Lately I have been hearing from women who would love for me to return to creating new podcasts. I took 2011 off from the work, but hope to return this year with new shows -- and perhaps a webinar series! I currently have 46 shows available, with more than 39,000 downloads. Here's what's available.

A woman on the Choice Moms Over 40 discussion board asked women to weigh in on her concerns about using Bravelle to try to conceive.

I've been looking for additional sponsors to help develop Choice Mom resources, and one that has long been interested in working with us is European Sperm Bank USA.

This is the kind of story we are always afraid can happen -- tends not to in this era -- but has.

A woman I have been in communication with over the years is a television producer who is ready to create a show about the Choice Mom journey, starting at the beginning of the process.

This Mother's Day weekend I'm contemplating the good, the bad, and the ugly of Choice Motherhood.

Any of you who have been following Choice Mom resources over the years is likely acquainted with Cathi. She found the humor in the stress of trying to self-inseminate, in learning about her own fertility, in being pregnant, in being the mom of a newborn, and now in being simply, joyfully, Mom. Here is her story in a nutshell.

As we continue our look this month into alternatives to the "traditional" IUI route for Choice Moms, here are some great resources.

We all think we know how our cycle works. Until it's time to time ourselves for the purpose of insemination.

We have a new fertility team in the Choice Mom network. I'm happy to introduce Dr. Rudy Quintero, who runs his own clinic in the Los Angeles area. His team is starting us off with some tools about ovulation detection.

A woman on the Choice Mom discussion board asked what she could do to better guarantee her child's genetic health from an anonymous donor.

This documentary promises to be an interesting one for people using assisted reproduction technology.

Here it is! For a limited time, the special new baby for our Choice Mom community. Our Choice of ChoiceMoms.org tips from 2010, featuring everything from Organization to Building a Support Network, Q&A to Commentary.

Our Choice Mom-friendly therapist Patricia Mendell let us know about a special event this weekend in NYC for families (single and married) built through donor conception. There is also a second note here about her telephone group discussion this week on talking about donor conception.

Kristin Kali, our Choice Mom friend at Maia Midwifery, is not in the San Francisco area full-time anymore, but she is providing several unique fertility classes and consultations when she's back in the area. Here are the details for January.

Several years ago I got a call from the long-time co-founder of California Cryobank (CCB), gently and intelligently "checking me out" as an educational partner in his attempt to help his colleagues in the sperm bank industry understand why some policies needed to change. Since then...

At the ASRM convention in 2009 for reproductive medicine specialists, I finally found a company I wanted to work with for our many women pursuing at-home insemination. Since then, Sepal Reproductive Devices has become a primary sponsor of our Choice Chat podcasts.

ONLY TEN COPIES LEFT IN PRINT! Years ago I collaborated with Wendy and Ryan Kramer, the mother-and-son co-founders of Donor Sibling Registry, on some new tools for families created by donor conception. This was one of them.

Are you struggling (alone) with the weight of deciding whether to persevere with costly fertility treatments? There are mental health counselors who specialize in the fertility industry who are here to help you. This is great, detailed advice from one of them.

There is nothing that prompts more questions on Choice Mom discussion boards than when a single woman is purposely trying to conceive. We quickly learn how little we know about something we've been taught can be so easy. The Choice Mom Guide to Fertility gathers the most common questions and answers them, with the help of 15 fertility specialists we interviewed specifically for this book.

This is one in a series of Q&As I am conducting with members of the donor sperm industry. The goal is to help educate Choice Moms-in-the-making about important policies that should help inform their decision about which bank to work with, even before choosing a donor.

I met Vanessa at the Choice Mom networking event in London (July 2010). She is developing community connections for Choice Moms in her area, and had these tips to share about the pros and cons of Belgium as a fertility treatment option for single women.

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Will you ever have to prove your donor child doesn’t have a father? When I gave birth to my daughter via anonymous donor IUI in 1999, I hoped that the information regarding her father would be left blank on her birth certificate.

Thanks to Choice Moms sponsor Sepal Reproductive Devices, which offers products and insight for women using home insemination, for these guidelines on working with a known donor.

We know that it is essential to understand your ovulation schedule in order to pinpoint the short window of success for insemination timing. But women often learn -- late in the process -- that temperature charting and ovulation detection kits don't always tell you what is important for you to know.

This is one in a series of policy comparisons ChoiceMoms.org is developing about the donor sperm industry. It's important for Choice Moms to be comfortable not only with a particular donor, but with the sperm bank that recruits and tests him. No one regulates the industry and women should understand the differences between banks before they "get in bed" with any donor.

This woman shared her story on the Choice Moms discussion board, and I thought it was a great reminder to women using a known donor: Make sure you talk about sperm testing before spending too much time trying to conceive.

Long-time Choice Mom supporter California Cryobank announced at the New York City event in July 2010 that it was opening a New York branch office in the fall. It will be located across from Grand Central Station, at 369 Lexington. The benefit for Choice Moms is....

A hard decision for Choice Moms is whether to put a lot of money into one IVF attempt, or to try potentially multiple cycles of less expensive IUI treatments. Here's what one fertility expert advises.

I've been asked by some to offer comment on the study about donor-conceived kids that was released in May 2010 by the Commission on Parenthood's Future, in conjunction with the Institute of American Values.

