I had some extra time today and was able to squeeze in an acu appt and it went pretty well. My FM said peak today and I was feeling nauseaus so I thought it was a good time for a visit.

I brought in some of my chart, to show what the FM was showing about my LP and cycle length and she thought my best option was to take a b-supplement. She said no herbs for now.

She gave me the name of a couple family practice naturopathic doctors to check out, both for me and my son. I asked her what she thought about getting blood work done and she said it might be useful to check my thyroid and iron levels. I'm glad I talked to her about it, I was feeling overwhelmed about finding someone to work with.

I've been going to acupuncture for a couple of months now. I've seen some changes, nothing huge from the outside, but it is helping me understand what is going on in my body more. The qi gong is helping similarly. I can more clearly feel my deficiency, on top of the general fatigue that I was feeling before. My acupuncturists (I'm working with two at the same practice) see that I'm yin and blood deficient. Evidently breastfeeding requires a lot of blood and blood draws on yin, so it is all connected. They also noted that I've been yin and blood deficient before -- though I'm trying to figure out where that came from as it wasn't always my diagnosis. I need to check in with them more about that.

I was taking Chinese herbs but I've been having a hard time remembering and they are a bit gross after a while. I'm trying to get a cup in here and there. I have bumped up my vitamin intake as well. I'm taking two prenatal vitamins, a Floradix tablet and every couple of days I'm taking liquid calcium (with magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin D).

I have also been using my fertility monitor this cycle, in the absence of being able to take my temp consistently. My high has been 5 days long and finally after 20-22 days I've got a peak reading (my cycle started off with heavy spotting which made it a little confusing). Actually, it was interesting to see that I started breaking out the night before I got my first high reading and then yesterday, prior to this morning's peak reading, I started to feel a little depressed -- which I thought was probably due to a hormonal shift. Lovely.

I've been talking to J periodically about how when he's bigger he won't nurse any more and that sometimes we might need to not have ba-ba so much all the time. I see this as part of the progression towards fully weaning from the breast.

Oh, and J still has eczema, though keeping a food journal has helped point out some sensitivities to me (chocolate, nuts, shellfish, dairy, probably corn). My partner took him to the ped last week and they drew blood to look for antigens. Evidently the blood draw entirely overwelmed J's nervous system and he started screaming and cried for 30 minutes afterwards. I'm glad I wasn't there, I think I would have been sick.

I just stopped by to give a little update. I've started going to acupuncture again for regular treatment as I wasn't feeling that great and my cycles have been odd. I wanted to help build myself up for our TTC effort. They have me on a Chinese herb mix that is compatible with nursing to help build my blood. They diagnosed me as blood and yin deficient -- but having a child and nursing both require a lot of blood and yin.

I've also started going to qi gong again. We are doing Soaring Crane at school. I went last week for the first class and I felt my body working through some things.

Ack, moodiness

The longer I go post-partum the more my body gets its cycle hormones back into gear and the more I start to feel the affects again. Blah. I'm just sitting here minding my own business after ovulating on Monday and a wave of despair just passed right over me.

I've been grateful for the break that being pregnant and nursing has given me from my awful PMS. Having these alternate hormonal realities really points out to me how it is likely our species, the female of our species, weren't really intended to go on having period after period after period for 22+ years straight. No wonder my hormones were over the top. Whether we like it or not I think our bodies were intended to switch into pregnancy and nursing and get a break from all the mood swings that come with menstruation.

We did give it a good try for this cycle and then I went in for an acupuncture visit on Tuesday. She was only able to tonify as we had tried but it was good to get that going again. If this cycle doesn't work out for us then I'll go back for regular treatment to see about helping get my body more baby ready for #2. Still there's a part of me that wonders what we are in for -- an easier time? more of the same (miscarriages, infertility)? It is hard to say how I will feel if we start to revisit some of the sadder places in TTC land.

