I don’t remember how I found this book. Maybe I Googled “pregnancy book I won’t set on fire.” I bought the second edition, the one with the hideous cover art. A Getty stock image? Barf.

After two OBs referred me to Fairfax Cryobank, Death Star of Fertility, because they wanted nothing to do with at-home DIY baby-generation, I started buying books from the Single Mom by Choice subgenre of parenting literature.

These disappointing tomes devote about as much space to the details of at-home insemination as “The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians” does to “Sex with a Man.” (Three paragraphs under “Other Options.”)

My favorite part of “The Ultimate Guide” is the first line of chapter four, “Getting the Goods”:

“Sperm. It’s a subject many of us have shied away from most of our lives.”

It’s comforting to know that many women potentially find this process even more off-putting than I do.