Infertility book giveaway extravaganza!

Hopefully you are one of those people who -- when you are ready -- invests in a nice bottle of wine and an Al Green CD and nine months later holds nature's greatest miracle, a baby, in your arms. However, if you are one of those people who -- after months or years of heartache -- invests in injectible drugs and the expertise of a specialized medical team in hopes of getting a miracle pregnancy, this giveaway may be for you.

With the birth of my no-twins-do-not-run-in-our-family-thank-you-EVERYONE-for-asking baby boys, I find myself on the Other Side of infertility. (For the most part. But that's a post for another time.) And despite the fact that I love to read, I've never been a book collector -- save the complete works of Jane Austen, "The Talisman" by Steven King, and a select few others. So instead of keeping these on my bookshelf to remember the good times (ha ha!) of trying to expand our family, I want to hold a giveaway of the infertility books that helped me on our journey.

SET #1

I bought these books after 12 months of negative home pregnancy tests, back in 2006. What to Do When You Can't Get Pregnant by Daniel Potter and Jennifer Hanin contains lots of great info to introduce you to options for family building when good old fashioned knockin' boots gets you nowhere. Unsung Lullabies: Understanding and Coping with Infertility by Janet Jaffe, Martha Diamond, and David Diamond deals with the emotional aspects of infertility. It normalizes the experiences and emotions of the treatment rollercoaster and gives you permission to take care of yourself as needed. The books are a perfect complement to one another.

SET #2


I bought these books when we decided to return to treatments for another child -- which turned out to be children. Of course I had to get Navigating the Land of IF by Melissa Ford, our reigning Stirrup Queen. She expertly blends the technical with the emotional to provide a guide to everything from understanding treatments to surviving other people's baby showers. And I purchased So Close: Infertile and Addicted to Hope by Tertia Albertyn because I enjoy her blog as well. This book is the candid and emotional retelling of Tertia's own journey through IF to her beautiful twins.


To enter is easy. Just leave one comment below and let me know which set of books you'd like. And if you would like either of them, let me know which one appeals to you more. For example:

"I would like set #1 or set #2, but I would prefer set #2."

Brilliantly simple.

At noon (Pacific) on Tuesday, July 6th, I will use RANDOM.ORG to draw numbers that correspond to the comments. The first person selected will get their top choice of books, obviously. Then I'll draw a second number, or continue drawing after that until I get someone who wants the other set. Hopefully this is making sense. It makes sense to me, but I haven't had an entire 4-hour sleep cycle in almost three months.

I am not holding this giveaway to build my "followers" -- so you don't get extra entries for following me or tweeting about it or anything. (Although please feel free to pass the word along to anyone who would like them, or follow me just to make my day.) I just hope the books can be educational, useful, and comforting for someone else, just as they were for me. And as I look at my three precious miracles, I have a bit of hope that there's some luck between the pages.

Oh, and don't forget to leave an email address (if it's not in your profile) so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck!