Sharon Perkins - Getting Pregnant For Dummies

5 Part 3: Seeking Answers, Identifying Causes, and Dealing with Disappointments Chapter 11: Ladies First: Female Testing Basics Understanding the Limits of Testing Testing Your Blood for Clues Addressing Female Structural Problems Reversing a Tubal Ligation Testing to Diagnose Structural Problems Checking for Endometriosis Considering Ovulation Disorders: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Prognosis Chapter 12: Your Turn, Honey! Back to the Boys What is Male Factor Infertility? Sizing Up the Semen Interpreting the SA Test Results Checking for Structural Problems Correcting Varicoceles Looking for Clues in Your Blood Considering Potential Functional Issues Undoing a Vasectomy: Is it Worth It? Analyzing the Effects of Age and Lifestyle Chapter 13: Riding the Roller Coaster of Early Pregnancy Loss Defining What Being Pregnant Really Means Being “A Little Bit” Pregnant: Chemical Pregnancies Suffering a Miscarriage Navigating an Ectopic Pregnancy Experiencing Recurrent Pregnancy Loss How is Recurrent Implantation Failure Different? Picking Yourself Up after a Loss

6 Part 4: Moving from No-Tech to High-Tech Conception Chapter 14: First: The Lower-Tech Options Seeking Personalized Fertility Treatment Jump-Starting Your Ovaries Considering Artificial Insemination Checking out the Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation Option Injecting hCG to Mature Your Eggs Ensuring Proper Monitoring throughout Your Cycle Deciding When to Pursue Higher-Tech Options Chapter 15: Going High-Tech: Welcome to the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Club What IVF Means for You Switching Doctors: Will a Change Really Matter? Choosing the Best Clinic for You Addressing the High Costs of IVF It’s the Law! States That Mandate Fertility Coverage Fighting City Hall: Insurance Appeals When Having Insurance Doesn’t Help Getting Creative When You’re Out of Other Options Getting Your Medications for Less Chapter 16: Ready, Steady, Go! Starting Your IVF Cycle Preparing for a Roller Coaster Ride of Emotions Taking a Shot in the Dark: Time for hCG Heading to the Big Dance: The Egg Retrieval Your Partner Is Busy Too After the Dance: Do’s and Don’ts for a Happy Recovery Answering Common Post-IVF Questions Post-Retrieval Pills and Potions The Waiting Game: Knowing What’s Next Chapter 17: The Care and Feeding of an Embryo: Amazing Teamwork in the Lab Recognizing a Good Egg When You See One Prepping Sperm to Meet the Egg Looking at What Can Go Wrong When Egg Meets Sperm The High-Tech Meet-and-Greet: Doing ICSI Answering the Call About the Embryos Testing That Embryo: Checking Genetics Before the Transfer Hatching Embryos — Come on Out of There! Looking at the Embryos’ Next Home: Your Uterine Lining Undergoing the Embryo Transfer Post Transfer Tips and Boosts Chapter 18: Keeping Your Head in the Game: Successfully Waiting after an IVF Cycle Not “Not Pregnant” — But Waiting for Proof Sensing Every Little Twinge: The Truth about Pregnancy Symptoms Checking on Your Own: Home Pregnancy Test Traps Waiting for the News Responding to Good News: OMG! Taking the Next Step if IVF Doesn’t Work Keeping Embryos on Ice Regrouping and Future Planning Chapter 19: Staying Afloat When You’re Drowning in a Sea of Fertility Data Exploring the Link Between Information and the Care You Receive Choosing What’s Best for You

7 Part 5: Exploring Alternative Routes to Conception Chapter 20: Considering Third-Party Reproduction Options Deciding to Use Donor Eggs, Sperm, or Embryos Protecting Yourselves When Considering a Donor for Anything Heading to the Bank — the Sperm or Egg “Cryo” Bank, That Is Shopping at an Egg Bank Selecting a Donor for a “Fresh” Donor Egg Cycle Enlisting the Aid of a Surrogate Embryo Donation Telling your Pregnancy Story (or Not) Modern Families: Getting Pregnant Chapter 21: Moving On: Not Necessarily the End of The Road Letting Go of the Dream Opting to Adopt Deciding to be a “Family of Two” — Living Child-Free Chapter 22: The Future is Now! New Advances, New Concerns in Fertility Looking into the Future: Long-Term Health Effects of Fertility Medication Gathering Steam: The Genetics Tool Train Transplanting Body Parts to Improve Fertility Putting Your Plans on Ice Getting Up to Speed on Reproductive Law Saving Stem Cells for Research: Raising Ethical Concerns Cloning and Human Concerns Forcing Clinics to Decide Who’s Fit to Parent Realizing that Machines and People are Fallible Looking Beyond IVF

8 Part 6: Part of Tens Chapter 23: Ten “Fake News” Stories about Fertility News for Rodents Reading about Medical Miracles Celebrity Fecundity (also known as Fertility) Cell Phones Decrease Male Fertility Increased Longevity Means a Larger Fertility Window Men Don’t Undergo Menopause Looking Good Means Your Fertility Is Good You Can Glue Your Embryos to Your Uterus Procreation Vacations Work Adopt and You’ll Get Pregnant Chapter 24: Ten Things to Know in Early Pregnancy Good Pregnancy or Not? Bleeding Is Bad, Right? What About Exercise? Can I Fly When I’m Pregnant? Should I Quit My Job? Should I Get a Flu Shot? When Should I See My Ob/Gyn? Do I Have to Stay on My Medication? Dealing with a UTI What Is Happening to My Skin?

9 Index

10 About the Authors

11 Connect with Dummies

12 End User License Agreement

1 Chapter 6TABLE 6-1 Counting Days, Saving SticksTABLE 6-2 Home Pregnancy Test Sensitivity Levels

2 Chapter 7TABLE 7-1 Statistics for Age versus Infertility, Miscarriage, and Chromosomal Ab...

3 Chapter 9TABLE 9-1 BMI Table

4 Chapter 16TABLE 16-1 Common IVF Protocols at a GlanceTABLE 16-2 A Typical IVF Cycle — Yours May Vary

1 Chapter 2FIGURE 2-1: The female reproductive organs. FIGURE 2-2: The male reproductive organs.

2 Chapter 3FIGURE 3-1: Diagram of a chromosome.FIGURE 3-2: Diagram of genetic history.

3 Chapter 6FIGURE 6-1: Ferning appears on a saliva test when you’re close to ovulation. FIGURE 6-2: Are you pregnant or not?

4 Chapter 11FIGURE 11-1: A hydrosalpinx can affect your ability to get pregnant. FIGURE 11-2: Adhesions in the female reproductive system. FIGURE 11-3: Dye is injected when doing a hysterosalpingogram.

5 Chapter 12FIGURE 12-1: A normal sperm.

6 Chapter 17FIGURE 17-1: A 2PN (pronuclear) embryo. FIGURE 17-2: A four-cell embryo. FIGURE 17-3: An embryo with a lot of fragmentation.

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2 Table of Contents

3 Begin Reading

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