For years, the biggest complaint people had about Prozac, Paxil, and other SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) was that they made sex awful. Men and women both complained of lowered libidos. Men who still had libidos frequently said they couldn't get it up. And of those men who could get it up, there were many who, despite their best efforts, couldn't ejaculate.

Still, some people on SSRIs managed to have sex. They even managed to get pregnant. But of those that did, some found out that there was another side effect they didn't know about: birth defects. Bad birth defects. … Read More

Part four of a four-part series on male infertility. Click here to read parts one, two and three.

For me and Amy, however, there was always more hope, always another chance to get pregnant. The next peak in the Fertility Himalayas, ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), was a technique developed in 1992 for severe cases of male infertility in which healthy looking single sperms are literally inserted into healthy seeming eggs. The goal is multiple fertilizations. The fertilized eggs can then be frozen and preserved, or returned to the womb to (hopefully) develop.

ICSI took place in a private hospital. … Read More

Part three of a four-part series on male infertility. Click here to read parts one, two and four. 

Amy had been referred to a Beverly Hills fertility doctor, who was so reassuring that I took him to calling him Dr. Mellow. His office had a wall of photos of smiling babies, as if to say, "This will be you."  

We sat in his waiting room holding hands. We believed. We didn't know we had just taken our seats inside the Hope Factory.

Once inside, the possibility of getting pregnant never ended. If one technique failed, you tried another, and … Read More

Part two of a four-part series on male infertility. Click here to read parts one, three and four.   

Right around this time, my Amy and I decided to move to California. Perhaps a fresh start, a fresh perspective would help. 

My wife's doctor in NY sent her to a doctor in Beverly Hills, who sent her to a fertility specialist, who sent me a doctor whose first name sounded a lot like "Pappy." He was the doctor to see for guys whose guys need to get going. 

Pappy had a slightly goofy personality. … Read More

Part one of a four-part series on male infertility. Click here to read parts two, three and four.   

When I look back on the courtship that led to my marriage, I fast forward through a carousel of emotionally charged moments: the night we met, the night we first slept together (not the same), a postcard she sent me, our first weekend away together, a Ray Charles concert, a birthday party (mine), a birthday party (hers), a Hamptons summer rental, a Sam Cooke album, an Al Green concert, a vacation in Europe where I almost proposed but didn't, … Read More

We've always thought it a bit unfair what us ladies are expected to do in the name of contraception. Yes, men are urged to wrap it up, and yes, condoms might suck, but at least you fellas (unless a vasectomy is involved) don't screw with your insides. If we swallow a pill that doesn't jive with our internal makeup, we suffer weight-gain, mood swings and an overall, general feeling of weirdness. Not fun.

Thankfully, if science has it's way, men may soon have their own version of a birth control pill. Hooray! Researchers … Read More

Belgian researchers find that how a couple copes with infertility is determined more by their personalities and the nature of their relationship than by the ins and outs of the treatment itself, reports Reuters.

Dr. Benedicte Lowyck and her team of researchers at the University of Leuven studied 70 couples undergoing reproduction through in-vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Each couple completed tests to identify their sense of well-being and the strength of their relationship at three points during the infertility treatment: when they started the treatment, three months into the treatment, and six months into the treatment.

… Read More

It appears that the healing fertility waters of Kununurra may have to outdo themselves in the near future. While promoting the film Australia (we think it's about Vienna), Nicole Kidman and the 11th Sexiest Man Alive (so says YourTango) Hugh Jackman went on German TV and Kidman played the didgeridoo, reports Celebutopia. The didgeridoo is a wooden trumpet-like instrument played by Australia's Aborigines. They believe the instrument should only be played by men (like the saxophone in America) and that a woman will go barren if she's to play the massive pipe.

In the Aboriginal … Read More

You may remember her as an infomercial host. Or from the pages of Playboy. Or you may remember her as THE MOST DOWLOADED WOMAN ON THE INTERNET. But now she wants you to remember her as the author that helped get you pregnant. Cindy’s new book Having a Baby… When the Old-Fashioned Way Isn’t Working is about her quest to get pregnant and how it could have been much easier.

She’s really a pioneer. Back when she was THE MOST DOWNLOADED WOMAN ON THE INTERNET that was all she was famous for. Sure, she was in Playboy. But so was … Read More

This is not entirely surprising. Overweight women have a hard time getting pregnant. It seems like the key to fertility is healthiness. And it looks like healthiness and fat are at odds. A study recently conducted principally by Dr Jan Willem van der Steeg showed that women with a Body Mass Index (that’s BMI to you, Russ) over 29 have a harder time conceiving than those in the “normal range” of 21-29. It showed that every BMI point above 29 is the equivalent of being one year older. And this is just in women who ovulate … Read More