I had an amazing realization a couple days ago. But before I tell you about it, let me set the Fertility 101 stage, as it were: A baby girl emerges from her mother’s womb with all the eggs she will ever have, already residing in her tiny ovaries. Baby boys, on the other hand, don’t [...]
God knows that the news lately has been anything but fun, so I was touched a few days ago when I happened upon the whimsical announcement that a 22-year-old giant panda named Mei Xiang gave birth to a tiny cub a few days ago at the Smithsonian National Zoo. But as I continued reading, I [...]
One of the most humiliating experiences I’ve ever had ultimately changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. I take you back to 1982 (gasp). While waiting for an interview for a ‘women’s health educator’ position at a women’s clinic on Olympic Blvd. in Los Angeles, I fidgeted with dread. Anticipating the interview, [...]
A few days ago, I had the, um, pleasure of subjecting myself to one of the many indignities women continually face when taking charge of their health: the lovely mammogram. For those of you who somehow missed the memo, a mammogram is a diagnostic procedure in which each of a woman’s breasts is basically squished [...]
Stuffed and mangled manila envelopes packed with all manner of research studies etc. would only get us so far back in the ‘80s. Ultimately, the founding members of the secular Fertility Awareness Network realized that in order to learn all we could from each other, we’d have to meet in person. But because we didn’t have the benefit of [...]
I’ll never forget the phone call I got back in the’80s just a couple weeks before I was scheduled to do a presentation for engaged couples on a religious weekend retreat. It had come to their attention that I was single, so they felt they had no choice but to cancel my lecture because I [...]
For those of you old enough to remember when movies cost less than $4.00 at theaters (gasp), you no doubt remember “Annie Hall” one of the most memorable movies exploring male-female relationships and sex. One classic scene exemplified the difference between men and women: “How often do you have sex?” asked their respective therapists. “Hardly [...]
Years ago, when I was in the midst of writing my book for teen girls called Cycle Savvy, I had an experience exactly like one of the principles that I was illuminatng in the book. But more on that in a sec. Ask any person with a uterus, and they will tell you that we’ve [...]
A couple days ago, as I was regaling a friend and her 11 year-old daughter with the story of my somewhat less-than-auspicious first and probably last sky-diving adventure, I had an epiphany. But first, a little back story. When I completed the first edition of my book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility, nearly 25 years [...]
Orgasms cause women to release eggs. This is an especially intriguing myth — that orgasm can lead to spontaneous ovulation. But alas, it’s completely false. The process that leads to ovulation is the gradual increase of estrogen over a period of several days. Now I suppose if you had an orgasm that lasted from, say, [...]
