IF Book, DVD, Magazines and CD Titles

[cs1984cs]

I was wondering if the folks in this forum would care to share book, DVD, Magazines, and CD titles that have worked for them during their Donor Issues and IF in general.

I myself have just received a couple of titles last night; I sure could have used them for the past few days; see 1 and 2.

1- DVD - Yoga Practices for Fertility Starring: Tami Quinn; Beth Heller Director: Heller/Quinn

I got up early this morning and went through the whole DVD; I felt restored at the end. The organization is really nice so you can skip around easily once you're familiar with the DVD and only want to do certain parts of it.

2- CD - Health Journeys Guided Meditations Help For Infertility by Belleruth Naparstek (Author)

I have listened to the introduction which is rather nice. The voice is soothing and rather hypnotic. I have also gone through the fertilization and the affirmation meditations. Both are interesting visualizations; however, the meditations fall a bit short if as per the introduction you can listen to each of the 4 meditations in any order or individually. In the first meditation, Belleruth smoothes the way into the meditation and does not take you out of it. The second one, you are abruptly thrown into it and again, she doesn't get you out of it. To remedy that, I loaded them on my mp3 player and put soft music before and after the meditation of choice so I can smoothly get myself into it and leisurely get myself out of it.

Currently, I do not need the other 2 meditations and hope I never will.

3- Book - Infertility Survival Handbook by Elizabeth Swire-Falker (Author)

The author, a lawyer, was on the IF rollercoaster for 9 years and went through the entire spectrum of procedures and adoption. She emphasizes not to waste time, energy and money on procedure that won't work for you; of course, she has the benefit of hindsight, but her view allowed me to take a closer look at all those procedures. With our limited resources to go through the IF journey, we couldn't go around risking IUI or IVF; although IVF could work, but the odds are against us. We found out from pretty much all the sources we checked that DIVF is our best shot to be parents so here we are. This book was invaluable in showing me the sensible venue for us.

I know of more resources out there, but I have not read them so I'll let others list them and comment on them

I hope some of you will join in.

CS

[thebabyproject]

I'm mostly a book and internet person, but for Donor Issues, a book that really has helped and I think will continue to help is

Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates by Dr. Diane Ehrensaft. It goes for anyone, same-sex, single, or heterosexual, facing any type of "birth other" arrangement. It's geared more to the emotional issues couple face when choosing AND after having their children and into the impacts on the children and emotional issues with them. It provides some really good talking points, far better than our counselor did.

I also have Having your baby through egg donation by Glazer & Sterling, and it's ok. It's more about the decision, which I had already made, than living with the decision like "mommies, daddies". I can see it being helpful, just was already beyond that point.

HTH,
Emily

[maria2]

Three items:
Sweet Grapes by Jean and Michael Carter - this is a book by an infertile couple; the woman is an obgyn. It's focused on how to move on from being a couple who is infertile to a childless by choice, adopting or donor using family, moving through grief and emerging hopeful.

Offspring (video via Sundance Channel) - a beautiful documentary by an adult who was conceived by his mother's egg and a donor's sperm a long time ago.

Experiences of Donor Conception, a book compiled by Caroline Lorbach
-maria2

[fetch]

1. Helping the Stork
by Carol Vercollone and H & R Moss

2. Having Your Baby by Donor Insemination
by Elizabeth Noble

3. Before You Were Born
This author offers this book with many variations including a baby born from IVF, donor insemination, frozen embryo, donor egg, donor sperm (IVF), gestational carrier, traditional surrogacy, donor embryo, same sex female parents, same sex male parents. Janice Grimes. www.xyandme.com.

[cs1984cs]

Here is a link that leads to the a store in connections with the DCNetwork.org which offers a variety of books on donation and related topics:

http://www.infertilitynetwork.org/html/store.asp

[cs1984cs]

I started reading Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates by Dr. Diane Ehrensaft. There is indeed nothing like it out there. Finding a competent counselor able to address the issues of donation and surrogacy is difficult; in fact, I haven't been able to find one. I hope this book will provide good questions if not perhaps some answers in the form of various viable options.

I understand she is of the opinion to tell; I hope she will explain why thoroughly and not just select convenient literature to support her conclusion and ignore other research that would contradict them without saying why she rejects it.

Interesting book so far. Thank you for bringing it up.

I hope others will continue posting more books with comments.

[thebabyproject]

Honestly, CS, MDDS scared the crap out of me a little, but I'd rather throw the ideas and worries and odd thoughts out there and talk about them than worry that DH is thinking it and not talking about it.

Hope you like it.

Emily

[cs1984cs]

Originally Posted by thebabyproject

Honestly, CS, MDDS scared the crap out of me a little, but I'd rather throw the ideas and worries and odd thoughts out there and talk about them than worry that DH is thinking it and not talking about it.

Hope you like it.

Emily

I'm around page 100. So far, it's raising a lot of questions without really any answers. If it wasn't for one comment she made about a doctor being "thankfully progressive" in telling IPs that ED was okay, she sounds anti-donation. I still wonder if she is pro donation here and there considering the tactless manner in which she approaches the issues.

Her stories are extreme, which is typical of books like that; after all she is trying to make us think about all he issues at hand and impress on us that donation is no trivial matter. I wish she would also get into more positive aspects of donation; sometimes it just feels like she is suggesting we have made a dirty selfish decision leading to a social abomination. Maybe she does get more positive later or maybe she figures someone else can do that job.

Keep in mind that her view is one point of view based on specific stories; take what applies to you and run with it. I have already discussed a few points with my DH which put certain issues to bed. As you said, better to think of it now than later.

Let me know how you feel when you're done reading it and I'll follow up as well. Thanks again for pointing this book out.

CS

[cs1984cs]

I thought I needed some variety in achieving stress relief, so I went in search of another yoga video relating to fertility. I prefer this one to the previous one I posted here; overall, it focuses on your 2nd chakra more than the other video which is the whole point, imo, and it flows nicely. Brenda Strong, who suffered secondary infertility, also offers unobstrusive suggestions as you flow through the poses. However, if you are a beginner at yoga, this may not be for you as she doesn't show alternative/easier poses and assumes you already have some yoga under your belt. It's 1 hour long with options to skip directly to the practice or one of the other three chapters.

DVD - Yoga 4 Fertility with Brenda Strong

[cs1984cs]

Since I cannot read MDDS in public, I opted for another book to read which is also addressing infertility, but not exclusively. It addressed 35+ motherhood. I think it's a nice addition to MDDS in terms of asking ourselves questions and understanding that we're not alone or crazy by asking them.

Book - Midlife Motherhood: A Woman-to-Woman Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting by Jann Blackstone-Ford