Friday, August 2, 2013

Acupuncture, Chiro... and softcups! Oh My!

I went for my first acupuncture and chiropractic appointment last night… it was awesome! I decided to try an alternative route while on our break from the IF clinic because I have read so many wonderful things about it. I have a friend who tried for 3 years and attributes her 6th IUI finally working because she had acupuncture.

I saw my OBGYN (yearly pap) on Tuesday and of course I burst into tears when she asked how everything was at the IF clinic. She is so sweet and so nice. She told me that the patient she saw before me went through 5 IVF’s and when they decided to take a break she got pregnant at 42. She kept saying to me, “don’t give up, don’t give up.” She said she has many many patients who have taken a break from the IUI/IVF treatments, relaxed, and then got pregnant. She also said something else that I found to be very interesting – she said that “this has nothing to do with God. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person, this is all about science.” It was almost like she had been reading my mind. Not that I blame God- there are too many awful things in this world for me to go to a place where I start to blame God. But the part about me being a good person – that’s something I’ve said many times. “Aren’t I a good person? Aren’t we deserving people?” It certainly gave me something to think about.

Anyway, she was very happy when I told her I was going for acupuncture. She said that she has heard many success stories in her office about acupuncture and hopes that I call and give her good news very soon. I went to a doctor who does acupuncture and is also a chiropractor. The first appointment was more like a physical with him getting to know my body and he was doing all these measurements, stretches, and checking my reflexes. He asked about any “trauma” to my body besides what I had written on the forms and I told him I was a passenger in a bad car accident in 1998 and I was thrown out the back passenger window (it’s a miracle that I survived and didn’t have any broken bones). But I landed on my hip and then slid 20 ft on my side. I have tendonitis and bone spurs in my shoulders and as I have gotten older, I always have lower back pain but I attributed it have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day. He said that I’m all “backed up” in my hip/pelvis area because of the accident and that may very well be why I’m not getting pregnant.

Well, that’s surely something.

After he adjusted my back a little he had me go into another room and the nurse put electrodes on my back for some electric stimulation. Then I laid down and he put 11 needles in my body – my forehead, ear, neck, stomach, pubic bone, legs and ankles. I didn’t feel a thing. I only felt a light tap, like he was tapping me with his finger. It was actually very relaxing. Then he took them out, I rolled over and he put 4 more in my back.

I need to get an xray of my spine to make sure there isn’t any arthritis and he said he wants to see me 2x a week for the first month. I’m not sure if it’s going to always be a combo of acupuncture and a chiropractic visit but I feel pretty good today!

Today is cd16. I got my first “high” on the CBE Fertility Monitor on cd14 and then it went directly to a “peak” day yesterday and today. I read in the booklet that you can get 1 – 5 days of highs before the 2 days of peak so I guess I’m right on target. I drank a quart of the FertiliTea every day up until cd15. I have read conflicting things online that you can drink it all through your cycle or that you need to stop at ovulation so I figured better to be safe than sorry and just stopped at ovulation. But I ovulated around the same time as I usually do when I’m on all the medication so that’s pretty amazing. Who knows if it’s the tea or just a fluke cycle… guess I’ll have to see what happens next cycle with the tea.

Ok… has anyone heard of softcups? I read a lot about them online and they are used as an alternative to tampons/pads when you have your period but online a lot of people are using them for after they have sex to keep the sperm in there. Let me describe them to you… they look a lot like one of those rubber “livestrong” bracelets and it has a silicone piece on one side like a “cup.” You pinch the sides of the band together and insert it and the idea is that it keeps all of the sperm from coming out and closer to the cervix. I think that the good swimmers go to where they are supposed to go right away and then whatever comes out are the “rejects” (lol) so I'm sure about the effectiveness of this. But women were swearing up and down that that’s how they conceived. I looked them up on Amazon and they aren’t that expensive and again the women were singing its praises. It can’t hurt to try it I guess but I can only imagine what the hubs would say when I take one of those out of the nightstand after sex…

2 comments:

  1. So good to hear you being postive and taking all these steps. I'm also having 'time out', though my other half is actually in your part of the world at the moment so there's no chance of it just happening for us. I dream of being one of those ladies . . . I tried softcups before and they're really easy to use. Good luck with everything, you deserve this and don't ever thing you don't. Your OBGYN is so right, God has nothing to do with this and I'm sure you are a good person. Stay happy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Pussycat! So great to hear from you! I will pop over to the "other place" and write to you there! xo

    ReplyDelete