Trying To Get Pregnant: There's No Fireworks

Remember those old re-runs of a program called "Love American Style" (or in my case you saw them the first time around)? Fireworks represented the love and infatuation associated with your relationship and/or marriage. Well, no matter how good your relationship is, when you're trying to conceive, every aspect of your life revolves around ovulation. Intercourse can become a total chore and no, there are absolutely no fireworks. I remember a few years on independence day, I was ovulating and we could hear our neighbors shooting off firecrakers--there we were trying to "get the job done". UGGGGHHHH...not pleasant memories at all.

Independence day is another one of those family oriented holidays. All you see around you are families packing up the car to go watch fireworks displays, kid-oriented events, BBQ's etc. It's another holiday where you stick out like a sore thumb. I recall going to a function with my husband's sister and their kids. We met a few of their friends and then the bomb dropped. One of their friends (who was there with his four kids) says to me..."I'll bet you guys have a bunch of kids right?" I was so taken off guard...he immediately sensed me squirming as I said sheepishly..."Uh no, we don't have any". End of conversation.

After that, we decided to have our own way of enjoying the holiday. We stayed away from BBQ's and had a nice dinner out. Hey, whatever works. I'm not saying you shouldn't join in (because we did that too), but you should do whatever helps you deal with the situation at the time.

So, whatever you do this holiday, please enjoy it safely and don't be afraid to go out and have some fun - even if it's not in the traditional way.

PCOS On The Rise

PCOS is a major cause of infertility, and, although PCOS may have a genetic component, there are controllable factors (like controlling obesity) that can help with this condition. As more and more women around the world are having problems with their weight, PCOS seems to be more prevalent (I should mention, however, that when I ran the infertility support group, there were two women who had PCOS neither of whom were overweight) The following article, among other things, discusses how weight reduction can help with this condition:

PCOS Expected to Rise
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Is a Cause of Female Infertility
By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Medical News

From the article:

It is the leading cause of female infertility, but most women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) never know they have the disorder until they try, and fail, to get pregnant.

Now a new review of the research predicts that more and more women will develop PCOS as obesity becomes a bigger problem throughout the world. Obesity can be a sign of PCOS, and being obese exacerbates other manifestations of PCOS like infertility and insulin resistance.

PCOS researcher Robert Norman and colleagues from South Australia's University of Adelaide made the prediction in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal The Lancet.

Current estimates vary, but it is believed that up to one in 10 women in the U.S. and one in 15 women worldwide suffer from PCOS. The cause of PCOS is not known, but it is thought that genetics and environmental factors may be involved

Does Maca Help Fertility?

picture: www.rain-tree.com

I've heard on and off about a plant called "maca". Apparently it can help with libido and fertility. Read more:

health.discovery.com

From the article:

...Today, maca's popularity is very much on the increase, as people discover that the plant really does boost libido, sexual function and overall energy. Acreage in Peru dedicated to Maca cultivation is increasing every year to meet demand, and a number of scientists have turned their attention to the properties of the root. In Peru, maca is used by men and by women who want to put more fire into their sex lives. And in the U.S., Europe and Japan, dietary supplements containing maca are gaining ardent devotees...

...Arizona physician Gary Gordon, M.D., former president of the American College for Advancement in Medicine, is also a maca supporter. "We all hear rumors about various products like maca. But using this Peruvian root myself, I personally experienced a significant improvement in erectile tissue response. I call it nature's answer to Viagra.

What I see in maca is a means of normalizing our steroid hormones like testosterone, progesterone and estrogen. Therefore it has the facility to forestall the hormonal changes of aging. It acts on men to restore them to a healthy functional status in which they experience a more active libido."...

Optimizing Natural Fertility

Here is a six page resource on optimizing natural fertility. I've probably written about most of the things in this article before, but there may be a few things you can take away from this resource. Read more:

American Society of Reproductive Medicine/Society of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (www.asrm.org)

Goodbye Farrah, Goodbye Michael

Picture: http://www.eonline.com/, Barry King/Getty Images


I'm going to dedicate my blogs today to two icons of my generation, both of whom died last week.

