It was more than just a flight of fancy. Recent infertility chat room discussions about garage sale purchases of an expensive fertility monitor had given one chatter the inspiration to check out what the online auctioneer had to offer, so I was just following suit.

Hmmm. Different result sets appeared depending on which key term I entered in the search field (apparently, there is no agreement among eBay sellers on the spacing of the words "Clear Plan"). I tried endlessly to come up with the correct combination of entries to see all monitors at once ("clearplan", clear plan; "clear plan", clearplan; clearplan, clear plan) and eventually gave up and just typed in "fertility monitor."

I got eleven hits. The highest bid was at $153, while the lowest was $75. A few "new in box" monitors were offered, but they weren't going for significantly higher. A subsequent visit showed that the newer monitors had eked out over the others, running around $175.

I wondered. Is it totally gross to use someone else's fertility monitor? The pee sticks are disposed of after each use, so it's not like you would have to touch someone else's pee. I guess your pee might touch someone else's, but I imagine the pee would have to be stick-restricted, since the monitor was designed to be used multiple times.

Wondering further, why would a woman with a normal cycle waste $200 on a monitor, when a $22 book on fertility would do just as well (also currently available on eBay from $5 to $11 – key term: Weschler)? I'm not sure if monitors still retail for $200 (I know they were last December 31st, when I was at the drugstore trying to spend my flex plan money), but if the price has dropped at all, eBay sellers wouldn't be getting such hefty prices.

And then, how much help would the monitor give a woman with an abnormal cycle? I suppose if she were just irregular, the monitor would help determine her most fertile days. But for women experiencing true infertility, the monitor would be of little or no use.

Admittedly, I was the host of a regular chat on charting for About.com’s infertility site at the time of my search, and I believe that a woman's body generally gives her ample information to determine whether or not she is ovulating. I believe that ovulation predictor kits (opks) are a waste of money for most women. I'm appalled at how readily physicians recommend them, while eschewing charting basal body temperature, which is much cheaper and generally easier to interpret.

Again, opks seem particularly ill-suited to the needs of women experiencing infertility, since one of the challenges of infertility is knowing whether or not ovulation has occurred (and if ovulation isn't the infertile couple's challenge, again, of what use are opks or the monitor?). Since those kits give you about five days worth of tests for $30-$40, you can see how an opk is not really that cost effective (you can find opks on eBay for as cheap as $2, though, so I may have to re-think my criticism. Search term: ovulation).

On yet another whim, I deleted all other terms in my search and tried "fertility." Books, penile pendants, biorhythm charts and a magazine article about Celine Dion were among the results.

The most interesting, to me, was the statuette of the Phoenician fertility goddess Astarte, dating from 200 BC. As the seller indicates: "She is the powerful Mother Goddess from whom all life flows." One would think such a priceless antiquity would be bandied about at an astonishing price, but the current bid was only $66! According to additional information provided, this carving was responsible for several pregnancies, including the seller's own. I'd say for most folks experiencing true infertility, this phallic-shaped goddess would provide more help than a fertility monitor. And at a bargain-basement price!

My search for "infertility" returned less amusing results. There was a book, Overcoming Infertility, that sounded useful, but knowing how easily I can be whipped into a bidding frenzy, I quickly clicked the back button.

Back on the track of monitoring my fertility, I entered "fertile focus" into the search field, hoping to run into the little instrument that helps one discern the "fern" structures in saliva that appear around the time of ovulation. (Don't "oh, gross" me – I know you were considering sharing pee with someone else, so how bad could a little spit be?)

No luck there. I tried different spellings, but still no results. I'm sure that since the big pharmaceutical chains haven't picked up on the saliva-scope, it is not as well known. That's unfortunate for the baby-seeking masses, since the Fertile Focus monitor sells for about $30 (who among you hasn't spent that much already on opks?).

Perhaps if the company who makes Fertile Focus decided to charge a heftier sum for their monitor (say, around $200) and provide for an electronic display of some sort, the spit viewmaster would have a chance. Surely anything that costs $200 and promises to predict your most fertile days digitally will give perspective parents the chance they are looking for.

Key search term: sucker.

More On Ovulation Prediction >

• Calendar Method & Basal Body Temp (BBT) 1
• More Sympto-Thermal Methods 2
• OPK's & Other Devices 3
• Ovulation Tracking Software & Calculators 4