Temeka Tuesday: Setting Goals with your Doctor
Reproductive endocrinologist and board-certified OB/GYN Dr. Temeka Zore shares her insight and expertise every Tuesday. This week: Setting Goals!
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Preparing for a New Cycle in the New Year
If you’ll be going through fertility treatments this upcoming year, you might be wondering what you can do to make the process stress-free. A treatment cycle is never 100% stress-free, but there are several things you can do in advance to help your cycle go more smoothly and alleviate some common stressors. Having been through a total of eight treatment cycles myself (four IVF cycles and four medicated IUI cycles), I’ve come up with a few tips I always share with anyone about to begin treatment.
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How “Three Wise Women” Advise You Handle the Holidays as a Couple When You’re Dealing with Infertility
For Andy Williams, it may be, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” but if you’re dealing with infertility treatment or struggling to conceive, the holidays can be a particularly difficult time. It’s not just the reminder that Mary wasn’t even trying to conceive and got pregnant (although that doesn’t help!), it’s more the number of gatherings, be it work, family or friends, and the inevitable barrage of well-intentioned but often painful inquiries around when you’re going to have a family.
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The Difference Between The “Holiday Blues” and Real “Fertility Funk”: When to Consider Seeking Help
If you’ve been diagnosed with a fertility issue or you’ve gone through IVF cycle after IVF cycle, it’s understandable that it would make anyone feel frustrated and down in the dumps. It’s enough to make you have “Resting Grinch Face” straight up until the New Year. But when should do the holiday blues become something a bit more serious?
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Self Advocacy with Sasha Ottey
What exactly is self-advocacy? Self-advocacy is standing up for yourself, but it is also much more than that. According to Sasha Ottey, founder of PCOS Challenge and advocate for all, self-advocacy is also setting boundaries – especially during the holidays.
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What to Give Someone Struggling with Infertility
Tis the season for eggnog, holiday sweaters with kittens wearing Santa hats and a litany of tasteless white elephant gifts. People who cycle together, support together. Meaning, if you have someone on your list who you know could use some extra encouragement this holiday season, MedAnswers has compiled a list of some thoughtful and smile provoking gifts that will surely help them through this difficult time of year.
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New Year Family Building
Have you been trying to conceive for a while? Are you thinking maybe red wine and a romantic evening aren’t doing it? Since it’s going to be 2018 and a whole new year, it might be a good time to consider exploring different family building options. Here are the most common ways to add to your family.
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Holiday Harmony
The holidays can be the happiest time of the year… or the saddest. According to the National Institutes of Health, there is a high incidence of depression during December’s holiday season. Hospitals report an increase in the number of suicides or attempted suicides during this time of year. Mental health professionals report a significant increase in their patients’ symptoms of depression and anxiety.
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Infertility Isn’t the Only Baggage, Anxiety is too.
I had been hurt. It isn’t so much that someone hurt me, or that I had been injured, or even that a sudden change occurred in my life. This was far more subtle and far more damaging. Infertility had seeped into my life and brought with it all the nefarious, course-altering, dream-destroying possibilities with it.
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How Opening Up About Miscarriage Helped Me Heal
After experiencing my own losses I find this societal pressure to be silent the most damaging to those who have experienced or will experience miscarriage. It perpetuates the idea that this is something to be ashamed of and should be kept hidden. I wish during my losses that I felt empowered and safe enough to share the excitement of a positive pregnancy test before our dreams turned to nightmares.
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Tuesdays with Dr. Temeka: Gamete Donation Process
Making the decision to move forward with using donor gametes (donor eggs and/or sperm) can be a difficult process for many individuals or couples. Dr. Zore goes into a bit more detail about why.
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RESOLVEd to Make a Difference
RESOLVE has been a part of my life for eight years now and when I stop to think about what it means to give my time, money, and effort to this organization, I realized that it has given me far more than I could ever hope to give back.
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Dr Raquel Hammonds on Gut Health and Infertility
By Dr. Raquel Hammonds The human body is complex and, at times, confusing. There are new studies coming out daily (or maybe it just feels that way) about how what you eat impacts every single aspect of your health. Including your reproductive system. We turned to one...
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Coping With the Holidays
“Ohy Vey! It’s that time of year again.” I begin to hear this from fertility patients starting on or about Halloween, moving into Thanksgiving and then, of course, the December holiday season. Why is this time of year so difficult for those who are struggling to conceive and what can be done to lighten the load.
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Breaking with Tradition
By Shelley Skuster We broke tradition by not having cake at our wedding reception. I should’ve known then that my husband and I would continue to break the mold of what people viewed as “traditional” or “normal.” A little more than a year after I walked down the aisle...
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Thanksgiving With a Side of Comments
Ah, Thanksgiving. The one time a year where it’s a guaranteed sit-down family meal with turkey, stuffing and a side of, “So, why don’t you have kids yet?” While we at MedAnswers support questions, these are the kind of questions that can ruin a holiday, let alone your well-intentioned Aunt Agnes’ chances of living till dessert.
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From Confusion to Confidence
Finding that inner strength takes time and self-advocacy takes different shapes for different people – the best way to be your own advocate is the way you feel comfortable. But if you’re like me, sometimes you have to ask yourself, “what happened and what can be done to help?”
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Healing Power of Humor
Humor can be found in a twist, in a memory, in a similarity. We want personal, we want original. When you face the trauma you are going through right now, humor can be a powerful tool on the road to healing.
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