Fertility issues

KCSPresse/Splash News Online

Céline Dion isn’t pregnant after all – but will keep on trying for a second child.

“We are living the reality of the majority of couples who have to use [IVF]. The process can be long and arduous,” Céline’s husband René Angélil, 67, told the Canadian paper Journal de Montreal of their failed attempts. “But today, we are full of confidence. Celine is more determined than ever.”

Forty-one-year-old Céline’s doctor announced that she was pregnant via in vitro fertilization very early in the process, and it is now revealed that the embryos transferred in August and October were unsuccessful.

“Dr. Zev Rosenwaks believed that the procedure/pregnancy took, but that wasn’t the case. We found out some days later. We were shocked,” said René.

They quickly tried again to get pregnant, but were unsuccessful, he added, “But you know Céline. She doesn’t let go.”

The couple have one “extraordinary” son, René-Charles, 8 ½, who was also conceived with the help of Rosenwaks, director of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Center Medical Center.

“I admire all the women who go through such a tough process. Since April, she has undergone numerous examinations, multiple hormone injections and blood tests,” René told the paper, revealing the couple will go to New York this weekend for a third try. “Céline and I didn’t get discouraged … we put our faith in life and in the stars.”

– Julie Dam

David Aguilera/FilmMagic

When Sharon Stone suggested that the 2008 Sichuan earthquake — which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands — was “karma” for China’s mistreatment of Tibet it drew understandable criticism from the world at large. The 51-year-old actress and mom-of-three acknowledges as much in a new interview, but says that her reaction was based at least in part on her own private maternal suffering.

“I had two pregnancies that I lost in the late fifth month,” she reveals to Prestige magazine, “And this is so awful because I had to go have surgery when my children died.”

Calling the experience “a trauma that you just cannot bear,” Sharon says that her grief was only magnified by the 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

“I was in some kind of crazyville. The horrific loss of those people’s children caused me tremendous grief. I was relating to this earthquake like some kind of crazy mother.”

So “grief-stricken” was Sharon privately, her public actions were the manifestation of all she had lost. “I was really relating to their grief,” she explains before adding,

“I had lost children myself. All of that was really heavy upon me. I was really speaking as a heartbroken mother.”

Sharon is mom to sons Roan Joseph, 9, Laird Vonne, 4, and Quinn Kelly, 3.

Source: Prestige via Ireland Online

– Missy

Russ Einhorn/Splash News Online

Thanks to the help of a surrogate, The Young and the Restless star Michelle Stafford is expecting her first child — a girl — this December.

Michelle, 43, who has won two Emmys for her role as scheming Phyllis Summers on the CBS daytime drama, tells PEOPLE that she relied on a surrogate after struggling through fertility treatments and surgeries.

“After a three-year journey through hell, I’m elated, ecstatic and feel ultimately lucky to be able to announce I’m expecting my own child via surrogate in December,” Michelle says in a statement.

Michelle, who is single, tried artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and also looked into adopting after deciding to start a family on her own. Four surgeries and three egg retrievals later, she finally arrived at the surrogate option. “I never wavered in my desire to be a mother,” she says. “But I did waiver on aspects of the process. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

The actress, who worked with Los Angeles-based IVF specialist Dr. Buylos and the surrogate agency Fertility Miracles, plans to be in the delivery room when her daughter is born in December. In the meantime, she’s already looking forward to a baby shower at the home of pal Kirstie Alley — and readjusting her take on the dating world.

“This entire process has been very, very difficult to do on my own,” Michelle says, “and has made me realize the importance and reason for a partner.”

“Dating men and telling them I’m expecting in December is a little different,” she adds. “I know I just need to find someone who wants the same things as I do.”

– Mark Dagostino

KCSPresse/Splash News Online

Céline Dion, now expecting her second child, is “very excited,” says her doctor, Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, who performed the in vitro fertilization procedure that made the 41-year-old singer’s pregnancy possible. When he called her earlier this week to say the pregnancy test was positive, “You could hear her chuckling,” he says. “She was very happy. So was René. They are both very thankful.”

