The Fertility Journal

As someone almost three years into the trenches that is infertility, reviewing The Fertility Journal for MotherTalk was a bit tough. Not tough like I didn't appreciate certain aspects of the book, but tough like I'm pretty far beyond some of this stuff and it's hard not to look at it with a cynical eye.

Taking that cynical eye out of the picture SOMEWHAT though, one of my favorite things about this book is that it's spiral-bound. While that may seem silly to a lot of people, if I'm going to WRITE in a book, I NEED it to be spiral-bound, cuz those bendy hard-bound regular-type books, well writing in them just doesn't work.

The problem with THIS book however, is it's far too big for my purse and way too blatantly PERSONAL for me to carry around. While I'm getting braver and braver about who I share my infertility stories with, I personally would not carry around a book with the word FERTILITY on the cover - not to work, not to a restaurant, not to the movies. And really, THOSE are the places infertiles get calls about things going on with their body, THOSE are the places where random fertility/infertility thoughts pop into our heads, THOSE are the places where it'd be super handy to carry around a notepad or journal that I could just whip out, write stuff in, and put away with nobody around me none the wiser what I was really writing about.

Overall, the book is set up really well. It's clean and white, it has lots of little BUBBLES full of fun FACTS and TIPS, and has a TON of space to write stuff down. However, I don't know if I'm blind or was just not looking in the right places, but I found it ODD that none of the little FACTS and TIPS referenced where they came from? Like on page 146, where it says 85% is the number of patients who can be treated successfully by an RE - really? Cuz those are NOT the numbers I've seen in my research.

And while the content on eating healthier, changing life habits, and ALLLLLL those other lovely things it is they recommend, IS in fact, very helpful to a TTC newbie, for me, even as a newbie, it wouldn't have been enough. Cuz for me, by the time I was ready to buy a book, I was 6 months in, and at 6 months in, I would've PLOWED through this content at lightning speed, and STILL been left hungry for more info.

Don't get me wrong, this book's a great start, but I think it would've suited some of my friends better, in that they were interested in tracking this "process" of TTC from day 1, so the pace of this book would've really worked for them. I on the other hand was in extremely strong DENIAL for the first 6 months that I'd EVER need help, and then when I managed to pull my head out of my ass and realize sometimes life ain't so simple, I was in what I'd liken to a feeding frenzy for info, and this book wouldn't have quelled my hunger.

So my thumbs are: One up, one down.

The Fertility Journal was created by Kim Hahn, the founder of Conceive Magazine, and Geoffrey Sher, the Executive Medical Director and co-founder of SIRM™.

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