Kyra Phillips - The Whole Life Fertility Plan: Understanding What Effects Your Fertility to Help You Get Pregnant When You Want To

From Kyra...

I dedicate this book to my husband, JD. Not only did you provide me with the super sperm that makes our twins brilliant, it was you who encouraged and inspired me and Jamie to write this book. Thank you for the gift of motherhood, family and the deepest love I have ever known.

From Jamie...

I dedicate this book to my family:

My wife Anne, who encouraged me to write a book I would never have been able to without her support and encouragement.

My five amazing children: Jamie, Chris, Maggie, Isabella and Biagia, whom I dearly love and who challenge me, teach me, humble me and terrify me.

My family of six sisters, one brother, my parents and the village of others who raised us.

Last but not least to my patients, who allow me the privilege of helping them build their families so I can make a small difference in this very big worldone loved, cherished and appreciated baby at a time.

The turning point in my life was the day my house flooded.

I was away on assignment, which was where I usually was at the time. I was born to be a reporter, and by that I mean I started up an unauthorized school newspaper in the fourth grade. My best friend in class had a father who was a piano tuner, and she once told me that he tuned Dr. Seusss piano, so I convinced her that it would be a very good idea if the two of us sneaked into his office to find Dr. Seusss phone number so I could interview him for my newspaper.

Where did you get this number?

I was unprepared for the tenor of hostility I detected on the other end from one Theodore Geisel.

Sir, I got it from my friends dad and I wanted to know if I could interview you for the very first issue of Valencia Park Elementary Schools newspaper, which I have founded myself.

I expected him to congratulate me on my moxie and possibly suggest that I come over for lunch and shadow him for a day as he wrote his next book.

What an intrepid little reporter you are! he would say. You have a bright future ahead of you.

Instead he said, You have five minutes. Now, if I could find any record whatsoever of that interview, I might not be able to make this assertion, but since there is no proof otherwise, Im declaring that it was the most poignant five-minute interview of his life. From that point on, I was hooked.

Career Woman

I worked my way up from intrepid elementary school newspaper reporter to CNN, which was when I truly felt that I had arrived. My career was going wonderfully, but it became suddenly clear to me at age thirty that my girlfriends were getting married and I wasnt. I wanted to be the woman who had it all, and having it all meant a husband and kids in addition to the great career. Although I wasnt ready for changing diapers just yet, I did think it was time to get on the path. So I got married.

I mean, it wasnt entirely impulsiveI didnt just grab some random guy who happened to be walking by the nearest Vegas courthousebut it probably wasnt the wisest decision of my life. Even so, for the first few years, it was good. He wanted to have a family right away but I didnt, so we sort of compromised: We didnt try, but we didnt use birth control, either. I hoped Mother Nature would recognize that this was not the right timing and go bless some other young womans womb and leave mine alone for a while. I was too interested in traveling and reporting at the time.

I spent a month in Antarctica in 2002 working on a documentary about the science and danger on Earths most frigid continent, tracing the steps of the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. I built and slept in an igloo, rappelled down glaciers, introduced viewers to rare penguin colonies and got to report on some of the continents most fascinating scientific discoveries.

You know what I wasnt thinking about? Babies. I was even kind of judgy about the women my age who were having babies. Girlfriends who used to be up for drinking and dancing all night long now said, Oh, but little Joey will be so out of sorts if Im not here when he goes to bed or I have to be up early to take Maya to the zoo tomorrow. I was thinking, These poor women. Those kids have taken over their whole identities. They dont even remember how to have fun anymore.

I also did not understand how certain women in my office could bail out of work early because of something-or-other with their kids. Dont you get it? I thought. You have a great job! How could you blow it by not being committed to it?

Im telling you, I was a jerk. Not to anyones face, but in my own brain I was. There was plenty of time to be saddled with little children later, I figured. I wanted to suck out all the marrow of life, as Henry David Thoreau put it, and I sure couldnt do that with a diaper bag slung over my shoulder.

My family was great about staying out of my ovaries and encouraging me to follow whatever path I chosein fact, they seemed to admire my independence and hadnt bugged me about getting married, eitherbut this one coworker seemed to be on a personal mission to make me reproduce as soon as possible.

Kyra, you would be a great mom. You need to hurry up and have a baby. You really can have it all. I dont know what youre waiting for.

Yeah, uh-huh, I said sagely.

Im making it work. I have it all, she said. You can, too!

Yeah, sure. But are you getting sent on this great interview on the other side of the world? Are you covering the exciting assignments? No. That would be me, because you have to be back in time to lead the Daisy troop. Sucker.

This conversation occurred nearly every time she caught me sitting in the makeup chair. I couldnt get up and walk away, so it was the perfect time to grill me. I just replied Yeah, uh-huh and gave noncommittal answers while I mentally rolled my eyes.

When the war in Iraq began, I reported as an embedded journalist aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and from the ground once the U.S. military moved in. I learned about the strong faith of the Iraqi people, and about how to survive on nothing. Even our own military had very meager accommodations and supplies. You had to find a way to live without nearly any of the comforts of homethe things youd always taken for granted. It was in this place of lack and nothingness that my spirit took a giant leap forward. I slept well. I got back to basics and I talked to people. It felt like important work, and I received many awards for it.

I felt good about myself as a person and as a woman. I wasnt having anxious chats with my uterus about when we were going to get it together. Maybe I should have been, but I didnt know that. I figured I was in good shape, still looked young and had plenty of time. But then my marriage fell apart, which you probably saw coming, because Im thirty and I think Im falling behind schedule is a terrible reason to get married and there was finally no denying that anymore.

Things got really, really, really bad in a short period of time. Ugly bad. We got a divorce in 2007, which left me feeling not only brokenhearted, but as though I was off the path. Now I was even more behind schedule because I had to start over.

A friend of mine with the same starting over fear stayed in an abusive marriage just because she wanted to have three kids and she was afraid it would take too long to find someone new and get settled before it was too late. She felt as if she needed to start having kids soon if she was going to have enough time to have all three, and that became temporarily more important to her than whether or not the guy would actually be a good husband or parent.