Fertility Reads & Village Voices

Looking for a good fertility book?

Last week, we asked our Facebook fans to share their favorite books about infertility, and here’s what they said:
 
“Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health,” by Toni Weschler Fingers

“Waiting For Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother,” by Peggy Orenstein

"Empty Picture Frame: An Inconceivable Journey Through Infertility,” by Jenna Currier Nadeau
 
What about you? Do you have educational favorite, fertility-related book you like? Share it on our Facebook page!
 

Village Voices

This week, Jennifer’s story continues to unfold. She will continue to share her experiences through our Village Voices community in the weeks/months to come. To read her stories and other Village Voices stories, click here. Please feel free to comment on these stories to share your thoughts and inspirations. You can use the comment field on our site or email us at voices@villagepharmacy.com. We welcome your thoughts and your stories.
 

By Jennifer from Boston, MA

 
I waited patiently until 10 a.m. to call the doctor’s office. Every minute seemed like an hour as I was anxiously awaiting the blood count results and hoping that my little baby would still be growing and thriving, despite the cramping and bleeding I had experienced yesterday. By 12 p.m.,  after two phone calls and no indications of my blood results, I thought I was going insane. I tried to play with my two-yearold son, but I was too distracted to concentrate on his needs. All I kept thinking is, how could the doctor’s office lose my blood test results?
 
Finally at 2 p.m., the doctor called and apologized. His staff had been looking under my maiden name as opposed to my married name. An apparently understandable mistake - but I still wanted to scream at my unnecessary delayed wait and my tortured anxiety levels. To the doctor’s credit, it was his calm, patient, and understanding delivery of the bad news that truly comforted me and allowed me to hear that I was indeed miscarrying my child, as the HCG levels had dropped very low..In my memory of sitting on the sofa with tears falling down my cheeks, I remember how he explained in the most compassionate terms that the pregnancy was ending.  I salute him for his dignity in taking the time to answer my questions and to ever so gently extend more than medical jargon about the process of hopefully naturally passing the pregnancy without the need for a D&C. I was grateful for the humanity he displayed in acting like I was genuinely the first patient he had treated in his 30-year career who was suffering a miscarriage. He took the extra minutes out of his busy schedule to let me cry and clarify the next steps. Such empathy is not forgotten.
 
I hung up the phone and called out to my mother who had arrived to play with Connor. And then I sobbed. It was over. I somehow thought that if I prayed long enough and hard enough, I could will a miracle. I know I was fortunate in that it was still very early in the pregnancy so I had not grown as attached to this little baby as I would have been later in the first trimester. But still, this was a loss to me that had no rational explanation. As a professor, I also wanted the whys and the hows, so I struggled with acceptance of a loss with no justifiable reason – I couldn’t intellectualize or argue with Mother Nature.

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