Advice for infertile women

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Advice for infertile women

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I would tell a woman who has been diagnosed with the disease of infertility that she has a disease and she should not feel as if she is a female pariah. She doesn’t have this god-given gift to become a mother naturally. And to help her separate shame from the experience of having a physical stigma. I think that the stigma attached to infertility is that if a woman really should be able to have a baby, then she would have a baby naturally. And I think this is a real fallacy. So the sin of omission from women who have had fertility treatments, hormone treatments, surrogate, an egg donor, a sperm donor, whatever modern medicine has afforded them to have a modern family, I think at this time where the tide is changing for many reasons, specifically being that women are having careers, they’re finishing college, they’re affording themselves the opportunity to fall in love with the right person not the person right then that will facilitate their family, they are getting a little bit older. And our bodies aren’t cooperating with us. So as we turn 30-35-38 and become self-realized women, women who are really capable of being great moms because perhaps we know ourselves better, we are more self-defined, we have an income, we can provide. We are also having fertility issues, because this is the way nature is. So there’s something really great about all of these older mothers. But also if we don’t come out about the fact that we’ve had modern medicine to help us, then it’s a sin of omission because younger women, the women of the reproductive generation, are not being told the truth. Once you reach 30, you need to go to your gynecologist and you need to ask for two simple, affordable tests. And I mean it for the 30 year olds, too, which seems extreme. But at 34 years old I found out that I had fertility issues, so I don’t think it’s ever too early. You need to ask for your hormone levels to be checked and your fertility reserve to be checked. Then you may discover you’ve got 20 year old eggs and you’re 35. Great! You can freeze them. You can wait. You can do whatever you want. But power is knowledge. Be an advocate of your body. And be an advocate of your future family if you really want one. So as women we can come together as a family and really inform one another. And that’s what I would say to a woman who is really struggling with infertility issues. I would say, now you have to pay it forward.
PREGNANCY, Fertility, Infertility

Watch Elisabeth Rohm's video on Advice for infertile women...

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Elisabeth Rohm

Mom, Actress, Author

Seen to many as a supermom, actress Elisabeth Röhm has been successfully juggling a full time job as a mother and actress over the past few years. Not only is she a successful film and T.V star, she also has a published book, and a weekly celebrity mom blog on People.com that reaches over a million readers—it is amazing that she stays beautiful, healthy and positive while managing to be consistently by her daughter’s side. Currently, Elisabeth plays "Amanda" on the new CBS TV series Stalker.
 
These past couple years were eventful as Röhm was seen in several feature films. She starred in Warner Bros.’ thriller Transit across James Caviezel, produced by Joel Silver. She teamed up with Kyra Sedgwick and Vincent Donofrio in Chlorine. Elisabeth shot the Lionsgate feature by Brian A. Miller, title Officer Down, as well as Darkroom, an independent feature directed by Britt Napier and produced by Michael A. Liberty and Ron Stein (The Kids Are Alright). Last year, Elisabeth also starred in David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed film, American Hustle, co-starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence. Röhm, along with her cast won the SAG Outstanding Performance by a cast in a Motion Picture Award. 
 
Elisabeth was also seen on the Lifetime TV Show, The Client List, as “Taylor Berkhalter”. Her character is a mother who is in continuous competition with Riley (Jennifer Love Hewitt). She also has written a book, Baby Steps: Having the Child I Always Wanted (Just Not as I Expected), that came out just last year. Elisabeth has always been very open about her struggles getting pregnant and going through the challenges of IVF. The book tells the often hidden truth behind infertility. As she struggled with infertility, she kept it to herself, but now for the first time she reveals the whole story, learning about and accepting her infertility, the disappointment, the stress and the shame. 
 
Born in Europe, yet a U.S. citizen, Röhm was raised in New York City. Her first childhood interest was riding horses, for which she trained intensively. By the time she entered Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, her goals shifted to writing in the form of fiction and history. It was during college when Röhm fell in love with acting. After receiving her degree, she quickly found work on the soap opera One Life to Live and followed it up with a long line of recurring appearances on the WB television show, Angel. However, most know Röhm best as the “A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn” on the NBC staple series, Law & Order where Dick Wolf, creator/producer of Law & Order praised her as “one of the finest young actresses working in television.” She went on to star as “Alex Mason,” a love interst to Michael Vartan’s character, in the ABC drama Big Shots and later returned to NBC as a new addition to the cast of the cult-favorite Heroes.
 
Röhm has also starred in numerous films including Abduction alongside Taylor Lautner and Sigourney Weaver, Miss Congeniality 2, starring Sandra Bullock, and Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry.  She starred in Kreutzer Sonata, an independent project co-starring Danny Huston and starred opposite James Caan in the film Barry Minkow. You can expect great things from her entering the next couple years. 
 
The desire to seek new challenges is not unusual for someone so multi-talented. Röhm is writing a cookbook (brilliantly titled “The Wooing of the gay Man and the Actress”) as she loves to cook, sings, and continues to ride horses; she also includes hiking, biking, skiing, yoga, traveling and studying architecture among her hobbies. Being that she believes in health and being active, she is developing a gym franchise and has already invested in Circuit Works located in Brentwood, CA and is a co-owner for a juice bar called REJUICE located in Santa Monica. She supports The Red Cross, The Go Red Foundation, Healthy Child Healthy World and as a whole does what she can to support children and women in need globally.
 
Röhm welcomed her first child, a girl named Easton, on April 10, 2008. She retains residences in New York, Venice, CA, and in Holland.
 
More Parenting Videos from Elisabeth Rohm >
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