I have high FSH, and Julia's book was wonderful!! I tried to conceive for 2 years with 1 miscarriage. After reading Julia's book I completely changed my eating habits, took up Yoga, started acupuncture with traditional Chinese herbs, and took various other herbs. I used positive imagery, and also did inversion. I got pregnant within 6 weeks of starting this regimen and had a very healthy baby girl. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Julia!!!!

Lisa

First of all, I would like to sincerely thank Julia Indichova for writing this book and sharing her personal journey out of secondary infertility. This is an excellent yet simple book for those of us sick to death of doctors and their opinions, medicines and poking on us!Secondary infertility is a little written about subject and less talked about. I found a lot of comfort in and courage from reading Indichova's story. Read this book if you are fed up with people telling you you are too old or unhealthy to have a baby- or a second one. Get healthy, take charge of your body- treat it well and you will get pregnant!

This book is a great read for those going through infertility. The author shares her story in an understandable way that I could relate to, given my experiences with the process. I highly recommend.

This subject matter of this book appealed to me because, after 5 years of infertility, I finally had my son. Unlike the author, this wasn't years spent taking my wheatgrass shots and doing acupuncture - this was years spent in the hands of Western medicine and finally doing IVF, which worked.

Here's what I liked about the book: it is highly readable, and a nice and inspirational story about a woman suffering secondary infertility who won't take no for an answer when the medical system tells her that her FSH numbers are too high to have a baby on her own. She did her own thing, was determined, followed her instincts, and in her case, it worked. I like the idea that people need to be proactive about their medical history and path they're on. That people need to listen to their gut instinct and that they know the best thing for themselves.

What I didn't like is her general tone that it's perfectly okay to turn your back on Western medicine and go it alone, and you'll have a baby. At the end of the book, she talks about a friend of hers who has "unexplained infertility" and she can't understand why this friend is still drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, etc. Well, maybe these things contribute to this woman's infertility, but I'd say it's highly unlikely. Ahem, what about all the chain smokers/ alcoholics who get pregnant? All the crack addicts?

Then, there are tales at the back of the book of people who got pregnant following alternative regimes. One woman picked her own herbs and thus felt very "connected" with nature. Another had some kind of cranial massage and let go of all her negative emotions. I'm glad these women got pregnant. But, these women were in their 40s or thereabouts. If you really, REALLY want a child, you'd be ignorant to ignore Western medicine in those situations. I'm scared there are people out there who will follow a regime of acupuncture/ herbs/ diet changes, and will miss the boat when they don't fall pregnant by their mid-40s.

I'm not saying these things don't help. They do. But, statistically, more infertile people are helped through IVF. Also, if you are an infertile woman trying a bunch of things, and you get pregnant, you are liable to put it down to whatever you were doing at the time. As well as pursuing IVF, I personally tried Chinese herbs, a Native American healer (!), chiropractors, etc. When I fell pregnant on IVF, I was also doing acupuncture, diet changes and guided imagery. Did these things get me pregnant? Maybe they helped. But if I had fallen pregnant another month, I would have thought that other things helped. I think, more likely, my number was up - IVF is a numbers game. I should add that I had an earlier pregnancy a month after I started taking Chinese Herbs. I immediately thought, "Wow, Chinese herbs are the answer!" But I miscarried later on, and even though I took herbs for the next three years, never fell pregnant in that time again. I'm not saying Chinese herbs don't work for some people, but for every person they work for, there are also tales of people who have a different history.

The author acts as if she has stumbled upon the truth behind infertility, when in fact she should just stick with talking about her own personal story. I like this as a read, and I hope people take out of it the essence of the story - that you should follow your instinct, be proactive, be determined, and never give up. But to take her specific advice, when time ticks against most women who are infertile, would be dangerous. I was 33 when I started trying to get pregnant, and had my baby at 38. I really didn't have any time to waste.

Some things really made me mad in this book, mainly other people's stories at the end. Here are some examples:

"I was also concerned a bout the fibroid on the outside of my uterus, and I found a book which...said that people get fibroids when they reject their feminine side, which is what I had been doing for a long time."

Huh? I've heard about blaming the woman for not getting pregnant ("If only you just RELAXED, it would happen for you"), but I've never heard of blaming her for fibroids, too.

"My friend Lisa went to Julia's workshop...I don't think she had a major problem and she actually got pregnant very quickly."

Wow, what an endorsement!

And there are other stories of people who decide not to go the Western medicine route and take things like pulsatilla, instead, because "it's appropriate for people who had a hard time making decisions."

All very well and good - but this is supposed to get you pregnant? Dangerous, dangerous information if it's supposed to be used INSTEAD of Western medicine as a surefire cure, instead of as an adjunct.

Also, a lot of these testimonials were by women who apparently weren't that infertile. A lot of them started trying to conceive very late, after years of being ambivalent, and some of them had past histories of pregnancy. I'm sorry, but if you're part of an IVF group and meet enough infertile people - people who've been trying to get pregnant for over ten years with story of hideous losses - these testimonials almost read like an insult.

I will say, however, that it is good to be in charge of your own medical history and make proactive decisions. So, if readers get that out of the book, fantastic. Western medicine is certainly not infallible, and does not hold the answers to all ills. But neither does holistic medicine. For a good book about striking the balance between the two, I would recommend "Spontaneous Healing" by Andrew Weil.

I read a lot of infertility books and enjoy reading personal sagas about infertility - -particularly success stories like this one. It gave me hope and made me realize how much we need to take charge of our health. I would like know more about what happens next!