Since dropping my little 14 week bombshell, I’ve had numerous comments and questions, both here at the blog and in real life, to the effect of:
“How did this happen?”
“What finally worked for you?”
“All this time and it was getting drunk that did the trick, huh?”
“Did you conceive naturally or have some kind of treatment?”
“I told you to just stop trying! See??”
…And so on. 🙂
I figure I should probably let you in on the not-really-so-secret series of events that led to this amazing, if unexpected development. Here we go…
1. Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. And not just dabbling with it – full-on hardcore living the lifestyle that meshed best with my Chinese diagnosis, which included reading books, giving up cold drinks and food for months, spending three hours driving round trip weekly to appointments, spending money on said appointments, supplements and herbs, lying on a table with tiny needles sticking out of me at regular intervals, and learning to have the kind of patience that only five years of infertility can really teach a person.
I’m serious about the patience thing. I gave my life, diet, medicine cabinet, and pocketbook to this process over the course of eight full months of treatment before I learned that I was pregnant. That’s eight solid months of prepping my body to do something in a healthy way it had never been able to previously; eight months of retraining my hormonal system to operate correctly and release healthy eggs; eight months of helping blood flow where it should, increasing my intake of whole foods, and improving and repairing my body with the right kinds of supplements.
It sounds like a lot, but spread over the course of time, it was relatively simple to integrate the changes into my everyday life. The part that wasn’t simple was the part where I had to learn to let go completely, learn to trust a soft science verging on straight voodoo, and learn to let the positive changes come to me over time rather than as instantaneously as taking five days’ worth of Clomid.
So that was the biggest part of what worked. The conundrum is that the researcher in me may never be satisfied with why it worked, because there are just so many unknowns about TCM. I’m working on just accepting that things just are, rather than asking how they got there. It’s a process, but I’ve got a pretty good distraction to keep me occupied while I figure things out. 😉
2. Time. I know, I know… We all hate to hear “good things happen to those who wait!” and “it will happen if you just give it time!”… I hate it too. Even now. But I’m telling you that for me, the journey to this point had to happen the way it did for me to arrive at the solution.
Five years ago, you would not have been able to tell me that if I invested in some kooky Chinese voodoo that I’d likely conceive in eight months’ time. I would have laughed you right out the door and promptly marched over to my RE’s office for pills and shots that would obviously work faster. It’s funny, but I look back at how much younger I was then. Not just in years, but in life experience. I’ve learned more than I can even comprehend, about medicine – traditional and alternative, my body, and myself.
Time gave me a new outlook on life, and taught me about loss, letting go, and still having a full life. I think coming to that conclusion was so freeing… McStabby might say that reaching this conclusion unblocked some meridians or some crap, and maybe he’s right. Either way, getting to that point made a big difference for me, mentally, physically, and emotionally.
3. Heredity? My maternal grandmother passed away when I was 15, long before I was even thinking about having babies, or about my reproductive system in general. I can’t ask her the questions I want to ask, but if I could, I would ask if she knows why at her young age, and in the generation of Baby Boomers, it took her and my grandpa five years to have their first baby – my aunt. I’d also ask if she knows why it took another seven years after that to conceive my mom.
No one seems to know, and maybe she didn’t either. Maybe she struggled like I did, and maybe her five year journey will mirror mine. There’s no way to know, and that’s frustrating, but it’s a bit heartening to know that despite obvious setbacks – whatever they were – she had two beautiful girls who grew up to have families of their own. A happy ending to a mysterious tale…
4. Straight-up Voodoo. Surprised by this one? Don’t be. Something in the universe – besides my fallopian tubes – aligned perfectly in order for this miracle to have happened the way it did, when it did.
There are several factors that I think played into the voodoo aspect of this nearly immaculate conception. One was the fact that just a few months back, I was speaking with the RESOLVE representative about starting a support group. One of the questions she asked was how I planned to handle the situation that would arise should a group member get pregnant, and then further, what if I, as the support group host, were to get pregnant. I laughed at that, but she said “You know, you’d be surprised. It happens much more than you’d think! There’s just something about taking this step that seems to launch many women into their path for resolution, even if completely unexpectedly…” Hmmmm.
So aside from the RESOLVE voodoo, there’s also the fact that a coworker came to me around that same time and asked me to join his soccer team, to which I also laughed. I mean, have you met me? I’m not exactly athletic. Or coordinated. Or anything even remotely close to what should appear on or near a soccer field. I also don’t know how to sports, so there’s that. Anyhoo, he said that all of the girls he’d had join his team typically dropped off within a month or two because they kept getting pregnant. He felt like maybe if I joined as an “honorary member”, that this would dramatically increase my odds. I thought it was silly, but I agreed to an honorary membership where I didn’t have to attend or participate at all, and could still say that I was part of this cursed/blessed team composed of men and very fertile women. I’ve also had to drop off the team since joining. Another hmmmm.
There were several other hmmm-inducing factors that may or may not have played into this blessed event, including the fact that I’ve loved Christmas and the whole holiday season my whole life, and that I’ve always dreamed of a Christmas baby. Too many weird little bits all falling together at one time to make me think that this baby is anything but perfectly timed for me, for us, and for this weird little life we’re stumbling through.
So now that you have a little insight into what probably and maybe led to a healthy, happy pregnancy after more than five years of heartache, I’d like to share a short list of things that I know for a fact didn’t work:
1. Going on vacation. Yes, I had been out of town for a night just before this happened, but no, that’s not what actually did the trick here. Don’t be silly.
2. Getting drunk. Again, soaking one’s membranes in cheap vodka will not increase one’s fertility. That’s just stupid. I did it anyway, but still… stupid.
3. Relaxing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Shut up. Never. Relaxation doesn’t make your ovaries function any more than taking a nap cures cancer.
4. The “just stop trying…” tactic. Come on. Be serious here. I may have taken a bit more of a passive approach to things over the course of the last few months, but that was largely because Chinese medicine somewhat forces you into a state of patience. Changes don’t come overnight, and neither do solutions. Once I embraced that fact, I was able to calm myself enough to see the positives that were coming to me over time.
That being said, I never, ever, EVER stopped trying. Even in those last few months where the husband and I had been talking about how fulfilling a life could be without having children, I still knew when I was ovulating. Even after I had laid down the thermometer and stopped letting temping and charting rule my mornings, I was always very aware of when I was fertile.
The month we conceived, the “encounter” was timed, at least on my part and at least mostly consciously. I actually felt more pressure that month than I had in quite a few, as I held April’s fertile days as my last-ditch effort. I had made the decision that it would be my last month of really trying, and that the next month the husband and I would just… be. I don’t know if I would have been able to just stop cold turkey like that, but as it happened, it didn’t matter… surprising though it was at the time.
I didn’t stop trying.
I couldn’t.
And for all of those efforts – for all of the reasons, both logical and completely illogical above – what do I have?
My little Hail-Mary Jelly Bean, due on Christmas Day.
As much as the journey sucked , there’s absolutely no way I could ever argue with that timing. It’s completely perfect, and completely worth every minute of struggle it took to get here.
*****
So while I’d love to tell you that this miracle child is being brought to you by booze and irony, do you want to know my answer to the question, “How did this happen?”
I never, ever, EVER stopped trying.
Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen... 