Dr. Rosenwaks, director of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at New York-Presbyerian Hospital/Weill Cornell Center Medical Center, transferred a embryo that had been kept frozen in liquid nitrogen for the past eight years. “She is very, very early in her pregnancy,” says her doc.

Céline had her embryos frozen when she went through IVF while trying to conceive her first child, René-Charles, who was born in January 2001. When she completed her performance run in Las Vegas in 2007, she consulted Dr. Rosenwaks about trying again. “She came back to have the embryos transferred back because she wanted to have another baby,” he says.

According to the fertility specialist, freezing an embryo for eight years is not necessarily a problem. “There have been embryos that have been [frozen] for more than 10 years, and even more than 15 years, that have successfully thawed and resulted in a pregnancy,” says Dr. Rosenwaks.

Meanwhile, the doctor says, “She is feeling well. So far, so good. I look forward to hearing the fetal heartbeat. René and Céline are both looking forward to a pregnancy that is a healthy one.” He adds, “There is no question she is ecstatic.”

Céline is due in May 2010.

Source: PEOPLE

– Liz McNeil

Danny Martindale/WireImage

Model Jools Oliver always knew she wanted a family, but also suspected it would not be as simple as it sounded. “Even when I was 17, I thought there might be a problem and that I’d have trouble conceiving because my periods were irregular,” notes Jools, now mom to daughters Poppy Honey, 7, Daisy Boo, 6, and Petal Blossom Rainbow, 3 ½ months.

After Jools married celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in 2000, the couple started trying for a baby without success. Soon after, the pair decided to have testing done to see what the problem was. “I was quite quickly diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which meant that I wasn’t ovulating each month like normal,” she explains. Despite the diagnosis, Jools was unfazed by the road ahead.

“You hear horror stories and you think it’s going to be hard, but I didn’t care. I just wanted a baby.”

Jools made the decision to take the drug Clomid, which stimulates ovulation. “I had all the side effects,” she remembers. “Dizziness, panic attacks, blurred vision.” However, she was “determined to get the thing done. It was awful, but I just thought: ‘Keep going.’ I’m sure any couple that has been through fertility treatment understands what I’m saying.”

Even more paralyzing than the side effects was the fear that Clomid wouldn’t work. “I think I spent lots of time panicking and that made the effects of the drug worse,” she admits. “It was a hard few months and there was so much pressure on us both. It was especially tough for Jamie because he was working. It’s not a nice way to try to get a baby really.”

After months of trying, the couple learned that a baby was on the way. An overjoyed Jools “fell in love” with the doctor that helped her and Jamie achieve their dream. “I suppose I’m just another patient to him,” she muses, “but if I go back to the hospital for a check-up and see him, I always think about what he did for me. He probably does it every day, but for me it was a miracle.”

Click below to read about Petal’s arrival, the girls schedule and if more kids will be on the way.

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ABC

When Nia Vardalos began trying for a baby, like so many women, infertility caught her off guard. She left no stone unturned in her quest for motherhood, either, including an unsuccessful attempt at surrogacy. “It didn’t work for me,” she tells the Boston Herald. “Can you believe it? Nothing worked. I tried everything.” Even traditional adoption proved problematic; For four long years Nia says she was “on every list, for every country.”

“I was trying to adopt an infant in the States and it fell through. Over and over again.”

After taking a break from her career as an actress and writer to deal with what she calls the end of her “10-year battle with infertility,” Nia found adoptuskids.org, which helps arrange foster adoptions. “These two women, social workers, came into our lives,” she recalls, and their optimism was infectious. “They just said, ‘This is going to happen. There are 129,000 kids who are legally free for adoption.’”

“That’s when I went, ‘I’m going to be a parent. This is going to happen.’”

Eighteen months ago, her now almost 4-year-old daughter arrived and the family of three has never looked back. Nia declines the opportunity to name her preschooler, explaining that she and husband Ian Gomez are “trying to give her a shot at anonymity.”

