Starting to chart your cycle can be either exciting or intimidating if you don’t have a solid understanding of how your cycle works and what you are ultimately observing and recording. Which, of course, is why I can’t stress enough the need to either read a comprehensive book (preferably my book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility), a Fertility [...]

Get a referral The two best ways to get a personal recommendation are from a trusted health professional, or from a friend or relative who has successfully used a particular clinic. They both have their advantages. Medical professionals tend to know the reputation of other doctors. But a happy patient can often explain why they recommend a particular clinic, [...]

When couples have been trying to get pregnant for a long time, they often acknowledge that lovemaking has become a chore to check off their list. And hearing friends and family joke about how they are going to “go home to make a baby” can only add to their resentment. It’s understandable why that would happen. Although a person’s [...]

We’ve all seen the videos . . . a woman reading her cell phone trips face first into the decorative water fountain at the mall. Or a man looking at his cell phone walks straight into a light pole. The images aren’t pretty, but let’s be honest, we often find ourselves torn between feeling humiliated [...]

I was sipping a single tall, extra-hot, extra foamy latte a couple mornings ago while reading the paper, because that is what one does in Seattle. It’s the law. Anyway, just as I was savoring that first sip of the luscious foam, I nearly spit it out when I read, and I quote: “The researchers found that the [...]

Too bad most women don’t just happen to have a microscope sitting on their bathroom counters. If they did, I think it would do wonders for the bad rap that cervical fluid usually gets when women first learn about it. In reality, they’d be amazed by how beautiful this healthy secretion looks in high resolution. One of the first [...]

There are four conditions, any one of which you may discover while charting your cycles. The first two below will often give you obvious signs, even if you aren’t charting. With the latter two, however, you may not have any symptoms at all. In all four cases, though, treatment is often necessary before you can get pregnant. Endometriosis A [...]

When you first read the heading above, did you think that I was just being nitpicky? Actually, there is a significant and practical difference between the two. An “anovulatory cycle” is, by definition, a cycle in which ovulation didn’t occur. But it’s typically transitory, occurring now and then in most women at some point in their lives. For [...]

How close are you to your mom’s mother? If your grandmother is still living, you might want to blow away both of them by casually mentioning that you literally started your life inside of your grandmother. Think about it. Every female fetus, including your mom, developed all the eggs she will ever have while a fetus still inside [...]

If you could be a fly on the wall in bedrooms throughout the world, you’d be stunned to see how many women fake orgasms, even with men they’ve been married to for decades. Are women really that deceitful? Think again. Actually, the answer virtually always comes down to our anatomy, and how we were designed. In a word, [...]