. The $350 test, marketed by Repromedix will be geared toward women who are trying to decide when to have children.
Dr. Benjain Leader, chief medical officer for the company, compares it to “checking the gas gauge on a car to see how much is left in the tank,” according to an article that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel. The test works by measuring three hormones closely linked to the number of eggs present in a woman’s ovaries.
There is debate, of course. Some fertility experts worry that the manufacturers are capitalizing on women’s anxieties about their biological clocks. Others say that the medical reliability of this test has not been clearly established. No matter–within the next several weeks there should be centers in about a dozen states that will be offering this test.
Marina
It’s over.
The celebration of Mother’s Day is officially passed for another year. The cards will come out of the stores, restaurants and florists will stop running those promotions, and every woman who struggles with the challenges of infertility can stop feeling hurt, resentful, or any other emotion that the event brings to the surface.
But if Mother’s Day is a problem for you, hold on to a tiny piece of those emotions, to help you build empathy for others.
I am sure that Father’s Day is painful for men who are not able to have a family and that Valentines Day is not only painful for everyone who goes through the day alone, but is especially difficult for men and women who have experienced the loss of a beloved companion or spouse.
I also suspect that “Back to School Shopping Days” are heartbreaking to parents who have lost a child; Veteran’s Day is brutal for those who have lost someone in the military; and Thanksgiving and Christmas bring more hurt than happiness to people who face those “family holidays” alone.
The point is, we all have our days of celebration and days that we’d rather ignore. For me, as the mother of a handicapped child, there are quirky events that trigger painful emotions–like every time the television networks air Forrest Gump. That movie, which I am sure gave pleasure to millions and millions of viewers, always strikes me as a parody of a situation that really isn’t funny; an unrealistic view of mentally handicapped people.
But then I realize that it really isn’t all about me and I shouldn’t deny the rest of the world’s right to laugh at, and with Forrest, just because it dredges up complex emotions in me.
Mother’s Day doesn’t have to be painful. Just let it go. Think of it as a holiday for someone else, and then ignore it the way you ignore Hanukkah if you are not Jewish or Easter if you are not Christian.
You should see how fast I can switch the channel when somebody starts talking about life being like a box of chocolates.
Linda
When it comes to overall rejuvenation of body, mind and soul, I don’t think it gets much better than yoga.
However, a recent article in the Yoga Journal (May 2008), revealed that more and more women are turning to yoga to improve their fertility. In her article, “Fertile Ground,” author Denise Kersten Wills related that the classes emphasize breath, relaxation and opening the muscles around the hips and pelvis.
But underneath all this breathing and stretching is the message of the yogic philosophy: stop trying to control the process. The ‘letting go’ fostered by this approach helps to reduce anxiety and stress, factors that are known to raise the likelihood of infertility.
Yoga is not a magic cure all, and certainly can’t change diagnosed physical issues. But according to yoga teacher Tami Quinn, co-founder of Pulling Down The Moon, a holistic fertility center in Chicago, yoga can help with hormone regulation, stress levels and blood-flow issues. According to Quinn, “The East-meets-West approach is the fastest way to meet your goal.”
If you are interested in exploring yoga for fertility, you have some options. Two videos that can get you started on a home-based practice are, “Yoga 4 Fertility,” with Brenda Strong, and “Fertility Yoga,” with Jolyon Cowan. And Fully Fertile is a new book by the Pulling Down the Moon staff.
Marina
Here is a video from last year’s Yoga Journal Conference:
According to ShowBizSpy.com Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) is hoping to conceive her fourth child, and is eating red chili peppers to increase her chances of fertility.
She and her husband, David Beckham, have three sons and rumors say they would very much like to have a daughter. The article says: “Red chillies are recommended because they ’spice’ things up in the fertility department by increasing the flow of blood around the body, ensuring that the reproductive system gets a healthy supply,” according to website askbaby.com.
“Chillies also stimulate endorphin production which means that more fertility boosting, stress releasing, happy hormones circulate around your body.”
But Victoria’s nutritionist has banned red meat and told her to cut down on dairy products.”
Can eating red chili peppers really increase your chances of becoming pregnant? Perhaps, because a good, healthful diet improves your chances of conceiving, as does maintaining a healthy body weight and living a balanced life. But, none of these factors will “cure” infertility. Think of them as ways to tip the odds, but don’t expect any one lifestyle change to be a magical answer.
Follow this link to read more about research from Northwestern University on the overall medical benefits of eating hot peppers.
And check this past post on I Am More Than My Infertility blog:
Linda
When you’re in the midst of infertility treatment, it’s easy to get a little lost.. Often, this is because trying “one more thing,” can easily outweigh the cost to your own well-being.
The following questionnaire appeared in my Emotionally Speaking column in Conceive Magazine a couple of years back. The Yes/No Questionnaire is a good thing to have on hand and for you and your partner to take at regular intervals. It can help you step outside yourself and assess whether it’s time to take a break, or even put an end to treatment and consider alternatives.
1. Do you often find yourself mentally and emotionally tired?
2. Are you losing hope about the outcome of your medical treatment? Do you assume failure to guard yourself against disappointment?
3. Does it seem as if your whole world has become about infertility and that little else matters?
4. Do you find yourself irritable and resentful on the days when you have a doctor’s appointment? Are you resisting following medical instructions?
5. Imagine that your doctor has just informed you that a new groundbreaking treatment has been discovered. Do you wish you didn’t know?
6. Are you feeling resentful that you have had to give up other things to pursue treatment?
7. Is there more tension, arguing, or just isolated silence between you and your partner? Has your relationship lost its energy and joy?
8. Are your money reserves getting dangerously low, putting you at financial risk?
9. Do you find yourself feeling desperate, pursuing treatment against medical recommendation, or willing to pursue pregnancy at any price?
10. Is the idea of being a parent becoming more important to you than being pregnant?
11. Does an end to the demands of treatment and a “return to normal” sound like a relief?
12. Do you look in the mirror and find it hard to remember who you were before, or hard to recognize who you’ve become?
If you find that you’ve answered ‘yes’ to a majority of these questions, it may be time for you to consider ending treatment and reassessing your goals. Even if you’ve only answered ‘yes’ to a few of the questions, you should see these responses as red flags signaling the need to take stock of where you are and strongly consider taking a break from treatment.
Marina
Learn more techniques to help you deal with the challenges of infertility in our book, I Am More Than My Infertility: 7 Proven Tools for Turning a Life Crisis Into a Personal Breakthrough.
www.IAmMore.net
When Marina and I wrote our book, I Am More Than My Infertility: 7 Proven Ways to Turn a Life Crisis Into a Personal Breakthrough, we were very upfront about the fact that we wrote the book for women.
It’s not that infertility isn’t a life crisis for men. It’s just that the way men and women deal with infertility is very different, because, quite simply, the way it affects men is very different than the way it affects women. This difference is so important, that it is the main topic of Chapter 2 in our book. And we weren’t diminishing how traumatic fertility challenges are to men who want to be dads, we just didn’t feel like one book could properly tackle both sides of this already complex issue.
So…I was very interested to learn about Matthew M. F. Miller. He writes a blog called, “Maybe Baby“. It’s a very good blog where he looks at life, at fertility and infertility, and talks about how much he wants to become a father.
If you have never been to his infertility blog before, be sure you visit.
Linda
