Problems Getting Pregnant? Try This...

You've tried making a baby au natural.

But it hasn't worked. So,

You try Pre-seed.

You try taking fertility supplements.

You try charting and timed sex.

You try elevating your hips for 2 hours after sex.

You try having an orgasm after elevating your hips to suck sperm in.

You try Clomid.

You try Fertility Yoga and seeing a psychic.

You try positive thinking.

You try flushing your tubes clear.

You try IUI and IVF.

You try acupuncture and TCM.

You try taking chinese herbs.

You try detoxing.

You try clearing your energy channels and chi gung exercises.

You try the TCM diet.

You try timing your cycle with the lunar cycle.

You try meditating.

You try praying.

You try keeping a lucky charm on you while you have sex.

You try sleeping with the moonbeam shining on you. 

And it STILL HASN'T WORKED! 

What else can you possibly try?


Well, look no further! 


Introducing....

Yes! That's right! Let's all hypnotize ourselves into getting pregnant!

(We found this ad in our newspaper. No kidding!)

This Week's Menu

Here's my TCM fertility herbal pill menu for the week:

What you see in the picture is what I take - in ONE day! These meds are suppose to tonify my organs so that they will produce all the right hormones at optimal levels to support the growth of very good quality eggs. All the stuff in spoons are prescribed by Dr.NeverGiveUp and consist of 4 different types of formula. Note that big-ball pills on the lower left are different from small-ball pills on the lower right! (Get to know your medicine! LOL!) Initially I thought they were all the same! All the stuff in the middle on the plate itself are my own supplements...

Separated into two doses.

Taken twice a day.

With gallons of water.

And a prayer.

Sex Assignment

Well, I'll be damned! I have a 25mm folly on my left ovary, ripe and ready to launch! What's so amazing about that, you say? It's because it's frickin' CD40 and I thought I was on CD8!

I thought I had a period 8 days ago on CD33 when I encountered some spotting. It didn't develop into a full-blown period~just some brown spotting with a teeny bit of blood that tapered off within 3-4 days. It was strange but I shrugged it off thinking perhaps the lining didn't get to develop due to non-ovulation. There was no pain either, which is like-Wooyeah! Get out the champagne and fireworks, because a period with no pain is a day of celebration for an endo gal. (My celebration by the way, ended up in a bit of a disaster )  Also, 8 days ago during my last u/s scan, Dr.NeverGiveUp said that my follicles were all undeveloped and still small.

Then, two days ago on "CD6", I started getting dollops of egg-white CM!

"Heck! It's a bit early for ovulation isn't it? My cycles are so damned screwed!" I thought.

After having an u/s scan today, Dr.NeverGiveUp concluded that the bout of spotting wasn't a period. So then why was I spotting? He explained that because my hormones were not good, my lining was not strong and was shedding a little. But since it looks like I will be ovulating, he advised us to try for 3 consecutive days. Then I remembered that we had planned to skip TTC for one cycle so that the meds have some time to work on me and make me a bit stronger. And since we're still officially on that cycle, what now? He said that we should just go for it since I don't ovulate very often...

So we're going for it! Unfortunately, my brother's coming over to stay with us for the weekend and the guest bedroom is right next to ours. With paper thin walls. We're so used to having the whole house to ourselves and not having to worry about what other people might hear. 14 years ago, when hubs and I were dating (yes-it was that long ago!) I used to visit at this very same house when his parents were living here. They've moved out since and we've inherited it. Anyway, when his parents were ready to launch into some bedroom "exercise", they would blare classical music from their bedroom. And I could still hear my future mother-in-law through those walls with the music on. Ewww right? So every time we heard classical music coming from that room, we knew-it was the "cue"! But I had such an admiration for them because I think it's amazing that people "that age" are still having such a healthy sex life! I hope hubs and I will still be healthily active like them, minus the music(!), when we hit that age!

My next appointment with Dr.NeverGiveUp is a week from now, but till then, we've got homework! At least it feels that way. I have a little notebook which he gave me to jot my daily BBT down, and in that, he also marks down tentative dates for u/s scans. Today, he marked three crosses on friday, saturday and sunday, indicating that we are to have sex on these days. YES SIR!

He also gave us some instructions on how to do it! Okay, you can stop laughing now. If you're trying to conceive you may wanna pay attention too! Here's:

Baby-Making Sex 101

1) Once the man enters, do not pull out until after he ejaculates. Every time he pulls out, air can enter the vagina. We do not want to create air in the vagina because it pushes the sperm out when he withdraws. We want to maintain a vacuum in the vagina, and it's easier for sperm to be sucked into the uterus during orgasm in a vacuum.

