"A gripping account of one woman's journey through the global fertility industry that exposes eye-opening information about the medical, financial, legal, scientific, emotional, and ethical issues at stake. Elizabeth Karkin never imagined her quest for children would ultimately involve seven miscarriages, eight fresh IVF cycles, two frozen IVF attempts, five natural pregnancies, four IVF pregnancies, ten doctors, six countries, two potential surrogates, nine years, and roughly $200,000. Katkin, Ivy-educated and with a wealth of resources, found she was woefully undereducated when it came to understanding and confronting her own difficulties having children. After being told by four doctors she should give up, but without a definitive explanation as to what exactly was going wrong with her body, Katkin decided to look for answers herself. The investigation that followed was a twisted and vexing exposé of the wildly divergent approaches to--and governance of--fertility practices around the world. Now a mother of two, Katkin sheds light on the often murky and baffling world of conception science--as a medical discipline and as an industry. With an afterword by the founder of New York Fertility Services, Dr. Joel Batzofin, Katkin weaves the stories of dozens of patients in with her own journey, revealing a quixotic and subjective industry that is particularly troubling in the United States, where a lack of standards and regulations and data reporting leaves patients-really, consumers--in an unenviable state of ignorance and where 'clinic shopping' is the norm. Katkin wants to spare other women her struggles, and provides a hopeful road map forward. [This book] bravely offers a look inside one of the most difficult, painful, rewarding, and loving journeys a woman can take."--Dust jacket.