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Fertility medicine is a dynamic, living field of science. While clinical studies and testing can be a slow process, research is ongoing and new developments are being announced all the time. Many of these new discoveries may seem tiny, but all of these individual contributions from researchers add up to a formidable body of knowledge which is used to develop new treatments, technologies, and approaches to infertility. Any new piece of information can be the puzzle piece which leads to an important breakthrough.

The rise of personal, wearable tech (and the apps which come along with them) has been stratospheric, and it’s not showing signs of stopping any time soon. While almost everyone is aware of fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, and step counters, there’s a new wave of extremely personal tech that’s getting a lot of attention right now: fertility trackers. What are they, how do they work, and what can they do for you? Are they a valuable aid for women who want to get pregnant, or just a trendy gimmick?

The stress of the holidays can get to anyone, at any time. Shopping, cooking, crowds, entertaining, travel, family dynamics, the end-of-year push at work: it all adds up. If you’re dealing with infertility, however, things can get even more complicated. Emotions are running high, and triggers are everywhere. Sometimes, everything seems to be aimed at reminding you that you’ve just spent another year struggling to get pregnant without success. Getting through the holidays with your sanity intact is possible. It just takes a little planning and a lot of self-compassion. Boundaries are especially crucial at this time of year. Here are five ways to take very good care of yourself over the holiday season.

Being proactive about your fertility is one of the most empowering decisions you can make as a woman. Life moves fast, and in reality, our window of peak fertility is relatively short. Sometimes we discover that we’re happiest with a completely independent lifestyle but know that having a child is what we’ve always wanted. Sometimes the perfect partner doesn’t appear “in time” and we aren’t willing to compromise on love or on our dreams of having a baby. Instead of waiting for the stars to align, many single women are forging their own paths to parenthood with the help of assisted reproduction.

Donor reproduction or third party reproduction is a process where someone other than the intended parent or parents provides DNA (in the form of an egg or sperm) or gestation (through surrogacy) to help bring a baby into the world. The use of donor sperm in intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most common type of third party reproduction, and there are many reasons why it’s such a good option for so many patients.

While sperm donation has often been the butt of jokes in the media and the process is often misunderstood, third party reproduction of this type is a very routine part of modern fertility treatment. Sperm donors make it possible for all kinds of families to welcome a new child into their lives, and we think the subject deserves a spotlight. Today, we’ll take a look at the types of patients whose lives can be transformed by fertility treatments using donor sperm.

PCOS stands for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, a condition which affects more than ten million women around the world. PCOS causes a wide range of symptoms which can be very disruptive to a woman’s life, and which can interfere with her fertility. There is no cure for PCOS, but there are many treatments available which can be very effective: thanks to advances in fertility medicine and technology, most patients with PCOS who want to get pregnant eventually do.

Today we have another entry in our ongoing Doctor Spotlight series. September is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) Awareness Month, which makes this a perfect time to introduce Dr. Carolyn Alexander. Dr. Alexander is known affectionately in the fertility community as the “PCOS Queen” for her unparalleled expertise and knowledge of this subject.

Endometriosis is one of the most common causes of female infertility, and it affects up to 10% of women of childbearing age, according to the National Institute of Health. As if the extreme chronic pain and heavy bleeding that endometriosis can cause were not enough, it can also seriously derail your plans to get pregnant. Of the more than 5 million American women coping with endometriosis, at least a third must also deal with its impact on their fertility.