Who Will Get Pregnant First?

Feb. 22 -- Planning a family is not nearly as easy or definite as planning a wedding. It's a hard fact that I learned myself two years into my marriage.

My husband Al and I couldn't seem to get pregnant, and I was stunned when my gynecologist sent us to a fertility specialist. After all, I was only 36. But my skepticism soon turned to relief, when through the miracle of fertility treatments, I was pregnant within five months, and eventually gave birth to beautiful Leila Ruth.

We joined the 2 million other couples in this country who need help with the basics of baby making: getting sperm and egg to meet. It's not as easy as we all think: Just ask any couple who's been trying and trying.

Three Couples, One Goal

With the help of Men's Health magazine, that's exactly what we did. Three brave couples agreed to get personal and be contestants in a prediction game of sorts: Who Will Have a Baby First?

The first couple, Trey and Lisa Maxwell, are from Birmingham, Ala. He's a lawyer; she's a banker. Married for six years, they love traveling and only recently began thinking about children. Lisa is 38, which by my standards is young, but not necessarily the case in the fertility world.

A woman's fertility actually begins to decline in her late 20s. So at 38, Lisa has only a 65 percent chance of getting pregnant.

There's another issue: Trey smokes, which medical studies show can damage his sperm. As for their sex life, Lisa says they used to have sex twice a week, and now they're getting intimate about every other day.

Krista and Aaron Spradlin from eastern Pennsylvania have been married for two years. She's 25, which means she has a 90 percent chance of getting pregnant. Both are healthy, but live very busy and stressful lives with opposite work schedules.

"Time is definitely, I think, the biggest hurdle for us," said Aaron. "And stress."

"We miss each other every day," said Krista, a schoolteacher, who comes home from work when her husband, a restaurant manager, is just leaving.