Trying to purposely conceive, by quietly fitting doctor inseminations in with work schedules, is highly stressful. Kim Guay, of A Clear Vision Organizing, spoke to Choice Moms at our San Francisco event about how to stay organized, well into our future lives as moms.

Whether you are inseminating at home, or with a doctor's care, here are 7 tips to help enhance your fertility, thanks to Dr. Lee Kao of Choice Mom sponsor Laurel Fertility Care:

Even if insemination wasn't your first choice for having a child, there is still an important factor of love in the equation, as Maia Midwifery's Kristin Kali talked about at our Choice Mom event in San Francisco.

I have interviewed many fertility experts for questions specifically posed by the Choice Mom community. Here are audio clips from some of those conversations.

Before Jessica had her baby girl in May, she had a long journey of thinking, and negotiating with a known donor. Here's her story in audio form.

A woman on the Alternatives to Marriage Project Facebook page wrote that she was denied coverage for fertility treatments because she isn't married. She's on the Choice Mom path. Let's weigh in on which insurance companies do a better job of coverage.

It is more important to start your donor search with selection of the right sperm bank, before identifying donor characteristics. Arm yourself with this checklist of questions to begin the process.

When you don't have a partner to help you conceive, creating a baby at home can seem like a mystery. How do you do it? What do you need? Choice Moms sponsor Sepal Reproductive Devices will be offering regular tips on this website, starting with this one.

Egg and sperm donor banks must adhere to certain safety standards, related to infectious disease testing. However, the donors themselves are not required to have genetic testing. That's why it's important for you to know the standards of the bank you want to work with -- and know what questions to ask.

One of the best gifts of Choice Mom networking events is when small groups of women on similar paths find each other to discuss their joys and concerns. Here's what women in the Trying stage talked about with counselor Krista Post.

One advantage of sperm donor conception is that you are looking at your eggs and a donor's sperm much more scientifically than if you were conceiving with a man you fell in love with. That means you have tools at your disposal to prevent potential medical problems for your child. Your sperm bank might have evaluated your donor’s family history, but have you had yours evaluated as well?

Some time ago a librarian wrote to me asking that I send my various books for Choice Moms and donor-conceived families to the Library of Congress for cataloging. This stemmed out of her discovery that there are very few books about donor conception available. She compiled this list, however, of everything she had found to that point.

After you've learned about how to detect your ovulation, the next best thing would be to find out how the ovulation predictor products rate, from other women on the Choice Mom path.

Someone recently posted on one of the Choice Mom blogs that a friend of hers was intending to have sex with a stranger in order to get pregnant, and not tell the man. Not surprisingly, this made the friend uncomfortable.

Uber organized Jessica, a Choice Mom in every way, will deliver her first child in a few months. While she was in the Thinking process -- preceding a long Trying phase -- she developed a worksheet that calculated how much she would need to spend trying to conceive, for prenatal care, for newborn items, and for post-delivery childcare expenses for a year. Here are the numbers she came up with.

A woman who currently lives in a European country that doesn't allow people to use donated egg or sperm asked the Choice Mom board for suggestions about where she might go for treatment options.

A woman asked on the discussion board: "Does anyone know how important it is that you have a doctor who is experienced in handling frozen sperm and the cryopack, and warming the little guys up? My first two attempts were the first two times my clinic has ever handled frozen sperm, in our little town of 9,000 people. My doctor has the vials in a water bath with a soup bowl and a mug from the staff kitchen at the clinic.

Karen offered this up on the discussion board. "After my 3-year-old god-daughter ran around the sushi bar last night repeating "sperm" and NOT using her indoor voice, I came up with these code phrases to talk about donor insemination:

Listen to this growing library of clips and podcast excerpts about home insemination.

A growing number of independent websites and discussion groups have formed that connect donors directly with people who are in search of sperm. There obviously are no safeguards with this kind of contact. Many of the donors indicate they are giving altruistically, motivated only to help people create families.

There are many things to talk about with a known donor candidate. This Choice Chat podcast covers many of the issues with two unique experts.

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Even before I made the choice to conceive with a known donor, I knew that however I conceived I would be doing it myself with as little medical intervention as possible. After all, it's my body, my fertility, and in the end I'm creating my family. It feels very important to me to take responsibility for and to understand the process, as well as the result.

We asked a few sperm banks about their policies about sending sperm to the home:

A common concern of Choice Moms-in-the-making is how the success rate differs when using fresh and frozen sperm. Do you diminish your chances of success when using frozen sperm? I asked two experts, with two perspectives, about their thoughts.

Whether a woman is using ICI, IUI, or doing home insemination with frozen sperm, she must order either unwashed or washed sperm from a bank.

There are three types of insemination techniques: 1) vaginal (or peri-cervical), which uses a syringe (the kind used to give infants liquid medicine) to place sperm into a woman's vagina, near the cervix, 2) intracervical insemination (ICI), involves the use of a catheter or cannula, to place the sperm directly into the cervix, 3) intrauterine insemination (IUI) involves the use of a catheter, or cannula, to place the sperm directly into the uterus.

Q: I am looking into having a child with donor insemination, but I am not sure where to begin, and what to expect about cost. What should I know?