2) Make sure your hips are elevated with a pillow before he ejaculates to minimize spillage.

3) Lie down, hips elevated, for two hours after that. 30 minutes is not sufficient. You may turn to your side but make sure you're horizontal for 2 hours.



Hmm, I guess no more wild experimental 100-sex-positions-a-night! It's got to be a 1-shot deal, and then lie down like a zombie after that! Don't even think about getting up for a snack or to pee anytime soon after that!

On top of our little "assignment", I am to take my chinese herbal pills twice a day, which he has changed up a bit. He seems to be changing my prescription every week. He gives us different dosages and formula to support the changing hormones in our cycle. Last week, he had me taking 4 more capsules daily on top of this. For this coming ovulatory phase, he's doubled those little black balls! Yes, I'm gonna have a ball swallowing those down!

Well, I'll have to say that hubs was noticeably more cheerful after we left the clinic. I mean, he was really happy and holding my hands and everything! I think he's probably thinking about all the sex that he's gonna get this weekend, but he says it's because he got to see my egg! I guess he's happy about me ovulating! Awww.... It's probably the best news we've had in a long while!

Wish me luck on our assignment!
 

Warning: Evil Drug

Did you know that one of the options offered by doctors of western medicine for the treatment of endometriosis or fibroids is synthetic drugs which would:

1)  Make me menopausal (WTF??!)  or

2) Turn me into a man (WTF again??!)

HAR.

HAR.

HAR.

What a great frickin' joke! If menopause leads to pregnancies, 

Hey-Hey-Hey! Sign me up NOW! Better yet, since I'm not having much success getting pregnant as a woman, maybe if I turn myself into a man I'd have a better shot at it! 

[By the way, did you know that another prescribed cure for endometriosis is pregnancy? As in...

"Oh? What's that you said? Endometriosis preventing you from getting pregnant? No problem! Just get pregnant and your endometriosis will be cured!" (I have such admiration for the wisdom of modern western medicine, my eyes are welling up...)

Yeah- OxyMORON! ]

Anyhoo, back to that synthetic drug... Therefore, what's the moronic logic that is driving doctors to dish out these drug treatments while sitting there collecting fat paychecks in their shiny "don't-question-me-I've-spent-years-in-med-school-studying" white labcoats? Well, most doctors trained in western medicine believe that these two diseases are fueled by estrogen, which is the stuff that makes you womanly and what makes you function like a woman, such as painting the town red with Aunt Flo every month and ovulating. So by logical deduction, if you keep estrogen on the down low which manifests as options 1 or 2, your problem would go away. Yes, problem solved! 

And then there's the fine print which says, "Not exactly suitable for women trying to get pregnant but since we got nuttin' else, we'll put you on it anyway so we can make a quick buck from you for a few months. For you to actually get pregnant, we will then take you off it since it's stopping you from getting pregnant. Doing so will cause the disease to return immediately and render you unable to get pregnant. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to not solve any problems for you! Good luck!" 

So what is this wonderful synthetic drug that is raking in $800 million in sales annually and making lots of women weep from joy (or its side effects, I'm not sure)? BTW, these side-effects include increased ovarian cancer, irreversible lowering of the voice so you can sound like your dream guy (Yay-now you can finally sing like Barry White), thinning bone problems, permanent disruption to your normal hormonal levels and many other stuff that f*cks up your health real bad. There are several synthethic hormonal therapies out there but one of the commonly prescribed ones is called Lupron.

If you have endometriosis, you've most probably heard of Lupron.

If you have prostrate cancer, you've most probably heard of Lupron.

If you have fibroids, you've most probably heard of Lupron.

If you're doing IVF, you've most probably heard of Lupron.

But miracle drug it is not. In fact, it's use is very controversial because it has led to permanent damage in people's health, and even death. It's actually more toxic than people are led to believe. Results of Lupron studies have been found by the U.S. Dept of Health and Services to be falsified. A medical officer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that Lupron should be taken off the market. In 2001, the company that makes Lupron admitted to criminal misconduct over the drug, making it the largest healthcare fraud of that time. Yet it's still being pushed by pharmaceutical companies and doctors today. FDA's verdict on this issue is still pending. Some doctors now believe the risks outweigh the benefits. A nurse, Lynn Millican, who has suffered terribly from the effects of Lupron during IVF treatments is now fronting a legal battle against the drug. She also made a testimony to the United States Senate about her findings on Lupron. It reveals a lot of dodgy stuff about drugs in ART that ordinary women don't know about. Her testimony can be downloaded here.  

