I recently finished the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy. Of the books I've read, it is most comparable to Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. I'm not sure which I like better. The Mayo Clinic guide contains more details about pregnancy, including more information about the development of the fetus itself and useful information on gentle exercises to perform during pregnancy.
However, it is missing the key things I appreciated from the Our Bodies, Ourselves book: the sense of educating the reader about the various options available to her and empowering the reader to make the choices that are best for her situation. The Mayo Clinic guide is much more prescriptive, and it spends a lot less detail helping women decide why they might want to follow or deviate from standard practices.
I'm glad I read the Mayo Clinic guide; I did learn some things. But if I had to recommend just one or two books, I'd still go with Out Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, and Expecting Better combined with an app like I'm Expecting (Android) to provide more details about the week by week development of the baby.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Review: A Baby At Last
It was just as I finished reading A Baby at Last!: The Couple's Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant--from Cutting-Edge Treatments to Commonsense Wisdom by Zev Rosenwaks, M.D., Marc Goldstein, M.D. and Mark L. Fuerst that we discovered we were pregnant. However, before that point, I was thinking that background in dealing with infertility might be something very valuable for us.
Generally, doctors say that a couple is infertile if they have been trying to get pregnant for a year and have not yet succeeded. We'd been trying for nearly a year and a half, and during that time, we had observed that I had extremely irregular menstrual cycles — the shortest were about 40 days and the longest over 100 [1]. Even though we weren't planning jumping straight from there to high tech fertility treatments, we did want to understand what the different options were before we started talking to our doctor about fertility issues.
A Baby At Last seems quite thorough. It is generally optimistic about a couple's chances of conceiving through fertility treatments, but it is also realistic about the risk factors involved, especially age. The book is rather technical at times, but that's overall a good thing, since it helps the reader understand when different options are applicable. The book also has a number of chapters on specialized subjects — e.g., fertility issues for cancer patients — which I just skimmed but which seem like they would be valuable for those in the specific situation.
The book contained a chapter on alternative medicine techniques. The authors managed to say, in a way that wasn't too condescending toward those considering such techniques, that there is little evidence that they work and that when they do show some positive effect, it seems like it's more or less due to general stress reduction. This seems much more useful than the insulting and condescending attitudes adopted by many folks speaking up against alternate techniques. Yes, they are pseudoscience, but rudeness isn't going to convince the people who don't realize that.
Although I don't have other books to compare this too, overall, this seems like a good resource for a couple who wants to understand their options for fertility treatments.
[1] As an aside, one thing that was frustrating on our journey to pregnancy was that our doctor encouraged us to wait a year before coming back and talking about fertility, even though, at that point, I had only had one period in the six months since I went off the pill, and I probably (based on temperatures) hadn't ovulated. Statistics are hard to come by, but such a pattern generally indicates some sort of issue.
Generally, doctors say that a couple is infertile if they have been trying to get pregnant for a year and have not yet succeeded. We'd been trying for nearly a year and a half, and during that time, we had observed that I had extremely irregular menstrual cycles — the shortest were about 40 days and the longest over 100 [1]. Even though we weren't planning jumping straight from there to high tech fertility treatments, we did want to understand what the different options were before we started talking to our doctor about fertility issues.
A Baby At Last seems quite thorough. It is generally optimistic about a couple's chances of conceiving through fertility treatments, but it is also realistic about the risk factors involved, especially age. The book is rather technical at times, but that's overall a good thing, since it helps the reader understand when different options are applicable. The book also has a number of chapters on specialized subjects — e.g., fertility issues for cancer patients — which I just skimmed but which seem like they would be valuable for those in the specific situation.
The book contained a chapter on alternative medicine techniques. The authors managed to say, in a way that wasn't too condescending toward those considering such techniques, that there is little evidence that they work and that when they do show some positive effect, it seems like it's more or less due to general stress reduction. This seems much more useful than the insulting and condescending attitudes adopted by many folks speaking up against alternate techniques. Yes, they are pseudoscience, but rudeness isn't going to convince the people who don't realize that.
Although I don't have other books to compare this too, overall, this seems like a good resource for a couple who wants to understand their options for fertility treatments.
