Summer Reading

I’ve been like this since I was a kid. My mom saved the letter I wrote her from sleep-away camp when I was 10, complaining that the counselors wouldn’t let me read The New York Times every day!

Given these tendencies, I feel very, very fortunate that I get to spend my days editing Conceive. And when I’m not working on Conceive or trying to make a dent in my always-high pile of magazines, you’re likely to find me curled up somewhere reading a good book.

So, in an effort to support the struggling book publishing industry, I’d like to let all of Conceive’s readers know about the newest book releases relating to fertility and family-building. Some are fun summer reading, and some are a lot more serious, but all of them are full of useful information for anyone hoping to be a parent soon. One of these might be just what you’re looking for:

The Doctor Will See You Now

Two new books let readers feel they’re getting a consultation with one of the country’s leading fertility practitioners. Both are aimed at readers who have been unable to get pregnant on their own and are ready to get medical help.

• A Baby at Last! The Couples’ Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant from Cutting-Edge Treatments to Commonsense Wisdom (Touchstone Books, 2010)
By Zev Rosenwaks, M.D., Marc Goldstein, M.D., and Mark L. Fuerst
A very solution-oriented book by two doctors from Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. The two top docs—they helped Celine Dion get pregnant—devote more than half of their book to explanations of treatments both low- and high-tech.

• If at First You Don’t Conceive: A Complete Guide to Infertility From one of the Nation’s Leading Clinics (Rodale, 2010)
By William Schoolcraft, MD, HCLD
Dr. Schoolcraft, director of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, takes a somewhat more “whole person” approach. His book contains more detailed explanations of the conditions that can cause fertility problems, and an entire section on preserving mind and spirit.

For Beach Babies

You probably don’t think of fertility as a subject for light reading, but these two books—a novel and a true-life girlfriends story—would be perfectly at home under the sun.

• Get Lucky (Ballantine Books, 2010)
By Katherine Center
In this sweet and funny novel, Sarah--a high-powered, single ad exec--loses her job and heads home to Houston. Once there she discovers her married sister is also having a life crisis: she and her husband can’t get pregnant. So Sarah decides to become her sister’s surrogate and get pregnant for her. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that, and there’s a poignant message about happiness and how you don’t always find it where you expect to.

• Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood (Littlle, Brown & Company, 2010)
By Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand
How’s this for a plot? A single woman, realizing that her biological clock is ticking and there’s no Mr. Right in sight, buys eight vials of sperm from a sperm bank. Before she can use them, she meets the man of her dreams . . . and gets pregnant. So she donates the sperm to a close friend. . . who then also meets someone, falls in love, and gets pregnant the old-fashioned way. And then. . . yep, it happens for another friend, too! Each woman tells her story as the “magic” sperm gets passed from one to the next.

Dealing with a Diagnosis

And for those of you looking for information on a specific topic, here are two new books that may be of interest:

• Balancing Pregnancy with Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby (Demos Health, 2010)
By Cheryl Alkon
Most of this book is devoted to helping women with diabetes manage their pregnancies, but the first chapter talks about pre-pregnancy health and conceiving with the disease. The writer also has a blog called “Managing the Sweetness Within” (thesweetnesswithin.blogstpot.com) which documents her own efforts to get and stay pregnant while controlling her diabetes.

• Before Your Time: The Early Menopause Survival Guide (Fireside Books, 2010)
By Evelina Weidman Sterling, Ph.D., and Angie Best-Boss
Although the average age of menopause in the U.S. is 51, as many as one in nine women may go through menopause before age 40. And that can be a devastating surprise to women who haven't started or finished their families yet. The authors' previous book, Budgeting for Infertility, helped women navigate the complicated and expensive world of fertility treatments. While Before Your Time is not specifically about fertility, there is a chapter devoted to family planning and fertility preservation for women facing early menopause.

Comments (2)

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Cheryl Alkon said:

Thanks, Conceive Online! Thanks very much for the mention of my book on diabetes and pregnancy! My book also has a chapter on pregnancy loss and infertility while managing diabetes, for those seeking that information.

Monday, May 17, 2010 09:33 am | url

Motercalo said:

Motercalo Awesome post!

Monday, June 14, 2010 18:21 pm | url

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