Warm

Just back from acupuncture and shopping. Both activities were productive. Acupuncture made it so I finally warmed up and I'm not feeling freezing cold and shopping, well I got lucky with a sale plus two dresses and a pair of shoes.

Along the TCM line I'm making progress. My tongue coating is thinning some, I'm feeling more emotionally even, and my digestion has been improving some. My lung qi is weak, still fighting that virus from two weeks ago. All of my spleen points in my legs are sore, I had needles up both my legs from my feet to my knees. She asked me if my feet were cold and I said yes, basically since I came back from Fiji. She told me to do nightly foot soaking, then use that time to meditate or do qi gong breathing. That I think I can manage, heck while I'm at it I might as well do the castor oil pack ;P

I'm actually not a big shopper but this time of year I tend to notice the gaps in my wardrobe and I am willing to do what it takes to help fix that problem.

Work is going well, I usually only complain about it, and not much here, but over all its doing well. I'm feeling knowledgable, experienced and useful (mostly).

More Spleen Qi Deficiency Info

I've been reading through my copy of The Web That Has No Weaver, it's one of the first books that brought TCM to the West. My previous acupuncturist said that there were better texts than this one so I take it with a grain of salt but so far it makes reasonable sense based on what else I have read.

I've been looking through the sections about the Spleen, dampness and mucus and it's been interesting what I've seen. Here are a few items:

"copious, clear, or white, and thin discharges (leukorrhea) usually signify Deficiency and Dampness" (p.192)

"The Spleeen like Dryness...Dampness can distress the Spleen...[and] can be seen in signs such as loss of appetite, indigestion, nausea, diarrhea and abdominal edema" (p.148)

"When a person experiences Dampness, the head may feel dull...limbs may feel heavy and sore, and the person will express a dislike for damp environments" (that would be Seattle this time of year with all the rain and dampness)

"Dampness can easily obstruct the movement of Qi producing ...incomplete urination..."

"Mucus in the stool, relatively soft, mobile swellings, lumps or tumors...and a phlegm cough can all be signs of Mucus" (p.252)

It also mentioned that not being able to discern any taste in the mouth (when there is no food, just as it is when it is empty) is also a sign of a Deficient Spleen.

When I read it and I see the various descriptions of things pointing towards heat, wind and other variations on Spleen Deficiency they don't match but the symptoms of dampness and mucus, cold, etc. they all point right at my symptoms. It's pretty weird. I do also have continued signs of Blood Deficiency, particularly Liver Blood Deficiency as I keep seeing dark spots before my eyes and it's been quite constant and distracting to me lately.

I hope that the acu treatment works, the diet changes aren't much fun but I'm already feeling a lot better and the nausea has gone away. I guess we'll see when I hit my LP whether or not the bloating and breast pain has dissipated yet.

Acupunture Update

Just a quick post to let you know that acupunture treatment went well and I had lots of points of pain in my abdomen that she treated. Overall the diagnosis is: spleen qi deficiency, damp accumulations, phlegm obstruction and blood deficiency. Nice eh?

She worked a lot on points to help dry things up, and being that she asked how I was doing, of course I cried. It was weird to have my sinuses drying even as I had just been crying.

I'm going to take this month off to work on the fibroid with herbs. I'll feel much better about things if I do (and chances are that if I don't I won't conceive anyway since my body is disrupted enough to start growing another fibroid). Keep your fingers crossed for me that it helps.

A Wacky Start to My Next Cycle, But Improvement

AF this time is just odd odd odd. Usually I won't have more than half a day of spotting prior to her arrival, this time I've had two. I feel totally hung up, sort of like when I was waiting for my m/c to start in June and it took a whole week before my body was ready. Today I marked as the start of AF but it's just barely stronger than spotting and dark red/brownish. It's so weird. I had a really great chart, I wonder if things have started to move in a new direction for me hormonally. Sounds scary a bit, but it could be a good thing as I had that fibroid, anemia and excess estrogen working against me before, which were all bad things.

