It’s Sharon from the Attain Customer Care wishing all our friends a happy, healthy and promising Chinese New Year.

The emotions from infertility can drag us down and around, so let’s find some ways to remain balanced, focused and hopeful. Here are some suggestions given by our wonderful callers that we can keep tucked away in our mental tote/satchel/hobo bag and use when needed.

Talk, chat, speak, converse; you get the message. Seek the support of someone you feel comfortable sharing your feelings with to be your “shoulder” during the bumps in the infertility road. Always, always remember you are loved even when those closest to you have a difficult time providing the support you need.

It’s okay to be choosy. Not everyone and every situation is going to work for you and that’s okay. You can decide and choose who to be around, what gatherings work for you and so on. Listen to your intuition. You may have to distance yourself from the people who don’t have the where-with-all to handle changing emotions or the parties where the kids out number the adults. Keep the balance you need to stay focused.

Fun, laugh, fun. Yes! Go to the latest comedy movie and share some popcorn with milk duds or stay home, turn on the TV and watch reruns. (You know laughter releases endorphins which help to decrease the stress hormones in our bodies).

Please hold on to your dreams for parenthood. We hope that the Year of the Dragon will be your year.

Until next time, all my best.

By Dr. Barbara Faber

One day I was sitting with a patient talking about how it becomes more difficult to get pregnant as you get older. We discussed how many women put off trying to conceive, waiting for that “better” time, when supposedly life gets easier. I remember looking at her and realizing that we were the same age and that I was doing exactly what I was telling my patient not to do!

Time passes quickly when you are busy completing medical residency training, finding a job, getting married, establishing a practice, studying for certification exams and all the other things that occupy the daily grind of a young doctor’s life. I realized that I was 35 years old …and I thought to myself: when did that happen? My husband and I definitely wanted to have a family of our own and we had put it off, waiting for a “better” time to come. The truth is that I hadn’t even considered trying to become pregnant. I had so many other things to accomplish first.

Without going into all the details, I found out after some simple tests that, like many of my patients, I might have some difficulty getting pregnant. I decided that it didn’t matter that it wasn’t a good time and that I had a lot of other things to do. If we wanted a family, we were going to have to start trying right away. I was very lucky and conceived fairly quickly. When we decided to try again, I started fertility treatment and hoped for the best. In our hearts, we felt that if we only had our one daughter, we would still feel very blessed. I ended up doing more treatment cycles than I would generally recommend for most of my patients. Right when I was ready to give up, I became pregnant again.

Sometimes I think that there was a reason that I had difficulty conceiving, and yet was able to overcome it. It allows me to fully empathize with my patients, and at the same time offer them hope. I have been in their shoes, walked the same journey, and made it to a very happy ending (twice).

Dr. Faber is co-medical director of Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists, a faculty member of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center and an assistant professor at the University of Arizona. Her interests include all aspects of infertility as well as the endocrinologic disorders affecting reproduction. Dr. Faber has extensive experience in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (IVF), ovulation induction, and endoscopic surgery for the evaluation and treatment of infertility. She has been named a “Top Doc” in Phoenix Magazine.

The CDC just published a report describing U.S. trends in births in twin deliveries between 1980 and 2009. The results are interesting.

The rate of multiple gestations has been rising in America since the advent of assisted reproductive technologies like IVF. The CDC just published data that reveals how the trend in multiple gestations is rising faster in some populations than others.

Here are the key findings as reported by the CDC:
1. In 2009, 1 in every 30 babies born in the United States was a twin, compared with 1 in every 53 babies in 1980.
2. The twin birth rate rose 76 percent from 1980 through 2009, from 18.9 to 33.3 per 1,000 births.
3. If the rate of twin births had not changed since 1980, approximately 865,000 fewer twins would have been born in the United States over the last three decades.
4. Twinning rates rose by at least 50 percent in the vast majority of states and the District of Columbia.
5. Over the three decades, twin birth rates rose by nearly 100 percent among women aged 35–39 and more than 200 percent among women aged 40 and over.
6. The older age of women at childbirth in 2009 compared with three decades earlier accounts for only about one-third of the rise in twinning over the 30 years.

Dr. Lowell T. Ku, M.D. is an award winning and leading Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility specialist at Dallas IVF, one the nation’s premiere infertility centers. Doctor Ku clarifies the many confusing terms used in the world of Infertility using straightforward explanations.

So I started my birth control pills today!

I know. It seems so strange to be excited about birth control. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about birth control pills since my…um…early twenties.  After I was married.  I swear, Mom. Look! There’s a polar bear on a unicycle!

Anywho…. now that I’ve started my pills we have our big day on the calendar marked with an I.  We’ll call it I Day.  The day we start IVF; the day I start injections.  Now, after two pregnancies with gestational diabetes and then full blown diabetes, I am no stranger to injecting myself several times a day. But still, it’s been awhile.  So I unearthed this great video we did last year with the American Fertility Association.

Ouch! Well it doesn’t seem so bad now after watching the video. And I’m just as excited about injecting myself as I am about starting birth control. Another thing I never thought I’d say!

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. Today we are sharing 10 facts about cervical cancer and how it can impact your fertility. Feel free to click on the links below for more detailed information about cervical cancer.

1. Cervical cancer is the second most commonly occurring cancer in women.

2. Pap smears are crucial in detecting and preventing many cases of cervical cancer each year in the United States. The majority of women with cervical cancer were probably skipping their annually recommended Pap smears (or not following their doctor’s recommendations afterward).

3. Most women with cervical cancer are diagnosed after age 35.

4. Women with cervical cancer rarely have symptoms until the cancer is advanced.

5. Smoking can increase the risk of cervical cancer (and a host of other infertility problems). If you smoke, quit today to protect your fertility.

6. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common cause of cervical cancer.

7. An HPV vaccine, Gardasil, is FDA-approved to prevent and reduce the risk of cervical cancer. Ask your doctor about this vaccine if you are younger than 26.

8. HPV is largely spread through sexual contact – so practice safe sex. (Condoms are helpful but do not always prevent the spread of HPV).

9. Having sex with multiple partners can also increase your risk of cervical cancer, so be wise when it comes to your love life.

10. Treatments for cervical cancer, including radiation, chemotherapy, and surgical treatments, often lead to infertility and sterility. However, some women with cervical cancer qualify for fertility sparing surgery. In these procedures, doctors are able to treat cervical cancer without affecting the entire cervix, protecting a woman’s ability to get pregnant.

If you are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and are hoping to become pregnant one day, talk to your doctor about fertility preservation. This conversation about fertility preservation needs to happen as soon as possible after cancer diagnosis, and may offer you a chance of getting pregnant after cancer treatment.

For more information about cervical cancer, check out the Attain Fertility article series on Cancer and Fertility.

Britt Berg is Content Manager and medical writer for Attain Fertility. Co-author of Making a Baby, Britt is obsessed with all things fertility, pregnancy, and birthing.