I am 34 years old and have been married to the man of my dreams for four years, although we have been together since 1991. We have had a pretty remarkable life together. Now we want a family. I guess we have wanted a family for some time now.

Flash back to 1997. My husband Henry and I were looking for big changes in our lives. We moved from NYC to San Francisco and I stopped taking the pill. Everything in my life up to that point had come rather easily. Not that I did not work hard, but if I focused enough attention, good things came. Naturally, I expected to be pregnant right away. Well I was, but that pregnancy and the two that followed in 1998 ended in early miscarriage (all before 8 weeks). How could this possibly be happening to me?

Now on to an RE. Two months of Clomid, one of injectible medications -- Gonal F and Repronex. And nothing but an ovarian cyst. This was not in the plan, and yet another year was swiftly passing us by. Well, all was not lost (there is my annoying optimism again) it seems that we now had a better understanding of what was going wrong. I am low on some or one of the hormones that regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle. My follicles produced an egg all right, but it "over ripens" on the vine, if you will, and does not release on time. With the help of an ultrasound, we have found that the follicles sit for five to seven days after they reach maturity. There is no hope of a successful pregnancy once conception is achieved due to the over ripened egg. (Can you tell that I am not a doctor?)

What to do? Use hormones to regulate and recreate a normal healthy cycle. Henry and I are fairly aggressive and have grown impatient. That leads me to this, my second IVF cycle. And I figure that I should throw in some holistic approach for good measure. (I am in Northern California after all.) I don’t want to leave any stone unturned.

I know that I was meant to be a mother, that my husband and I should be parents together. Like most of you, we played by all of the rules. Never used illegal drugs, don’t smoke or abuse alcohol, have a loving home on a dead end street with money for our children’s college education safely in the bank and we have a solid relationship. I even work from home four days a week. All we need is the baby.