Tracy Rasmussen of Pottstown, Pa., thought conceiving children was going to be a breeze, but Rasmussen and her husband began having fertility problems soon after trying to conceive. Eventually, it was determined that she had endometriosis.

"I thought I had a lot of time to conceive, so we tried some conventional therapies to shrink the endometriomas (the tumors associated with endometriosis) but it didn't work, so I was recommended for surgery," Rasmussen says. "The surgeon told me that he might have to do a hysterectomy if things looked really bad."

Though they didn't have to take her uterus or ovaries in that surgery, a second surgery took one of her ovaries and left the other one unable to function. Rasmussen had been sure that the second surgery was going to work, and once it became clear she wasn't going to be able to conceive on her own, she was devastated.

"I felt horrible," says Rasmussen, who is now the adoptive mother of twins. "I was depressed and cried a good deal of the time. I'm sure the hormonal imbalance caused by my very sudden and early menopause didn't help, but I was devastated."

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