At acupucture this morning she noted that my tongue coating looked better (it was awful and white coated last week out of the blue), confirmed that my liver qi stagnation was not an issue any more (I had noted this myself), and said that we're just dealing with minor stuff right now. She said that the spotting and symptoms of the cycle transition from LP to the Blood Phase were related to my qi deficiency and spleen qi deficiency.

My treatment helped dissipate a lot of the pain I was having (thank goodness) and she gave me a handout with some qi building foods on it. I've also got a pre-O herbal powder to take starting CD4.

It's so weird though, but perhaps my body pushed through to the other side of its deficiencies. I don't know if you had noted this but I've heard/read that sometimes the deficiency of something will trigger its excess. So heavy menstrual bleeding can be a sign of deficiency, excess estrogen can be a sign of yin deficiency and so on.

As I've mentioned I was anemic for years, even as a child I had lots of nosebleeds ages 5-12, the last big on was when I was 14 that I recall -- I got my period later that year. In TCM not being able to contain your blood is a sign of deficiency though it's harder to pick which one it might have been as it was years ago. I do think it is possible that my body got used to operating in a state of deficiency so the journey has been to reset the expectations so that it can adjust to a healthy pattern. In some ways no different than for people who have blood sugar issues, etc.

My Medical Care Providers Over the Past Three Years

Before having to deal with infertility I had the unfortunate luck to have been injured in a car accident back in 2000. Through that experience I realized that my healthcare providers didn't have my best interests at heart, they wouldn't let me know to come in for a follow-up appointment, sometimes I was referred to lame care providers. I came to understand that the only one fully vested in my recovery and well being was me. That helped set the stage for the adventure that started when we got into TTC.

September 2002 -- Internist diagnoses fibroid (dump internist due to issues with getting appointments and information from her in the couple of years in her care -- I had to wait a week for an appointment when my neck went out and I was in constant pain and couldn't turn my head).

October 2002-March 2003 -- worked with a naturopathic doc who helped me gain better balance in my diet and lifestyle but also wanted me on a ton of supplements. She asked me if I had considered adoption and how long I intended to cut back on alcohol and taking prenatal vits in a way that wasn't entirely supportive so I stopped going there.

February 2003-May 2003 -- Met with RE#1 who I liked and she did an okay job but she left the State and clinic after a few months. She told me I should have my fibroid out after my HSG but to find a new surgeon. Even though my basel temps charts showed that I had regular cycles and temp rises consistent with ovulation she dismissed them after saying "yes you ovulate" and then told us we should do the HSG and then move onto IUI with Clomid and that she could "make me ovulate" which I didn't like the sound of at all.

June 2003-Nov 2003 -- Met with RE#2 to try to figure out if I needed to have fibroid surgery or not. He decided to give me a fertility work-up (just blood work) and wasn't a good listener. He told us that my partner had anti-sperm antibodies almost certainly and we would need ICSI to conceive (you won't be able to conceive on your own he said). While he knew his stuff I really didn't like him and his arrogance so I left him after one last consult in Nov to review my pooled progesterone results and to see if he would provide care if I had a fibroid embolization instead of abdominal surgery for my fibroid. It ended with a strong conversation about fibroid embolization.

July 2003-Sept 2003 -- Gyn #1 who I was scheduled to have my fibroid surgery with but I got such a bad feeling from her that I cancelled the surgery 10 days before and decided to pursue other options.

November 2003 -- consulted with an interventional radiologist about having my fibroid embolized (they block the blood flow using small particles through the uterine arteries). He was nice but I wasn't sure and couldn't find a gyn to provide support to this procedure.

Dec 2003 -- met with Gyn #2 who was all right but a little young and I cried in her office and she just looked at me, offered no consolation or anything. Her office was hard to book appts with so I decided to bag them.

