What to Expect When You Want to Be Expecting: A Roundtable Q&A

For those who were taught sex education in high school, it sounded so easy (and sometimes was) to get pregnant. Twenty years later, however, it can be a very different story. Whether we've picked out a friend to help us conceive or are choosing a donor from a bank, we can suddenly become aware of how little we know about how to get pregnant.

Dr. Richard Scott and American Fertility Association's Pamela Madsen reported in their survey report, What Mother Didn't Tell You About Fertility...Because No One Ever Told Her, that nearly half of the respondents thought overall health is an indicator of a person's ability to conceive. That's actually a myth. Although smoking and weight affect fertility, a person's overall fitness level or gynecological bill of good health doesn't equate to ease of conception.

As Marla Libraty, vice president of marketing for the egg-freezing company Extend Fertility, told us, "We'll get calls from women in their 40s who say they exercise regularly, do yoga, look 27, but we have to tell them that it doesn't matter how you look. The eggs are the age of your body. We get misled by the celebrities on the cover of People who deliver babies well into their 40s. What isn't usually made public is who is using donated eggs."

In fact, the primary reason the fertility business is thriving today is not because more people are facing traditional causes of infertility-such as blocked fallopian tubes or low sperm count-but because more people are postponing childbearing until the women are well into their 30s, when the quality of remaining eggs is generally poor.

Based on 2005 data about people using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) - which is one of the more aggressive and costly treatment options - 30 percent of the clients are there because of age-related decrease in egg reserve, compared to five other specifically named causes.

Choice Moms tend to be well-informed women who want to make the best choices we can. That means being skeptical of some advice, educating ourselves, making decisions based on our own values, and choosing individualized solutions (without a lifetime partner to talk it over with) that aren't based on a one-size-fits-all approach.

We asked some of the excellent fertility specialists, ob/gyns and medical directors in the United States and Canada the questions that most single women (and, we're told, plenty of partnered/married women, too) wonder about when they want to conceive. Our panel of doctors didn't always agree on the answers. But here, from the comfort of your own home and without a paper gown barely covering your lap, is your chance to learn from some of the best.