First Farrah: Such a beautiful woman. If you look through my highschool yearbook, almost all the girls at least attempted to have a Farrah hairdo. We had to watch Charlie's angels - not because it was a good show, but because we had to see what they were wearing and study their hair. A little shallow, I know. Back then, we didn't have cable TV, so the shows that made it big had a huge viewership and much more control over social trends. After Farrah left the show, none of the other actresses could quite reach her level of fame. Farrah went on to do more serious acting which received rave reviews. May she rest in peace.

Michael: What talent! He's exactly my age (yep, I hit the big 5-0). Boy, that really makes you wake up and feel your own mortality. I recall walking home from elementary school (back in the days when parents didn't drive kids everywhere) and singing songs like ABC and Oh Baby Give Me One More Chance. Who would have ever predicted back then that his life would have unfolded the way it did. I feel for him because he was such a tortured soul. The older I get, the more I realize that although many people strive for fame and fortune, the happiest among us are just regular run-of-the-mill people who live ordinary lives. I hope his children find peace and can stay together. Rest in peace Michael.

Umbilical Cord Abnormalities With Assisted Reproduction

I've done a number of articles on how on abnormalities and adverse outcomes which may be more common with assisted reproduction. Here is another article which I recently came across about umbilical cord abnormalities which can occur with assisted reproductive techniques. Read more:

Umbilical Cord Abnormality More Prevalent The More Complex The Assisted Reproduction Procedure

From the article:

The more complex the assisted reproduction procedure, the more likely the umbilical cord develops in an atypical place or has other abnormalities, a scientist told the 23rd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Mrs. Ilse Delbaere, from Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium, said that the study, including over 4000 twin pregnancies, was the first to examine umbilical cord abnormalities in such a large population.

For many years, scientists have known that both singletons and twins conceived after fertility treatment do worse in terms of duration of pregnancy and in live birth weight. "Certain umbilical cord pathologies, such as the insertion of the cord on the placental membranes instead of centrally in the placenta, or the absence of one artery in the cord, are known to correlate with an adverse outcome", said Mrs Delbaere, "and we wanted to find out whether these cord anomalies were more frequent after assisted reproduction."

The team studied data from the East Flanders Prospective Twin Survey (EFPTS), containing information on all multiple births in the region since 1964. "Since assisted reproduction was rather rare until the mid-eighties", said Mrs. Delbaere, "we analysed twins born between 1985 and 2004." The scientists compared cord characteristics from 2119 spontaneously conceived dizygotic (non-identical) twins and 2243 dizygotic twins who had been born as a result of assisted reproduction technologies (ART). Sub analyses looked at the different types of ART according to its 'invasiveness' and complexity.

The results showed not only that cord abnormalities occurred more frequently in ART twins, but that they varied according to the technique used.

Infertility Due To Chromosome Rearrangement

It's kind of scary how our actual DNA can change through damaged chromosomes and those damaged chromosomes can be passed on throught he generations. This article talks about how this can happen during the production of sperm. Read more:

genome.wellcome.ac.uk

The Y chromosome is the bastion of maleness. Inherit a Y chromosome from your father, and you will be male. Yet the passage of the Y chromosome through the generations can come to a grinding halt if the Y chromosome is damaged during the production of sperm – the man inheriting the disrupted Y may well be infertile.

Indeed, male infertility is surprisingly common – it is estimated that 7.5 per cent of men have reduced fertility or are completely infertile. In up to a quarter of cases, this infertility is due to deletions in the Y chromosome, leading the loss of genes involved in sperm production.

At the University of Leicester, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow Mark Jobling is investigating why and how such deletions occur – research fuelled by his interest in the quirks and paradoxes of the Y chromosome. "The Y chromosome is fascinating because it's weird," he says. "It breaks all the rules of human genetics: it has only a few genes, it is full of repeated DNA, and it does not recombine as only the tips of the Y pair up with the X."