Jan 2004-May 2005 -- started working with acupuncturist #1 after prompting by a couple of friend in alternative medicine. He was very nice

April 2004-current -- fell down the stairs and reactivated my back injury from a car accident in 2000 prompted a visit to chiropractor #2 (chiro #1 took bad care of me after my car accident)

Jan 2004-July 2004 -- met with RE#3 who was very nice and a good listener. We were going to try clomid/IUI under his care in July but we got pg on our own in May. He did my first d&c but left the clinic the following week; he told the nurse that I didn't need to have my beta checked post procedure which was wrong. I had continued bleeding for weeks afterwards due to retained tissue and had to see RE #4.

August 2004-current -- RE#4 took care of me after my m/c showed to be incomplete. We decided to wait it out rather than try methotrexate to avoid doing a repeat d&c so soon after the first one. With my enlarged fibroid not decreasing and the retained tissue not resolving on its own she was the one who did my surgery on both in November.

June 2005-current -- acupuncturists #2/3 work together in a practice that specializes in fertility. I went to see them first the week of my miscarriage as I was in so much pain.

Sept 2005 -- gyn #3 was very sympathetic, but gave signs of being a little conservative such as 37 week c-section due to my myo though he did say that they would take good care of me on a subsequent pg.

I'm not really a problem person but I wasn't really to take standard b$ care from my docs, especially after seeing how lame they were 5 years ago after the car accident --- you have to look out for yourself.

An update on the dysmenorrhea

I had a stomach virus or something. It was connected to a different virus I caught weeks ago with a temperature and everything -- the connection was the stomachache that lasted for weeks. It's possible it was some sort of micro-organism as in the end several of the symptoms were similar to when I had salmonella, though the timing was spread out and the symptoms didn't happen all at once. I felt like I needed to throw up two weeks ago, and also like I was going to have diarrhea. I made mention of it to my acupuncturist. The following Sunday I woke up and felt really ill and proceeded to empty my digestive tract over and over for several hours. That seems to be the end of it though my acupuncturist today noted still some disturbance in my stomach channel.

Feeling poorly

I'm on cycle day three of my 38th cycle charting. I've been feeling so poorly these past couple of days that I finally looked up dysmenorrhea (painful periods) and I fit the definition to a T this cycle. What's up with that? I've got stomach pain, lower GI discomfort, headaches, I'm not sleeping well. Its actually not a normal pattern for me. I've also still got symptoms from that virus that's been going around the office, others have the same symptoms -- sore back, sinus congestion, faint numbness in hands and feet. One of my employees saw her doc about it today and was told it was indeed a virus and that it might take another 2 weeks for the symptoms to clear out.

I had an acupuncture treatment this afternoon and she treated me for blood stasis in my abdomen that was causing me a lot of menstrual pain, as well as my immune system and also to help stimulate follicle development. They told me to take a break from the herbs for a wee while and see how my body does. I told her about how when I was younger and stressed out my stomach would hurt me (I spent many hours in the nurse's office in 6th grade with stomach aches when my parents were fighting constantly and close to divorce and I wasn't doing my homework), and sometimes if the emotional stress was intense I would get diarrhea (first bad breakup I couldn't eat for a month and when I did I had diarrhea -- I lost 10 lbs). Certain types of really bad stress would even cause me to have mid-cycle bleeds, but never annovulation, I never missed a cycle. She said that it fit in with what she knew already that I have an overactive liver but that normal Western testing wouldn't show any dysfunction and it ties in with my other complaints as well. In TCM the liver is associated with emotions and I'm such a freaking sensitive person and a bit neurotic as well (but I'm sure you noticed that by now). Its just who I am and while I've made lots of changes I don't know how much more I can do. To think that sometimes just being can be the thing that throws you off. I don't even want to know about it. I fell asleep during the treatment at any rate, for a good 40 minutes, which felt good.

While sweeping our back porch the other day I was thinking to myself about what someone on the boards wrote to me after my first loss; she said "God must really love you to put you through so much." I too know that I'm stronger in some ways, maybe more wise to the ways of the Universe and my connection to the world around me. My losses are a part of who I am now.

