Holding up

I'm in the middle of my luteal phase and my breasts aren't killing me. Hows' that for an improvement? I think the acupuncture is helping out.

We went out with friends the other night and I wasn't drinking and I mentioned it was a chinese medicine/acupuncture thing and our friend's girlfriend who is an ear-nose-throat doctor asked me about it. I was dubious of how interested she was but I mentioned that I was having bad PMS, nausea for the better part of five weeks, really bad congestion and post-nasal drip, etc. Her response? That it was probably gastro-esophogeal reflux and that there's medication for that. I said I don't think acid reflux gives you bad PMS, and then she said, well no... I said that the dietary changes and the acupuncture and herbs seemed to be helping and the nausea was now gone. She said it was probably coincidence to which I replied I was sure that it wasn't. Oh sigh.

I went for a massage today, the first time that I've seen this practioner since September 2004. She practices Lomi Lomi massage, a technique that comes from Hawaii. Sometimes she chants during the massage, and she usually starts out with a type of prayer, but she always checks in with you on an emotional level before she starts so she can help use the time for more healing. When she asked how I was doing I said pretty good. But then I told her about the recent EDD and anniversary and I started getting teary. I filled her in a little about the second loss, about my frustrations with Western medicine having nothing really to offer since they don't really listen, and about how depleted I've felt since last June.

We started into the massage and I started crying a bit, it was hard just being touched. Before I got there I thought I might fall asleep during the massage but there was no chance of that happening. She worked a lot on opening up my hips and that didn't hurt but it felt like there was a little grief hidden there. Then I asked her to do some abdominal work and when she started doing that it felt like there was a big tight knot in the middle there. So she pulled back some and started asking me to do some visualizations and breathing and after a while my hands started buzzing, sort of like an electric shock but ongoing. She had placed one hand on my heart and the other on my belly and they were just buzzing and buzzing with energy. Then suddenly I started sobbing and crying and it was really intense, I told her I supposed I had been holding a lot of grief in there. She told me to just cry if I needed to and the tears rolled down the sides of my face into my ears and down my neck. Big fat tears.

She told me to breathe in and on the exhale to direct hope, or light or healing to the part of me where I'm holding my grief. I kept thinking of it like my shadow, a full body of myself but only a few inches thick that was dark and I held in my back. She asked me to acknowledge the place in my center, to ask it if it had a name or perhaps a shape -- what came to mind was the color green and the shape of a kidney bean. It was so odd and emotionally intense.

I'm going to go back for another massage in a few weeks to keep trying to resolve this, to help my body move on more. It's amazing what you can find hidden inside the folds and curves of your body.

My Miscarriage Prescription

Here is my recipe for getting through the pain of a miscarriage, which works for any miscarriage physical pain:

Red Wine -- this helps to take the edge off the pain in a way that nothing else did. My acupuncturist told me afterwards that red wine "moves the blood" in chinese medicine which is why it works. It didn't cause any increase of bleeding just in case it sounds that way.

Marijuana -- the body produces natural painkillers called anandamides akin to THC in marajuana (which is humans are affected by THC at all). There are a large proportion of anandamide receptors in the uterus which is probably why marajuana is helpful for painful menses. Anandamines both dull the pain sensation and dulls the memory -- both useful affects to help women get through childbirth. You can just watch how your body's natural painkillers work or try supplementing with marajuana (which I do not use and didn't try in this situation so I'm not sure quite how it would work).

Dark Chocolate -- it turns out that chocolate helps keep anandamine in the body longer so why not have some chocolate. I can't say it is easy to distinguish whether or not this is working but it sure didn't hurt and it was a great distraction and an excuse to eat chocolate.

Herbal Tea -- lemonbalm and chamomile are nerve tonics and mild sedatives and are pleasant tasting. Passionflower tea is a little stronger but it helps soothe anxiety, it acts as a mild sedative and it reduces tension in the body. I found that passionflower tea helped to calm the pain and cramping for a couple of hours during the most intense part.

Hot Water Bottle -- use this pressed up against your belly or back and just rest against it. Also you might get cold so wrap yourself in a blanket if need be.

Tylenol -- helpful with the intense pain of my second miscarriage, which was all natural and at home.

Massage -- Follow up several days later with an abdominal (as well as full-body) massage by a professional to get rid of any residual pain.

Acupuncture -- With both of my miscarriages I had a lot of pain for days afterwards, acupuncture was able to help release the pain and help my body adjust to the change. I also had several grief treatments Internal/External Dragon (japanese treatment) after my second loss which released a lot of pent up emotion.

In case of bad bleeding, try these tricks for controlling uterine bleeding. This is a harder one as you really have to keep an eye on how much blood you lose. Factor in how far away the nearest hospital and get there ASAP if you think you are in trouble.

Hope this helps, keep it on hand for future reference in case you know anyone who can use it.



Updated 3/18/06.

My Ghost Pregnancy

I had a massage appointment yesterday, the first one with this practitioner since my loss in July, though I did have a massage after my m/c just at a spa with a couple friends. I highly recommend getting a massage after you have a miscarriage especially one with some abdominal work, you will probably cry during it but you are crying anyway so why not let it out while you reconnect and take back your body. It really helped to get rid of the pain in my abdomen.

After my appointment my practitioner asked me about my massage. I talked to her about it in great detail, from the physical pain, to the emotional anguish, the heightened physical sensations I experienced and the continued sorrow. I cried and used up quite a few of her tissues. I told her about how most people want miscarriage to be as long as the word is -- over in an instant. But miscarriage as we all have seen is a process and even after your body heals there is a lot of emotional trauma of the experience that needs to be worked through.

I told her about my ghost pregnancy now, the one that has me comparing calendar dates and events to where I would be in my pregnancy, should I have stayed pregnant. I told her how hard it was as I approached the dates around the end of my first trimester, and as August closed and I should have been shopping for maternity clothes.

I also confided that I can stand the thought of seeing my pregnant SIL who is due a week later than I was in February. And how every pregnant belly jumps out at me. Or how I can't really look at babies anymore because it hurts.

I talked about things that people had said or done for me that were helpful, more than half of them were things that women said to me here on the Internet. We talked about how miscarriage is combination of life and demise, birth and death take on new meaning in this process.

She thanked me for sharing with her, and admitted that she had never really known what happened in a miscarriage or that it could take so long. She also asked if there was anything she could do, or that I could do to make sure others in my life knew how I continued to feel. I'm not sure though writing a letter comes to mind. I also feel, though perhaps it isn't fair or nice, that I should share this experience in such a way to make it a tear-jerker, like in the movies where they make you cry. Then I would know that I had gotten through to them and made them hurt too.

Last night I had a dream, I've been having such vivid dreams this whole summer. In this dream I was in a clinic and I was losing a second pregnancy. In the next bed over was a woman who was losing a baby in her second trimester and there was blood everywhere. I remember wrapping my arms around her and crying into her hair and she wailed on my shoulder and I told her how sorry I was. It isn't the kind of dream one can forget about easily. I know that it was triggered in part from talking about my miscarriage in such detail, but it shows me how changed I am in that I had no horror at the blood, only sorrow.