Below is my definition of the following initials. It is not meant to represent any medical advice/terminology. It's just a woman's experience of them.

- stands for basal body temperature. This means each morning the first thing you do it take your temperature for 5 min. You can not get up or move around until after five minutes. You have to do this every morning and write it on a chart. Supposedly your temperature will raise right before you ovulate. That's how you know when your fertile.

- is a long word for an xray that they do of your female insides. You have to lay on a table while they fill you up with radio-active dye. The dyes goes in your uterus and up your fallopian tubes. This is suppose to show if one of your tubes is blocked. Is it painful? Well, it is at the least very uncomfortable. Painful as in, the worst period cramps you can think of, more so if you actually have a blockage. Ask (insist) your doctor for some pain medication. Take it before the test, in case you do have a blockage. The whole thing only lasts about 5 minutes.

- this one is a real trip. It stands for post coital test. Bare bones language meaning is - you have sex at a certain time (determined by doctor), then go to doctor(one wanted me there no more than 30 minutes after my husband came!). You can not wash your crotch, or clean up in any way! One Dr. wouldn't even let me pee. Try spreading your legs and getting a pelvic, when you gotta go!

Then you get a regular pelvic exam and he takes samples. They look for mucus, sperm that made it up there, etc. So basically you are having a pelvic exam while your crotch is smelling like sex. WHEW, and they went to school for this? If this were a test for a man, they (male doctors) would have made it different I'm sure! The most pain you will experience will be dying from embarrassment.

- that stands for follicle stimulating hormone. They use a blood test to check your FSH level in your body. My level was at 20, when I started. After 5 days of Gonal-F it went up to 87, which they said was good. It basically tells them my body has enough of the hormone needed to make extra eggs (follicles).

- this is a fancy and confusing way of saying "hey we injected the sperm into your egg, it's fertilized now. All it has to do is stick to the side of your oven, and the loaf will bake itself! In ten months voila you will have your own slice of heaven. The egg they put in you is already a baby (embryo) but, it has to stay inside you and grow. The actual fertilization happens in a lab and you two could be miles away while your "baby" is being made. "Jinky's Scooby the things they can do, with an egg these days!