Sometimes lately I've been thinking of just getting used to the idea that we won't have kids. It's been such a very long road so far. At least I'm needed at work and I'm getting to do more consulting work. I don't know what the future holds and I talked to my great-aunt about it when I was in New York. There are places for all kinds of mothers in the world, and not all of them are biological. You don't even have to be an "adoptive" mother to make a difference. You know I've heard that for troubled children even a 15 minute positive encounter can build esteem enough to help that child find hope and change direction. Maybe there's a place for me there in the world. I just don't know yet.

Tonight I did a brief liver qi cleanse as I missed my qigong class for the second week in a row. This time because I wasn't feeling well, last week was due to traffic and class just not being at the park where they were supposed to be.

I'm doing okay.

I had my acu appointment yesterday and the practitioner asked how I was doing about my recent loss. I told her I was feeling a bit confused still about it, as to whether or not anything could have been done and that the idea of meeting with my RE makes me mad (if there was something she could have done last time why didn't she just do it). I'm feeling better than I have for weeks and I think the nice weather and having the workmen out of our house has helped with that. I've actually been doing housework again, I was slacking for a long while and the house was showing it.

I told her that my SP6 had been bothering me (point a couple inches above the ankle bone on the inside of your leg, a point associated with ovulation and the joining of the kidney, spleen and liver channels) and also the kidney points in the indentation on the insides of my ankles had been throbbing. She put in a bunch of needles and I felt better after that. She said my liver pulse was a little wirey but it tends to feel that way for most people, but the most problems were my spleen, blood and kidney were weak.

Today I will start going to qigong class again. I've been doing some on my own but haven't been to class since March.

My fear right now, and not at the forefront of my mind but just there, is whether or not I'm destined to keep losing my pregnancies. We're a couple weeks away from TTC again so that's what comes to mind (as if we should be so lucky to get pg again on the first try[:|]). I told my acu yesterday that I just don't see how the next time will be any different at this point.

I'm supposed to go in to talk to my RE but I don't see the point. I should do it anyway and not be so arrogant because maybe she'll have something interesting to say. I was thinking of bringing in my list of symptoms and see what she says about it -- I'm sure many of them she won't have any idea about though they are recognized as symptoms in TCM.

I'm making myself drink more water, struggling still but trying. I don't get thirsty and it really isn't healthy for me to be so dehydrated.

Hey, how about that?

My ovaries started hurting last night. First the left one which I thought was curious as that is my stronger ovulating side and it was the side that had the corpus luteum that sustained (or didn't) my last pregnancy. Then a little while later my right ovary started aching. Just aching and aching off and on for the rest of the evening.

A couple weeks ago, when I went for my scan after that big weekend of labor and hemorrhaging, my ovaries were hurting badly as well. The nurse practitioner took a look at them and there wasn't anything that showed up physically in the scan, no cysts or anything, just plain ovaries. It was interesting to me that I could feel so much and an ultrasound didn't show anything. I wonder if one of those color scans would show up differently though, they show blood flow and heat.

But I digress... Late last night when I got home from dinner with my friend I had my first encounter with EWCM since the end of April/beginning of May. Hey I thought, my body is trying to ovulate. I don't think it has happened yet but we're on our way. And that means that I'll get my period in a couple of weeks. Hmmmmm... a couple of weeks from now...when I'll be in New York visiting family. Argh! AF and family visits don't mix very well, especially with my family being as dysfunctional as it is, my having not been there for a year and a half (the longest ever), my friend with her twins that I need to meet (now just over a year old), my mother with her cancer and treatment and me, anemic and still recovering in some ways from my miscarriage. Sounds like a party right?

I had acupuncture this morning and she did an Internal Dragon treatment after I told her that my body is still a bit confused about what just happened to it and that I'm feeling like my whole being is a little confused about pregnancy now as it's such a start and stop experience that never reaches fulfillment. She said it was a good time to try to clear that out. I shed a single tear during the treatment which was done lying on my back and without an open window this time. The needles were in one just below my sternum, one on either side of my navel but out about 1 1/2", on in the outside of each upper thigh and one in each ankle. Again I was to think about letting the grief and confusion go, ask my mind to not block it and ask for help from a higher power. Definately qi was moving around my body, I really could feel it, how resolved I will be from the treatment I don't know. I did go in with bad allergies this morning and after treatment I was cleared up, pretty amazing. My primary thing to work on is my blood deficiency still, everything else in my system is present right now.

