BILLINGS - Giving birth to a child is often called the miracle of life, but for some it's more miraculous than for others.

"Infertility is defined in our books as the inability to conceive after one year of trying," said Dr. Douglas Ezell, an OBGYN and fertility specialist. Dr. Ezell said infertility is more widespread than you might think. "It happens to about 15% of all couples," he said. "Once they start getting into their mid 30s or 40s it's probably 20% of all couples."

He said there are many options for people in this situation. First one or both members of the couple could try using fertility drugs. "Hopefully they'll conceive with that. There's pretty good success rates with that," Dr. Ezell said.

If fertility drugs don't work, couples can wade through long lists of sperm or egg donors to help them conceive. Dr. Ezell said couples are usually very selective about the donor they choose. "Generally the couples try to pick someone who has similar characteristics as the parents," he said. Often couples are so successful that people can't tell the child is not genetically related to both parents. "People will come up and say, 'Little Johnny looks like this daddy,'" Dr. Ezell said. "And daddy didn't provide any genetic information so the couple just laughs to themselves."

Dr. Ezell said the bottom line is that reproductive technology has advanced so much in recent years that almost everyone can have a child. In the next installment of Alternative Birthing we'll learn the differences between delivering with a midwife and a delivering with an OBGYN.