• Last updated 3/25/13 by Marcy Axness

Okay, I'll come out with it, finally, after all these years: I was desperately disappointed with The Vagina Monologues! I'm only now fessing up and lodging my opinion that the empress Eve Ensler has no new clothes on. In her supposedly ground-breaking play...two hours of dialogue and monologue dedicated (supposedly) to the sexual dimension of a woman's psycho-anatomical makeup...there is not one single mention of menstruation. No period, period.   Oh, there are plenty of other reasons to not embrace TVM (or as Camille Paglia calls it, "the perversion of... read more

• Last updated 8/24/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Katie SingerIssue 117, March/April 2003 [Author's note: This article is only an introduction to Fertility Awareness. It does not provide adequate information about using charts to prevent pregnancy. Interested readers should take a class and/or read a comprehensive book, such as Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility. See For More Information at the end of the article.] When Maria Simmons and Eric Hurley (not their real names) first got together, they didn't use birth control. "I thought I knew when I was fertile," Maria says. "I'd heard that the egg leaves... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

In part one we touched on such under-considered aspects as environmental toxins, nutrition, and immune issues that can have a negative effect on healthy fertility. (And commenter Anna helpfully added that there has been an association made in animal testing between GMO foods and infertility.) Two other fruitful areas to explore when faced with the dismaying diagnosis of unexplained infertility — or to optimally foster healthy fertility — are frequently overlooked entirely: electromagnetic fields, and the staggering power of our minds to influence our... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

Maybe you’ve been trying for a year or more to get pregnant and it’s not happening. Maybe you’ve gotten checked out and been given that frustrating non-diagnosis of medically unexplained infertility. They don’t know what’s wrong. You don’t know what’s wrong. What you do know is that you just want to get pregnant! Once fertility treatment came into its own around twenty years ago, that is where the attention and research money for infertility went. Reproductive medicine has become a major industry — that is to say, the business of getting you pregnant through... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

By Nancy Stiefel Web Exclusive You've already had one child, so conceiving the second should be no problem, right? Not necessarily. Many women face infertility when trying for a second child. And although doctors can sometimes pinpoint medical causes for such "secondary infertility," the reasons often remain a mystery. For these women, not being able to understand why compounds their misery. My own history is a case in point. I conceived my first son easily, and my husband and I expected the same results three years later. A year went by with no pregnancy,... read more

• Last updated 4/3/13 by Cynthia Mosher

Lactational Amenorrhea Method - can be used for 6 months or until your first postpartum bleed after 56 days postpartum.  98-99% effective.  Lactational Amenorrhea may continue past 6 months, but the effectiveness of depending on it to prevent pregnancy is reduced.  Must use a different method after the return of menstruation.   Ecological Breastfeeding - close to 100% effective in the first 3 months, 99% effective in the second 3 months, 94% effective before your first postpartum bleed after 56 days postpartum.  Must use a different method after the return of... read more

• Last updated 10/11/11 by JMJ

Books   Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler Garden of Fertility by Katie Singer Honoring Our Cycles (workbook) by Katie Singer The Art of Natural Family Planning by John and Sheila Kippley Natural Family Planning: A Complete Approach by John and Sheila Kippley (available for free download with registration) Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing by Sheila Kippley The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding by Sheila Kippley The Art of Natural Family Planning Student Guide by Couple to Couple League The Art of Natural Family Planning... read more

• Last updated 1/15/13 by Cynthia Mosher

For some women getting pregnant is the struggle, for others it’s the pregnancy itself that causes difficulties; for me the only hard part was waiting for him to be born.  I don’t mean the labor, I’ll get to that later, but the actual anticipation of when IT would commence.  I think if I had known how much harder it gets once the baby is born I could have been a little more patient. The arrival of your first-born is cause for some major excitement.  In truth, I was looking for some excitement after 9 months of a rather uneventful pregnancy. In fact, when I... read more

• Last updated 1/17/13 by Cynthia Mosher

Three documentaries have caught my eye recently. I have Donor Unknown saved on Netflix. It’s about a woman who goes in search of her biological father, sperm donor 150. TechnoStorks follows three couples undergoing fertility treatments. And Google Baby is the HBO documentary that was released last year about outsourcing surrogacy to India. Ron and I have been talking about surrogacy lately. Not approaching it in the way of the documentary. But in a more personal way. A friend has offered to carry our baby — “to be his/her home for awhile,” she said. So…how... read more

• Last updated 1/24/13 by Cynthia Mosher

It’s National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24-30). Lots of events going on. Find one here. Not that long ago, I visited the university where I attended law school. As I walked through the library, I observed the women. They concentrated hard as they flipped through their textbooks. Studying, reading, taking notes. That was me 12 years ago. I was so focused on my grades and my future career that marriage/motherhood was barely a thought. I figured it would happen someday…in my time, on my terms, and when I was ready. I had no idea that age is the number... read more