Sarah Preston Gorenstein is a magazine writer, editor, journalist, and digital content producer…when she’s not navigating the rough terrain of Working Motherhood. A former nightlife columnist and dating blogger for Chicago magazine, Sarah reinvented herself when she became a mom in 2009 and began chronicling her new life for The Parenting Post, blogging about all the issues that plague working moms today. She was a new mom while simultaneously serving as the full-time managing editor of Playboy.com. She worked for Playboy for nearly a decade, which never ceases to provide her with colorful material for her writing.
Sarah’s the beaming mom of a happy two-year-old named Preston, and just as she finally felt settled into motherhood she took on her hardest project yet—trying to conceive baby no. 2. Tune in to the Fertility Files every other day to read about Sarah’s personal, and often painful, journey going through secondary infertility.
If you want to read more about Sarah and her adventures in parenthood, see an archive of Parenting Posts below. She also blogs regularly on her personal site here (www.thecosmomom.com), where she holds absolutely nothing back. Ever.
With our IVF cycle in September I produced 33 eggs, 14 of which fertilized to become “perfect quality” blastocysts, a.k.a. day-5 embryos. Think about that: I produced 33 follicles in a single month, when a woman normally produces ONE. Read Full Post
Preston’s only 2 ½ so he doesn’t totally grasp the idea of a “sibling” yet, but I’m pretty sure he wants one. He’s always been very social with other kids, and gets adorably excited when we get together with our friends’ kids or his beloved cousins. I know the inevitable question is coming... Read Full Post
The truth is: I have absolutely no idea sometimes. But I can tell you a few things I experienced along my journey that might help you decide whether or not this infertility road is the right path for you. Read Full Post
I’ll go first: I used to keep my pelvis tilted and my legs in the air after sex, thinking that it would actually help…ya know…keep his semen from spilling out. Sorry, there's just no delicate way of saying that. Read Full Post
And I won’t judge you for not wanting more kids. I’m going to make this short and sweet: Some people want more than one child, and some don’t. It’s a personal choice, and it has nothing to do with feeling incomplete. Read Full Post
Our decision to try IVF next wasn’t an easy one, but we decided to take the big leap because there are better success rates with IVF vs. IUI—based on my diagnosis and age, we were given about a 60 percent success rate. Read Full Post
You never really know what someone is going through behind closed doors—even someone who conceived naturally once, like me, can be struggling to conceive baby no. 2. Here are some things you should never say, and a few things you should never hold back. Read Full Post
Do you know what “DH” means? I didn’t until recently. Another bad side effect of the infertility process? The infertility message boards and forums that I’ve found myself on at 2 a.m. Read Full Post
Once you start all the fertility treatments, it’s very hard to stop. For lack of a better way to describe it, it's like being addicted to drugs. You want to stop, but you can't. Read Full Post
To pick up where we left off, after I went on Clomid (and then cried), we decided to try IUI with injectable medications. For one reason: Better odds than IUI with Clomid, and better odds than Clomid alone. Not to beat a dead horse, but the age factor is always the giant elephant in the room. Read Full Post
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