[1] As an aside, one thing that was frustrating on our journey to pregnancy was that our doctor encouraged us to wait a year before coming back and talking about fertility, even though, at that point, I had only had one period in the six months since I went off the pill, and I probably (based on temperatures) hadn't ovulated. Statistics are hard to come by, but such a pattern generally indicates some sort of issue.
Monday, November 11, 2013
We're pregnant!
Temperature above the coverline for 17 days, and things are looking suspicious. However, my ovulation pattern has always been a bit unpredictable, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. However, a positive home pregnancy test and a follow-up confirmation test with my doctor (at an appointment I initially scheduled to discuss next steps on our potential fertility issues), have confirmed what we have been waiting for: we're pregnant!
The downside of tracking my temperature and home pregnancy tests is that I strongly suspected I was pregnant before I even was sure I missed my period. Why is this problematic? Well, the risk of miscarriage is still pretty high in week 5 of pregnancy[1]. Estimates vary because gathering the data is a bit tricky, but a common number is that at this point 10% — 1 in 10 —pregnancies will still end in miscarriage.
That said, we are excited, and cautiously optimistic.
[1] For those doing some confused math, yes, I can divide by 17. Pregnancy is counted from the time of your last menstrual cycle — or if you're like me and have extremely irregular cycles but do track other fertility signs, pregnancy is counted from two weeks before ovulation.
The downside of tracking my temperature and home pregnancy tests is that I strongly suspected I was pregnant before I even was sure I missed my period. Why is this problematic? Well, the risk of miscarriage is still pretty high in week 5 of pregnancy[1]. Estimates vary because gathering the data is a bit tricky, but a common number is that at this point 10% — 1 in 10 —pregnancies will still end in miscarriage.
That said, we are excited, and cautiously optimistic.
[1] For those doing some confused math, yes, I can divide by 17. Pregnancy is counted from the time of your last menstrual cycle — or if you're like me and have extremely irregular cycles but do track other fertility signs, pregnancy is counted from two weeks before ovulation.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Waiting
Based on my temperature shift, I ovulated nearly 2 weeks ago. Am I or am I not pregnant?
One of the hardest parts of trying to conceive is the waiting. Every single menstrual cycle, there is a small window of fertility, then we need to wait a couple weeks before we can tell whether or not we succeeded. When you have irregular cycles — mine ranged anywhere from 35 to 100 days, compared to the regular 28 — this is even harder, because you don't know when that window of fertility will happen, and you don't know how long it will be before you have another.
Even the early pregnancy tests become vastly more accurate if you wait until you would have missed your period to take them, so all you can do is wait and wonder — even a negative test doesn't mean you're definitely not pregnant. You start analyzing every little twinge and feeling. Some women start getting breast tenderness as early as the end of the first week after fertilization, my breasts might be tender. Is that maybe a bit of spotting from implantation? I feel funny, I think, maybe that's because I'm pregnant? Or maybe I'm just paying more attention than usual.
So we wait, and we check, and we hope. Because that is all we can do until we succeed or find it's time to try again.
(Note: I could have written this post nearly anytime in the year and a third we spent trying to conceive — in fact, I did write various parts of it over time. I've chosen to date it relative to when we actually conceived because I had all these feelings then just as much as other times.)
One of the hardest parts of trying to conceive is the waiting. Every single menstrual cycle, there is a small window of fertility, then we need to wait a couple weeks before we can tell whether or not we succeeded. When you have irregular cycles — mine ranged anywhere from 35 to 100 days, compared to the regular 28 — this is even harder, because you don't know when that window of fertility will happen, and you don't know how long it will be before you have another.
Even the early pregnancy tests become vastly more accurate if you wait until you would have missed your period to take them, so all you can do is wait and wonder — even a negative test doesn't mean you're definitely not pregnant. You start analyzing every little twinge and feeling. Some women start getting breast tenderness as early as the end of the first week after fertilization, my breasts might be tender. Is that maybe a bit of spotting from implantation? I feel funny, I think, maybe that's because I'm pregnant? Or maybe I'm just paying more attention than usual.
So we wait, and we check, and we hope. Because that is all we can do until we succeed or find it's time to try again.
(Note: I could have written this post nearly anytime in the year and a third we spent trying to conceive — in fact, I did write various parts of it over time. I've chosen to date it relative to when we actually conceived because I had all these feelings then just as much as other times.)
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