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Introduction
If you’re dealing with infertility, you may feel alone, confused, and depressed over the potential loss of the dream you’ve cherished since childhood: the dream of having a baby of your own.
Infertility is a medical problem for 6–8 million Americans. Deemed a disease by the World Health Organization but debated as a symptom by many professional organizations, insurance companies often deny coverage for its diagnosis and treatment. Many people (the “just relax and you’ll get pregnant” crowd) don’t understand its biological origins, and a few (the “take this magic pill and you’ll get pregnant, guaranteed!” group) even exploit those suffering from it. There is good news on the infertility front, however; not only are medical treatments for infertility making great gains, but there’s also more awareness of the emotional and social effects of infertility. In fact, most reproductive medicine centers like to call themselves fertility centers now.
Getting Pregnant For Dummies was conceived by combining Jackie Thompson’s knowledge of infertility from a patient’s viewpoint, Lisa Rinehart’s wealth of information as an infertility nurse and reproductive law attorney, and Dr. John Rinehart’s 40 years of clinical practice in reproductive medicine. We wrote this book so that patients dealing with infertility will know that they’re not alone and what they may be up against. We hope it finds its way to the bookshelves and nightstands of all the patients who need it to help find the road to their baby.
About This Book
This book is our attempt to help those of you who want to walk into the doctor’s office and not walk out feeling out of control of your own fertility. Our vision is to provide fertility patients — both those at the starting line and those closer to the finish — and the people who love them with as much information as we can on the options available to them. We discuss topics ranging from the scientific to the spiritual.
You can read through this book from front to back and feel confident that you can find the answer to just about any fertility issue, from natural family planning to cloning. But if you’re like most people, you’ll probably look through the table of contents, zero in on the chapters that affect you, and jump directly to them. This book is meant as a resource, which means that you can go back to it whenever a new issue or question arises and find the answer you need without reading through everything that comes before.
This book is meant for people
