This past week… wow, I can’t believe it’s only been a week and a day… I started acupuncture. Strange thing, and of course it’s not something I ever thought I’d do. Venturing into woo woo territory, but hey, it’s time. I do wonder what tipped it… best I can do is recall that I was suddenly drawn to a note I put on my fridge last fall from a woman who’d gotten pregnant in her early 40s. She recommended my fertility doctor to me, an OB/GYN, an acupuncturist who specializes in fertility, and a couple others. All of a sudden time to try another approach. And my timing, apparently, was perfect.
I look up this fertility guru, spend a night browsing her website, get into bed with my laptop to try her intricate stomach massage, and find out she costs $300 a session. Even though I feel lucky to be local, that’s clearly out of the question. So I buy her book instead and mention the fiasco to a colleague the next morning who says “well, I’m sure there are plenty of acupuncturists where you live, lots of them are good at this stuff… look for another one that charges less.” Oh. So that night I google my city + acupuncture + infertility, call the first name that pops up, and I’m in. Appointment set for two days later, the receptionist ferrying me along on ardent reassurances that he’s the one I need.
That was a week ago Thursday. The receptionist is a gas. Talks constantly, guileless, 64 years old and hums to the meditation track playing over the loudspeakers. I’m immediately transported to something so radically different from the fertility clinic I hardly know how to behave. In the waiting area there’s a fountain four feet tall with moss, you can hear it gurgling from all the patient rooms. And the doctor comes in with a big smile and says reassuring things like “Oh, you can conceive.” I came in with a sore throat one day and he goes “Oh No!! Let me see…” I open my mouth, impressed by his concern. “Ohhh, tonsilitis” Yeah, since I was a kid, I say. “Ohhh, chronic tonsilitis… ” He looks up, raises a finger “I have something.” Charming as all get out.
6 needles per treatment, two at my ovaries, two in my calves, two in my feet. Lie there and feel weird or giggle as I did the whole first treatment, or be amazed that my post-IUI cramping is actually subsiding as I lie there. I saw the doctor 5 times since last Thursday, and have been taking the Chinese herbs he gave me with instructions to swallow 12 pills a day.
Meanwhile, 3 visits to the clinic this week. So in the midst of all this acupuncture half a mile from home, I’m also juggling work in the city and an ultrasound appointment plus two IUIs 24 hours apart this week. It took a lot of balanced mindful breathing and faux meditation to get through it. Yes, I suck at meditation. No chance of my brain not wandering off to plan the next day, but I smile and figure it’s better than nothing.
IUIs went well, my follicle was HUGE, I could feel it stretching on Monday. Crazy. So the medicine/acupuncture/wild early morning grins are clearly doing something, because that never happened before. My doctor comes bustling into the room with a huge grin, shakes my hand, is efficient and painless with the syringe “here they come!” and leaves the room with “Please get pregnant.”
And we’ll see… And either way, I’m feeling like I finally have the right team.
