Personal Stories: Fertility Problems

Thirty-six degrees Celsius. Day after day, morning after morning. It stays the same. I can't tell you how much I want it to change. To go up. A rise in temperature would be a sign that I ovulated which would mean that maybe, just maybe I could be pregnant again...

Miriam told me she and her husband had been trying to conceive, but after trying for over two years - nothing had happened. At first they'd laughed it off as 'work-induced stress', but after a while they realized it was a more serious problem...

For awhile, I bided my time. I went to the gym, and met friends for coffee. I enjoyed these months without bottles and diapers because I knew that the next load waited just around the corner. Until a series of miscarriages...

Treatment after treatment, month after month, year after year, my womb remained empty. Nothing happened except the pain in my heart grew stronger...

I came home and explained to my husband that I just couldn't do it again. I couldn't start with the treatments again, the running around like a madwoman, the ups and downs, the anxiety. I just wanted to be happy with what I had...

I cannot have kids. I wrote to him about the emphasis Orthodox Judaism seems to place on women having many kids.