First off, I just want to say that this is very very difficult for me to talk about or even admit to myself. It made me feel like a terrible, defective failure, so this post is not being shared with anyone but a very few people. I'm writing it so that my future little Posterity knows what we went through and how much hard we tried and how much I wanted him/her. But very very few people know and this post was never published for the world to see.
Since we started having kids a bit later than some, we wanted to have them relatively close together. As such, we decided to start trying again as soon as possible after Henry was born. Try we did but month after month, we weren't having success. After awhile, I decided to start charting my cycles to figure out what was going on and where we were missing the mark. At first, I thought I wasn't ovulating but as it turned out, I was ovulating but the time between when I ovulated and when I started my period wasn't long enough to sustain a pregnancy. A normal luteal phase is 14 days but it MUST be at least 10 to sustain a pregnancy. Mine was consistently 7-8 days. Basically, we weren't getting pregnant because I was infertile. I was crushed. I started taking all sorts of vitamins to extend my luteal phase but nothing worked, so I booked an appointment with my normal Western medicine doctor and one with a Chinese medicine doctor. Nobody was going to say I went down without a fight. The Chinese medicine practitioner was able to fit me in almost immediately, so I went to her for an evaluation. She asked me what was wrong and why I was there. I told her that I was having headaches and stress and that we were having trouble getting pregnant. She looked at my tongue and asked me some questions about tummy aches and my menstrual cycle and how warm or cold my hands and feet were. After a few minutes of reviewing my answers to the questions she asked and those I answered on a questionnaire, she told me that I had a cold uterus and that was the root of my problems. She went on to explain that it's a relatively common problem for Western women and that we needed to get the blood flowing back to my uterus, that it would ultimately help with digestion and my headaches. I was skeptical but had gone there for a reason so I let her stick pins in my head and tummy and face and hands and legs and feet. After she inserted the needles, she put a heat lamp over my tummy and my legs and told me to take a nap, that we really needed the hemispheres to open and that they do it best when you're most relaxed, aka asleep.
After she came back to get me, I asked her how long it would take to before I saw results. She said that usually, they say acupuncture takes 3-6 months of weekly sessions before you'll see results but with my particular issues, she expected results in 6 weeks to two months. So, I booked weekly sessions and tried to keep an open mind.That first appointment was one of the nicest doctor's appointments I've ever been to; I got a warm nap and a nice conversation. Once I got to work, I looked up "cold uterus" online. Interestingly enough, luteal phase defects are associated with cold uteruses... uteri... I don't actually know the plural of uterus. Weird.
Meanwhile, I went to see my OB/GYN. I told her that I had a luteal phase defect and that I was getting acupuncture. She said that was fine, ordered some blood tests for me and then gave me a prescription for progesterone. She told me that I needed to figure out when I ovulated, wait 5 days, then start taking the pills. After 14 days, I was to take a pregnancy test. If it was negative, I was to continue taking the pills for 3 more days and test again. If it was still negative, I was to stop taking them and my period would start. If it was positive, I was to continue taking them through the first trimester. I got the prescription filled but then kind of freaked out because I wasn't really sure that I was ovulating. I mean, I thought I was. But what if I wasn't? So I got one of those little tests to be sure. The directions say that the test line has to be as dark or darker than the control line, otherwise you haven't ovulated. Well, mine never got as dark as the control line. So I figured I must not have ovulated that month. Or did I? Maybe my hormone levels never get high enough to show up. I mean, how would I really know? And if I take the progesterone and haven't ovulated, then I could keep myself from ovulating. So I didn't take it and watched for my period to start to see if maybe I could figure out if I'd ovulated based on when my period started. I made some assumptions, but of course, I had no idea.
The next month, the same thing happened and I decided again not to take the pills because I just wasn't sure. Again, I watched for my period but this time... it didn't come. Day 7 rolled around and it wasn't there. And it didn't come on day 8, either. Or day 9 or day 10. On day 11, I got a headache and a lower back ache... just like I do before I get my period usually. And then it came. Almost 6 weeks to the day after I started acupuncture, my luteal phase had gone from 7-8 days to a non-defective TWELVE! I couldn't believe it. Could my uterus be warming up? The next month, I wanted to see if it was a fluke so I didn't take the progesterone again. And sure enough, old Aunt Flo came a full 12 days after I thought I might have ovulated (stupid prediction kit)!!
Which leads us to today. At first, I thought my luteal phase must have corrected to the normal 14 days. Then I thought maybe it was just extended to 16 days or something because 14 is just an average. If it could be 7 days, then why couldn't it be 16? On day 17, I started to wonder if maybe, just MAYBE there was something else afoot. After all, I had been super tired. But I always am. And super grumpy. But Matt and Stevie would say I always am. And really, bizarrely cold. But it had been really cold outside. But I was REALLY cold. Shivering while I was in a sweatshirt, sweatpants and knee socks, while under my blankets and a heated blanket. I was THAT cold. That's not a symptom of pregnancy, it's just a symptom of being weird, but it really was weird. Anyway, hooray! Thank you, acupuncture! You've made a believer out of me. Sheri noted that the luteal phase extension could have just been a normal progression due to time, that maybe my body was just readjusting after pregnancy, but I feel like it's an awfully odd coincidence. Either way, if I end up with morning sickness with this one, I assure you that the first person I call will be my Chinese Medicine practitioner. Totally natural, tried and true over thousands of years. No drugs. No suffering. Why wouldn't someone do it?
So, little Posterity has a nice, warm uterus to snuggle up in. Stay warm in there, little dude. It's been cold out here.
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