Whoa.

I had acupuncture this morning and after reviewing more about my history (emotional as well as physical) she said she would like to try an acupuncture treatment called a Dragon treatment. It comes from Japan she told me and the points don't make sense in a traditional channel sense but they seem to unlock where we hold onto grief in the body. She wanted to clear out the grief from my body. I told her aside from the early weeks after this BFP where my mood lifted, that I had sadness for the better part of the past year.

She told me to ask my body to let it go, ask my mind to not fight it and if I could, to ask a higher power for help.The needle points were at the crown of my head, two just below my neck on either side of my spine, two in my lower back and two in my ankles. Then she opened the window and told me that was a part of the treatment.

She left the room and I started weeping. I lay face down on the treatment table and the room was silent. Everything was running, tears and my nose. I cried for having this happen to me. For my dead babies. For not being pregnant now. For having two, my twin angels, due within three weeks of one another. For both times being able to start planning for what was to come in my life and then to have it dashed away. I asked God to help me. Not in any particular way. Just to help me. I thought of the footprints in the sand. I thought about how my partner doesn't want to think of them as dead babies. I thought of how I had all the gushing surprise and expectancy last time though the baby seemed less real to me. This time I felt less gushing but since my fibroid was gone I felt more like there woudl be a baby at the end. I cried for having to manage my pregnancies and fertility to this degree. I didn't blame anyone though.

Next she will have me take an herbal formula but the one she wanted originally wasn't in the office so she wanted some more time to review my case and then try to come up with something that's a good fit. We're going to try to clear out any remaining stagnation from my abdomen, any blood stasis, etc. My tongue shows signs of digestive issues, I feel that as well. I'll be eating more blood building foods going forward, redoubling my efforts.

I can breathe a little better now.

Acupuncture & Traditional
Chinese Medicine Links (TCM) Related to Fertility

These are a selection of links a TCM buddy group I'm on helped compile over the past two years. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this list. I'm only posting them here in the hopes that they might offer assistance to others dealing with infertility.

GENERAL RESOURCES
Acuxo
Chinese Medicine Sampler
The Institute of Classical Five-Element Acupuncture
Internal Healers - TCM Diagnosis and Treatment
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Foundations and Philosophy
The Three Treasures and Women's Treasure
Yin Yang House
The Five Stagnations: The Mother of all Diseases
NCCAOM Practioner Directory

TONGUE AND PULSE DIAGNOSIS
Tongue Diagnosis
TCM Acupuncture Theory - Tongue Diagnosis
The Significance of Traditional Pulse Diagnosis
TCM Acupuncture Theory - Pulse Diagnosis

DIET
Fertility Retreats Diet Info
Traditional Chinese Medicine Nutrition Theory and Applications in Dietary Therapy
Chinese dietetic therapy
Food Therapy
Chinese Dietary Therapy
Food Energetics
TCM Lifestyle/Nutrition and diet
Chinese dietary therapy
Diet suggestions for Blood Stasis
Diet suggestions for Excess Heat

GYNECOLOGY AND FERTILITY
Eastern Harmony Clinic - Medical Articles
Overview of Gynecology - Menstrual cycle in TCM
Acupuncture in Acupuncture in Gynecology and Obstetrics (PDF)
Pregnancy in Premature Ovarian Failure after Therapy Using Chinese Herbal Medicine (PDF)
Influence of acupuncture on the pregnancy rate in patients who undergo assisted reproduction therapy (PDF)
Acupuncture in Fertility Medicine (PDF)
Treatment of Female Infertility - A New Approach in Chinese Medicine (PDF)
Gauging a Woman's Health by Her Fertility Signals (PDF)
Various Menstrual Diseases
Li Dong-yuan's Gynecology

OTHER
Crane Herb Symptom Search
IVF & Acupuncture
Honso Herbs
Forms of Qigong

About Qi and Spleen Qi Specifically

Someone posted on the uterinefibroids message board about having a watery light colored period.

