This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Sarah Zadek will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
An evidence-based guide to optimizing egg, sperm and uterine health for improving the odds of a healthy pregnancy (whether naturally or with advanced reproductive technologies such as IVF), no matter your gender, sexual orientation, or relationship status. This witty and easy-to-follow guide addresses key factors in fertility such as your: genetics, gut and vaginal microbiomes, diet, physical activity, sleep, stress, and exposure to environmental toxins.
Understand the science behind fertility, how to troubleshoot “unexplained infertility,” PCOS, endometriosis, and the challenges with conceiving in your 30s and 40s. Learn how to track ovulation, when to have sex (or inseminate), and which supplements may help along the way.
Enjoy an Excerpt
Bringing a live baby into the world is an incredible capability of humans, but a more impressive miracle starts about nine months before that. The number of steps and processes that must occur (or not occur) for conception to happen and for a fetus to grow is almost unbelievable.
Of the millions of sperm introduced into the vagina, roughly 5%–10% are actually “normal.” One in those 5%–10% has to then blindly travel— relying only on the fluid they’re swimming in and the changes in physical conditions around it—to make it all the way from the vagina, up the cervix, into the uterus, then up the correct fallopian tube to meet an egg that we hope is healthy and ready. That sperm then must have a healthy head so it can fuse with and break into that egg. Once inside, both cells need to merge their DNA, creating the DNA of a new living creature.
But they’re not done yet.
That egg needs enough energy to sustain this transaction and the five-to-six-day journey to the uterus.
So now you have an embryo (yay!). That embryo has to undergo cell division, cleaving that single zygote cell into sixteen cells. Each of those cells is compacted and forms different layers while hoping that the lining of the uterus is ready for it. That uterine lining also has to make changes to create a receptive landing pad. It sends out signals and changes the layout of the ground to make sure the embryo can attach properly. And don’t forget about the timing: it must be done within the proper “implantation”…
About the Author:
Dr. Sarah Zadek ND, is a writer and licensed Naturopathic Doctor in Ontario, with an honours degree in biological sciences and a Doctor of Naturopathy degree. Sarah currently practices at Conceive Health at TRIO Fertility in Toronto, an integrative clinical model that supports collaboration between naturopaths and medical practitioners. When she’s not working or spending time with her husband and daughter, Sarah loves getting lost in a good book or going for a run with her dog Maple.
Buy the book at Amazon
Book two in the Sin City Kilts series
If the delivery had been a demonic bowling alley or a mermaid’s grotto, Ivy would have sent it away. She has standards, after all. But she can’t refuse a magical Library, especially when they’ve gone to the trouble of including a wheelchair ramp. They say that on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog, but somebody knows fourteen-year-old Ivy is an orphan, that she sells her paper-writing services to lazy college students, and that her imaginary friends are unhappy being stuck in the mural on the wall of her Alaskan home.
Chad Musick grew up in Utah, California, Washington, Texas, and (most of all) Alaska. He fell in love in California and then moved with his family to Japan, where he’s found happiness. He earned a PhD in Mathematical Science but loves art and science equally.
Lizzy has largely retreated from the world: she tends her adopted strays and goes to work, but she has forsaken lifelong pastimes and declines invitations from old friends. On the day she buries Happy, the abandoned basset hound she adopted years before, she learns a real estate developer is threatening the heart of her rural community—a tranquil pond and a relict stand of hemlocks. For Lizzy this is a magical place, hidden from the modern world.
From living above her parents’ hardware store in Brooklyn, New York, to living a mile down a gravel road in semi-rural Texas with her husband, sons, and the local wildlife, Eva Silverfine has explored a variety of urban to rural landscapes. On that journey, she earned two degrees in the environmental sciences, worked in an entomological research lab, and eventually retooled as a copyeditor. She freelances for several academic presses and writes personal narrative and fiction in the in-between spaces. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of online journals; she has published a collection of essays, Elastic Walls: From Brooklyn to Texas and Points in Between; and her novels, How to Bury Your Dog and Ephemeral Wings, have been published by Black Rose Writing.
Adventurous ten-year-old Elvia is sick of her dull-as-dishwater existence, suffocating under the stifling watch her overprotective parents. She longs for a different life, with more freedom and fun. But she gets more than she bargains for when she discovers an alarming family secret and is swept away on an adventure 64,000 light years from Earth. Tanzanian witch doctors, child-eating lions, and submarine exploration on a two-mooned planet enliven this science fiction fantasy adventure, the third in Ballard’s award-winning Tales by Moons-light series.
Children’s book author Dr. Ruth (Ruthy) Ballard is a scientist by trade who never thought she’d be one. Intimidated by science as a kid, she almost gave up on pursuing it as a career though she found it fascinating. Fortunately, a mentor stepped in and showed her the way. Now, she’s passionate about doing the same for the next generation of science shy, but creative, smart and capable kids. Her award-winning science fantasy adventures lure children in with compelling characters and entertaining, twisty plots that incorporate science in fun, accessible ways.
Following the exodus from rising floodwaters, the surviving descendants of those who came to create a society on a planet far from Earth have struggled to rebuild within the remains of an ancient temple. Now, as disease and an unfamiliar environment threaten to destroy them yet again, everyone seems to have an opinion about what to do next.
Benjamin, a speculative fiction author, ran with scissors when he was five. He now writes, paints, uses sharp woodworking tools and plays with glue. Sometimes he does these things at the same time.
Do you ever feel like life is consistently bashing or bullying you? Extracting every pound of flesh?
