Let's Make a Baby: Our Journey with Infertility: November 2012

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Season With the Best Odds for IVF

By ANN LUKITS

Infertile couples undergoing in vitro fertilization might have more success if the procedure is performed in the spring.

Research published in July's Gynecological Endocrinology found the rate of fertilization was significantly higher in spring than any other season, though time of year had no effect on pregnancy rates. Natural reproduction also varies with the seasons; it is believed the number of hours of sunlight in the day and temperature variations affect fertility.

When Good Circulation Isn't a Good Thing

Researchers compared seasonal fertilization rates in 1,932 women who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, in Brazil from 2005 to 2009. ICSI involves the injection of a single sperm directly into an oocyte, or unfertilized egg, outside of a woman's body.

Subjects were organized into groups according to the timing of oocyte retrieval: 435 were assigned to winter, 444 to spring, 469 to summer and 584 to autumn. Fertilization, the fusion of sperm and egg to form an embryo, was assessed 18 hours after ICSI.

The rate of fertilization was 73.5% in spring, 68.7% in summer, 67.9% in winter and 69% in autumn. Ovarian response to ICSI hormone treatments, a measurement of estrogen concentration per number of retrieved oocytes, was higher in spring compared with other seasons, tests showed. Following fertilization, one to three embryos were transferred into the woman's uterus.

The procedure resulted in an average pregnancy rate of 33% for all seasons.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577524824251585782.html

Thursday, November 1, 2012

A little Infertility Humor...

I love Pinterest ...its one of those sites I forbid myself from visiting too frequently because I'll waste hours upon hours of my life browsing through pages, staring at the computer and laughing at pictures like these below. I couldn't resist the urge tonight so thought I'd post a few on here. Hope you find some humor in them also....

http://pinterest.com/resolve/infertility-humor/

Pinned Image

What Makes a Baby

While browsing the never ending internet for infertility related blogs, articles, forums, etc. (a common occurrence at our house) I ran across a wonderful website, http://booksfordonoroffspring.blogspot.com, featuring a wide variety of children's books as they relate to the various methods of conception and parenthood.

The traditional Father + Mother = Love = Baby Boy + Baby Girl type family is becoming less common as the future norm will be filled with IVF babies, sperm donor babies, egg donor babies, donor embryo babies that are conceived in labs in petri dishes carried via surrogacy or through gestational carriers and raised by adoptive parents, infertile parents, gay parents, lesbian parents, single mothers, single fathers and co-parents.

I am very excited to have stumbled upon this site and thought it would make a great post to share with my friends and family. Others out there struggling with infertility or living in a non-traditional family know all the "baggage" that comes along with it...just one more added difficulty of something as simple as explaining where our (fingers crossed soon to be IVF) baby came from.

I've listed just a few of the books I found interesting based on the summary provided by the website or short video clips provided by the authors. I'll definitely want to buy a few of these...regardless of how we end up with our baby at the end of this journey.

http://www.what-makes-a-baby.com/