Cramps suck. They suck when they signal the arrival of an Aunt that you didn’t really want to see this month. They suck when they turn your pre-menstrual blues into actual pain. But I think they suck the most when they occur in the midst of the Two Week Wait – that neverending space of time between an embryo transfer and the first day that you can take a blood test, your beta, to see whether or not something’s a’growin’.
While cramps during the TWW can cause a little panic and anxiety in addition to the normal discomfort, they are totally …read more

Chapter six of Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility is entitled, Identifying and Eliminating Your Stressors, and in it, a section is dedicated to your job and the stresses it brings to your life:
So many women who are trying to conceive wonder if quitting their jobs would reduce their stress, and, therefore, enhance their chances of getting pregnant…Here’s the problem. So much of what we do for a living shapes our ego identity…
This got me to thinking…
Am I defined by my job? Is what I do from 9-5 Monday through Friday (and then some) what I choose …read more

BBC News reports that IVF clinics in the United Kingdom have been given a mandate to reduce the number of multiple births resulting from IVF treatments from 25% to 10% over the next three years. This means, “increasing the proportion of women who have a single embryo transferred back into their womb,” as opposed to two or three or more. Higher health risks and the increased potential of developmental delays for multiples were cited as the rationale.
Image details: Profile of twin babies served by picapp.com
My clinic here in the States feels very strongly about using no more than two …read more

Melissa sums it up so nicely in a recent post for BlogHer:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the hope before the storm, it was the tears fought back before the fall, it was after a three-day transfer, it was during a natural cycle, it was the whiteness of the pantiliner, it was the fear of seeing red, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going directly to parenthood, we were all going directly the …read more