“It was just the most amazing process. All of a sudden our daughter walked in our house, and she looked up at me like, ‘What’s for lunch?’“

Source: Boston Herald

– Missy

INF

When Nia Vardalos found her long battle with infertility drawing to a close almost five years ago, the actress — famous for maintaining her privacy — took a detour from the industry and gave both her mind and body a chance to mourn her loss. “I gave up being on camera and dealt with it very quietly,” she reveals to PARADE. “I had lost my own way.” Reflecting back on her decision to shield herself from the spotlight, Nia couldn’t be happier with the outcome: during her hiatus the actress was asked to write a script for Tom Hanks.

“I’m very, very happy I did it because it gave me a new perspective. So I wrote six scripts and just tried to get my ‘kefi’ (Greek for mojo) back.”

Once Nia and her husband Ian Gomez embraced the idea of adoption, following a string of failed attempts, the clouds parted and the 46-year-old says she found hope in American Foster Adopt. Now, encouraging families who are considering adding to their family to seek help from the organization, Nia gushes that welcoming her almost 4-year-old daughter — “the most amazing creature” –  was “the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Having accepted that she is living out a life plan far greater than the one she had once envisioned for herself, Nia admits she puts all her faith in God.

“I highly recommend just stepping away … I’ve just accepted that if you have a plan, God has a plan. And your plan doesn’t count.”

Nia’s new movie My Life in Ruins is in theaters June 5th.

Source: PARADE

– Anya

Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

Sarah Jessica Parker says the surrogate mom carrying the actress’ twins is a strong woman who made “an incredibly generous and gracious choice.” But Sarah Jessica now worries that this strength is being put to too much of a test from the media attention following the announcement that the Sex and the City star and husband Matthew Broderick are expecting twin girls in July.

“On a daily basis, on an hourly basis, I am greatly concerned for her health and safety and the safe delivery of our children,” Sarah Jessica, 44, tells Access Hollywood in an interview that aired Tuesday. “I am incredibly outraged by the sort of extraordinary and unprecedented invasion of her privacy. She’s [okay] today, but she’s had a bad week in the very recent past… You understand what stress, worry and fear and being scared can do. She’s quite far along in this pregnancy and she’s carrying two children…. There’s simply no excuse for doing this to somebody. It’s not acceptable.”

The actress alleges that the surrogate, along with her friends and family, have been subjected to threats and harassment by the tabloid media. “Obviously there are those that don’t care about her, or her health, or safety, or my children’s health and safety, and that they should go to term and not go into an early labor and, God forbid, suffer all the things that can happen — that is a real possibility,” she says. “Every single allegation that I know has been suggested about her is absolutely slander and libel … it’s really incredibly upsetting to think of her so far away and me not being able to do something, beyond what I’m legally allowed to do.”

All this comes at what should be one of the happiest times in the lives of the couple, who turned to a surrogate out of necessity. “We have been trying to expand our family for a number of years and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so,” Sarah Jessica reveals. “I couldn’t pretend otherwise. It would have been odd to have made this choice if I was able to have had successful pregnancies since my son’s birth.”

The couple have also explained some of the surrogacy process to James Wilkie, 6 ½. “I’ve been pretty candid with him,” she explains. “I kind of chartered my own course with him because we wanted to keep this quiet and so I wanted to be very careful about telling him so he wasn’t burdened with a secret. On the other hand, I wanted him to have time to adjust to the idea of sharing his mama and his papa. My son is of an age now where he really will be helpful. He’s really excited. He’s very much ready to be an older brother. I think it gives him a great sense of pride. It’s wonderful and I just hope for their safe arrival.”

The actress has high praise for the surrogate. “I’m really comfortable with her. She’s made a really big choice to be part of our lives and I think she’s an honorable person,” says Sarah Jessica. “You can’t express enough how much you think about decisions like this … She’s strong, bright, independent, thoughtful, caring, gracious and generous.”

