Fertility and Infertility For Dummies, UK Edition

This friendly guide combines professional and personal advice on every aspect of fertility and infertility. From deciding when to seek help and what help to seek, to the emotional, fi nancial, and medical considerations of fertility treatments, you'll be reassured every step of the way with all the support and specialist advice you need to increase your chances of a healthy and happy pregnancy.

This friendly guide combines professional and personal advice on every aspect of fertility and infertility. From deciding when to seek help and what help to seek, to the emotional, fi nancial, and medical considerations of fertility treatments, you'll be reassured every step of the way with all the support and specialist advice you need to increase your chances of a healthy and happy pregnancy.

Introduction 1Part I: Making Babies as Nature Intended 5Chapter 1: In the Beginning 7Chapter 2: Taking Baby Steps 21Part II: Planning a Pregnancy 43Chapter 3: We're Trying! We're Trying! (to Get Pregnant) 45Chapter 4: You, Your Fertility, and Your GP 71Chapter 5: Great Expectations But: Early Pregnancy Loss 81Part III: Tests and Investigations 95Chapter 6: Moving on Up: Seeing a Specialist 97Chapter 7: Finding the Female Problem: Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 .107Chapter 8: It's a Man Thing: When Tests Reveal Sperm Problems 133Part IV: Eureka! Possible Solutions 145Chapter 9: Doing Your Homework: Researching Fertility Clinics and Funding Treatment 147Chapter 10: All The 'I's: Introducing IUI, IVF, and ICSI 165Chapter 11: Giving Mother Nature a Helping Hand: Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) 177Chapter 12: Making Test-Tube Babies: IVF 189Chapter 13: ICSI: It Only Takes One Good Sperm! 207Chapter 14: 'Babies on Ice': Egg Freezing and Fertility Treatment 211Chapter 15: Giving, Receiving, and Sharing: Egg Donor Treatments 219Chapter 16: Creating an Embryo: Amazing Teamwork in the Lab 227Part V: Post-First Cycle: How You May Feel and What You Can Do 241Chapter 17: Waiting and Hoping: Surviving the Two-Week Wait after Embryo Transfer 243Chapter 18: What's in Your Freezer? Frozen Embryo Transfers 261Chapter 19: If at First You Don't Succeed: Trying IVF More than Once 269Part VI: Different Strokes for Different Folks: Options for Non-Traditional Families 281Chapter 20: Third-Party Reproduction: You and You and Me and Baby Make Four! 283Chapter 21: Safe Options for Same-Sex Couples and Single Mums 295Chapter 22: Ready-Made Families and Other Choices 305Chapter 23: New Advances and Ethical Dilemmas 317Part VII: The Part of Tens 333Chapter 24: Ten Tips to Get You Through Treatment (and Keep You Sane!) 335Chapter 25: Ten (Okay, Seven) Groups of Fertility Medications and Where to Find Them 339Index 345