I looked it up in The Infertility Cure by Randine Lewis and it says that this is a sign of a Spleen Qi deficiency. You are meant to "avoid sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, dairy products, cold drinks and raw foods" to help restore the spleen (those things listed damage the spleen). There are herbs mentioned (ginseng is one) but those are best taken under guidance of a qualified herbalist.

Someone else was interested in what spleen qi was so I wrote this up and I thought you might be interested as well. I have spleen qi issues as well as I've mentioned.

Qi (pronounced chee and sometimes spelled chi) is most easily described
as energy. See this page for more about qi

Traditional Chinese Medicine recognizes channels or meridians in the body which are associated with different organs. One book I read described how this is so by explaining that from our early embryological development certain tissues developed in relationship to one another and from certain groups of cells. The body retains this memory and energetic map of the body throughout our lives.

This page describes more about the functions of each organ channel

Spleen qi refers to how well that channel is performing its functions of aiding in digestion (transformation of food to energy and blood specifically) and control of the blood.

Here's more about the Spleen

Here's a map of the spleen channel on one side of the body, it is on
both sides in the same places.

I've been amazed at what they have been able to treat in me over the past year, things which Western medicine don't even recognize as problems, such as: feeling full of cold water; slightly swollen glands gone in seconds; inflamed back gone in minutes; a subtle ache across my stomach yesterday which turned out to be very blocked channel that was painful to open up but I feel much better now (I'm going through a miscarriage right now so my body was quite out of sorts and Tylenol wasn't helping at all in the end).

Herbs, acupuncture, movement such as qi gong which is like tai chi or any exercise really, plus the foods we eat, how we think/feel all affect the qi.

Back from acupuncture

I went over and met with two women acupuncturists today who both took case notes and my pulse. Obviously we had a LOT of information to go over since I've been there and back over the past three years.

They were a bit amazed that we hadn't tried any fertility meds, not because they thought we ought to have but just because I had been seeing REs (4 total) and all I've had them do is provide consult, an HSG, some bloodwork, 2 d&cs and a myo.

After going over the here and now miscarriage stuff, then into my pregnancy a bit and then over my cycle history and the fibroid stuff finally we got to do some needlework. I was like a porcupine today with them all up and down my legs, on my hands and feet and across my belly. Two particularly painful areas were the palace of the uterus (down low near my bikini line) and my girdle (aka belt) meridian. The needles were fine but some of the movement they were trying to get to happen was fairly painful, not acute but really sore. Evidently my kidney channel was depleted, my lung qi was being drawn on heavily and it was depleted (channel associated with grief go figure) and my heart channel had some stuff as well. My spleen/stomach channel was doing its almost usual weirdness as well and of course, liver qi stagnation.

I feel much better now, not so entrapped by the changes my body has been going through. I'm going to sort out next steps with my REs office in the morning if the sac doesn't move out by tonight and then we'll see about medical management or herbs to try to move things. I'll have another acupuncture appointment next Thursday with them to follow up on getting my body out of this miscarriage phase and then we can start focusing on building me up again.

It sounds like a good plan to me.

I've had headaches since last Saturday, I think it is due to the blood loss, low blood pressure and also some qi disturbances. I'm still bleeding but my body was craving the dong quai herb mix my acupuncturist gave me and so I had some this morning. I drank the entire cup which is unusual for me, I usually only have half a cup of anything. I'm still craving more, though it is a bit of a blood thinner so I'm trying to be conservative. I'm also coughing, I think it is related to being a bit blood deficient as this was a chronic sypmtom I had while I had anemia for years (it's been better since I supplement regularly but I lost a lot of blood last weekend). My hands and feet hurt at night and when I wake up in the morning.