Source: Access Hollywood

– Mike Fleeman

Alison Dyer for PEOPLE for use on CBB

Constance Marie has been open and honest about her struggle to conceive daughter Luna Marie, 3 months, and in a new interview with MomLogic she offers advice to other women experiencing infertility. “The thing that helped me most was knowing that I was going to have a family one way or another,” she explains. “If it wasn’t naturally, it would be with fertility drugs or IVF or donor eggs or adoption.”

With that mindset in place, Constance says she never felt as though she was out of options. Noting that “women are planners,” the 43-year-old actress adds that “if we know there’s a backup plan to get to where we want to be, even if we have to tweak it along the way, it makes us feel better.” Something else that helped was subtle reminders to stay positive. Constance elaborates,

“I put up Post-Its over my desk, one saying ‘Take the pressure off’ with a smiley face, and the other saying ‘No stress.’ I found when I was feeling down, seeing those would interrupt those negative thoughts in my head. It really helped.”

Reading up on the subject is never a bad idea, and Constance also recommends seeking out others who are in a similar situation — “even if it’s just online.” Lastly, she suggests that women should be realistic about their window of fertility. “I totally support women working on their relationships, their careers, or whatever they need to do to be healthy moms,” she says, “but it’s also important to realize you may not have as much time as you think.”

Constance — who conceived Luna on her third IVF trial after two miscarriages and an unsuccessful attempt with Clomid — also credits a “detox” for helping her to become pregnant. “I did acupuncture throughout the process, started eating organically, cut out fish because of the mercury, did a liver-gall bladder detox cleanse, and stopped drinking out of plastic bottles and got rid of all my Tupperware,” she explains, citing BPA concerns. ”I also tried Japanese enzyme baths, where you get buried up to your neck in wood shavings and enzymes, which pull toxins out of your body when they’re heated — you feel amazing afterward!”

A healthy home is every bit as much a priority now that Luna is on the scene. “I learned so much about the toxicity of our environment while trying to get pregnant, I didn’t want to do anything to mess up the kid now that she was finally here,” Constance says. In her research, she learned that nurseries “tend to be one of the most toxic rooms in the house,” so Constance set out to buck the trend with Luna’s eco-friendly room. To that end, she used VOC-free paint, purchased an “inexpensive crib” made exclusively of wood — not particleboard — and a mattress made of 100% rubber from a rubber tree, which has natural antibacterial and antifungal qualities.

“The more we all ask for this stuff, the more they’ll make. It took me three and a half years to become a mom, so it makes me feel so good to know I’m giving my baby the best chance I can to develop a strong immune system and live a healthy life.”

Luna is Constance’s daughter with fiancé Kent Katich.

Source: MomLogic

– Missy

Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

It’s a boy – almost! Olympian Kerri Walsh, who is expecting her first child this month with her pro volleyball player husband Casey Jennings, reveals that the couple will soon welcome a son named Joseph Michael Jennings.

“I am beyond excited,” the gold medal-winning beach volleyball star tells PEOPLE. “It’s more beautiful and more special than I ever thought possible.”

The athlete, who announced in December that she was expecting, says that this pregnancy is extra special to her. “We had been wanting to have kids for a long time and tried to get pregnant before Beijing but had a miscarriage,” she admits. “It was sad, but the way it happened I had to wait at least a year before trying again. Then we got pregnant literally first try, day one in Beijing after we finished. Beijing baby. It was an inspired conception!”

While Kerri, 30, and Casey, 33, had initially wanted to keep the baby’s gender a secret, they decided to find out Christmas morning with their families.

“I filled out this letter to Casey saying ‘Merry Christmas. We have a beautiful baby —- on the way’ and I had the doctor fill it out. So neither of us knew at that time. My mom got the letter framed and we opened it on Christmas and found out together. It was the last present we opened and the best. I was so overwhelmed, everyone freaked out.”

So will there be more future Olympians on the way for the dynamic duo?

“Absolutely,” says Kerri. “We want at least three kids. I want my boys and a girl, I want it all! But I want to keep working because I love my job so much. I just need to learn how to be a good juggler and we’ll get it all done.”

Source: PEOPLE

– Jennifer Garcia