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PREFACE Although there are worse infirmities than infertility, to those receiving that diagnosis, it is a humbling, distressing experience that can wreck mar- riages and careers, send self-esteem plummeting, and topple plans for family building. In denial, many people spend years trying to conceive naturally although the medical definition of infertility is only one year of intercourse without attaining a pregnancy. On the other hand, some people go to the other extreme—they panic after six months of negative preg- nancy tests and rush to the fertility doctor for answers and assistance. Sometimes those answers and medical protocols are clear and can be remedied through hormones, surgery, or even weight loss, but other times the reason for infertility is never completely understood—either through clinical tests or through medical history. An unknown cause is a fierce enemy to infertile people. It discombobulates them because they worry that this embarrassing turn of events forever dooms them to the unhappy, stigmatized state of childlessness. Yet science has kept pace with infertility problems. In the past few dec- ades since the famous 1978 “test-tube” birth of Louise Brown in England, biological innovations have rescued many people from the prognosis of sterility. No longer does infertility limit couples to adoption or the child- less option instead, infertility has become a genetic adventure and a booming industry complete with donor sperm and oocytes, surrogate mothers, and high-tech procedures going by initialisms like ICSI, AI, GIFT, ZIFT, IUD, and IVF. Medical techniques and genome mapping have joined forces to dispense hope to many people whose biological clocks have essentially stopped or failed to function the LBGT popula- tion with their missing gametes those struggling with infectious diseases