I emailed to the Eastern Harmony clinic and asked for a referral to someone who had trained with Randine Lewis, author of The Infertility Cure, and they sent me to this clinic here in Seattle.

They are pretty close to my office and in the same building as the dentist I go to so that would be convenient. I like my acpuncturist but I don't feel like we have made enough ground in the almost 18 months that I've seen him. Granted that was peppered with my getting pregnant and have a miscarriage and then the surgery and all but I think that I've still got too many old patterns sitting tight. I've beenthe one to suggest different approaches to my issues and I think we've learned more from those times than from anything else (that's just my opinion though).

I still haven't passed the sac. I'm going to do some yoga and qigong later this afternoon to try to help my body move things along.

Still thinking about that qi and what it might have had to do with this all

"Although invigorating the uterine blood can be risky during pregnancy, when blood stasis is present, if it isn't addressed and resolved, the fetus will abort."

"The herbal formula I prescribed for Christine is often used to treat endometriosis and uterine fibroids, and other manifestations of uterine blood stasis."

"[She] suffered from very severe PMS. About a week before her period was expected she became extremely depressed and irritable....Her menses were regular, coming every 30 - 32 days. She bled rather heavily, and the menstrual blood was dark red and clotty. She was always cold, especially her feet."

"During one visit, Claudia off-handedly told me that every month she experienced vision changes premenstrually. She had told her gynecologist and reproductive endocrinologist that her vision would dim and she saw floaters just before her period arrived, and they both told her it was insignificant. According to Chinese medicine, the liver, which governs the eyes and vision, also supplies blood to the uterus. This clue allowed me to hone in on another aspect of Claudia's menstrual disharmony. Although the liver qi had been rectified, the liver blood remained relatively vacuous and couldn't supply both the eyes and the uterus."

From: Immunologic, Autoimmune Factors, and Recurrent Miscarriage

Those things are my symptoms, my normal symptoms I have lived with for years.

I feel like there was something to how painful my breasts were that last weekend I felt pregnant. I think it was related to stagnation. My body didn't feel happy at all and while I know things like morning sickness also show that the body isn't happy there is something that tells me that my body was trying to protect itself instead of giving in to the pregnancy.

I like my acupuncturist but I think he's a little less practiced in fertility. I think a deeper understanding would be a help for me. I sent an email to Eastern Harmony Clinic to see if they know anyone to refer me to in Seattle. I don't see how any other treatment is going to work as just using progesterone last year made me feel so sick and I don't want to go through this again.

I'm going in for my repeat beta later this morning after my acupuncture appointment. If the numbers look good then I'll post my chart tonight.

I told another friend from the boards yesterday, she hasn't been on in months and is taking a break and just happened to IM me yesterday. She's been trying for ages and it turns out her DH has anti-sperm antibodies. Their relationship has really been affected by the infertility and they are likely going to separate -- a lot has gone wrong in their relationship, this would be for the best.

She told me to let people know so that they could share in the good news. I know what she means but I think about my infertile buddies and how this news would be a mixed thing. I hate how hard it is for ppl, but this really didn't come easy I had to make some pretty radical lifestyle changes and also have surgery.

My breasts are sore, though a touch less sore than yesterday. Its more different sore. I so hope that everything is going to go well. With all the healthy eating I've been doing to help rebuild my system since the surgery, the weekly acupuncture, the select use of medicinal herbs, and the progesterone -- plus not having my blood-sucking fibroid in there anymore -- surely things will go better this time.

My partner, came down last night from his office in the attic and sat next to me and put his head on my shoulder and said "When are we going out to dinner to celebrate my good sperm" He wants to go to that nice restaurant we went to on our anniversary. I reminded him that we opened up a celebratory bottle of champagne last week (yum!) and that it was a good thing we got that out of the way as I wouldn't be drinking for a while. I don't mind a sip here or there, but nothing more.