Issue Date: May 10, 2009

The fight for fertility

This Mother's Day, four books deliver comfort to wannabe parents.

By Jenny Rough

With millions of couples facing infertility, books abound offering help. Medical advice can be found in "100 Questions & Answers About Infertility" (Western medicine), "The Infertility Cure" (Eastern medicine) or Fertility Facts (a bit of both).

But the most insightful words often come from personal stories. Some excellent picks:

Inconceivable by Julia Indichova (Broadway Books, $12.95). Ten months after childbirth, Indichova and her husband wanted to give their daughter a sibling. The second time around, she had trouble conceiving. At 42, and with soaring hormone levels, she was told her childbearing days were over. Inconceivable chronicles how she began "healing" herself by eliminating harmful foods, using alternative medicine and addressing her emotional obstacles about motherhood. Eight months later, she was pregnant. Indichova now holds fertility workshops.

Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein (Bloomsbury USA, $14.95) . When pregnancy didn't come easily, Orenstein promised her husband she wouldn't go nuts like the women she read about on infertility websites. Turns out, she was wrong, as she explains in this chronicle of her journey through infertility. It's a wild and expensive (emotionally and financially) ride: "First you pop a little Clomid, suddenly you're taking out a second mortgage for another round of in vitro fertilization."

About What Was Lost edited by Jessica Berger Gross (Plume, $15) . Of the 20 writers who contributed to this anthology, each discovers she's pregnant but later learns she has lost the baby. Miscarriage is common -- up to one in four pregnancies ends that way -- but statistics are no cure for heartache. These stories help family members and friends understand the would-be mother's feelings of pain and loss.

The Brotherhood of Joseph by Brooks Hansen (Rodale, $24.95) . This book gives the scoop straight up: Adoption is "the most difficult and horrifying thing two people can do together." But through the false starts, paperwork and court dates, the author adds a twist of humor.