It scares me that the dangers of drugs like this one are still downplayed.

It scares me that government bodies that are set up to protect people from these health dangers are not doing their jobs.

It scares me that women tolerate the prolific use of this drug because they weren't educated about the severity of the risks by their doctors, or have a misguided notion that doctors know best.

It scares me that doctors are in denial about the dangers of this drug and have no qualms about letting their patients use this drug since they themselves are not the ones having to deal with its consequences anyway.

I have no doubt in my mind that mainstream medicine today is largely motivated by money~Not compassion. 

It makes me terribly upset that women are led to believe that they have to take such risks with their lives and suffer such hardships on their bodies to have the baby of their dreams, or to be free from the pain of endo and fibroids. 

If Lupron crosses your path, please consider it very wisely and carefully. It is evil, EVIL stuff! 

The Squirts

So you're not pregnant.

So that gives you the license to eat all the raw oysters and sushi you can at a 5-star hotel buffet.

So I did cos that's at least one privilege I have for not being pregnant.

Nausea.

Diarrhea.

Food Poisoning.

Learn From My FAIL.

Life screws with you every way it can.

You Bad, Lazy Egg!

It appears that my eggs have gone on a leave of absence without notifying me! They haven't showed up for two cycles! Today is CD32 and I woke up with some spotting. I guess that throws the possibility of a late ovulation out the window!

I went in for my weekly u/s scan with Dr.NeverGiveUp today, and he confirmed that my eggs had not matured. So yup! There's the proof~those lazy eggs of mine are definitely having a vacation. They're there, but just idling around-not growing or doing much. He believes that my high testosterone levels are suppressing the development of my eggs. That's why I am still having my periods but not ovulating. I told him that I was ovulating regularly last year but it seemed that turning a year older has really affected my fertility. However he thinks that my ovaries look OK and that the bigger concern was the condition of my uterus. He assured me that the medicine I am taking will help to rebalance my hormones and improve the quality of my eggs. And that we will start to see the effects in 3-4 months.

I also brought up my concern about my high CA-125 results which indicate an infection and inflammation in the ovaries. I read recently on a fertility doctor's blog that,

"Endometriosis is a pelvic disease that causes the pelvis to be inflamed. It is thought that this inflammation attacks and kills the egg at the time of ovulation."


That got me into a bit of a panic! Like, "What? Now my own body is killing my eggs too?" How many more disasters could I possibly be brewing in my uterus?!!! 

Being his usual never-say-die self, he said that it's not a very significant problem because the cells in our body are very, very good at adapting to their environment. My eggs will also adapt and find a way to survive. So I stopped freaking out. What I really like about Dr.NeverGiveUp is his unassuming confidence and optimism.

As I was the last patient in the clinic today, I had the opportunity to talk with him a little longer. I brought up the issue about doing acupuncture for me, cos frankly, I'm a walking disaster and I need all the help that I can get! But he told me-again-that I shouldn't worry about that. I can't believe that a TCM doc is not pro-acupuncture! What about all the stuff I've read about acupuncture improving success rates in IVF by 30% and the latest news about Celine Dion conceiving twins via IVF with the help of acupuncture? He explained that statistics are sometimes exaggerated or manipulated, even in the medical profession. He said he attended a world medical seminar on IVF and when it was reported that some clinic claimed a 50% rate in IVF success, the whole room cracked up like it was the biggest joke. Even the most respected and advanced clinics in IVF research could only realistically claim a 30% success rate. Some clinics were also practising the unethical transfer of very high numbers of embryos to increase success rates. Well, I don't know how honest clinics really are about their success rates, but in regards to acupuncture and IVF, he told me that the professor he studied under in China specialized in IVF, and in his hospital, patients who initially failed to get pregnant through IVF would be treated with acupuncture. And even then, they found that the success rate for IVF after acupuncture increased only by 10%, which was minimal. That was quite a startling revelation to me! I was under the impression that the odds were better than that! That conclusion was formed from his own experience anyway, and I guess it must be true because nobody lies about underperforming!

However he made it a point to assure me that TCM herbal medicine itself (as opposed to acupuncture) really helps to improve egg (and sperm) quality. And this is something that Western Medicine does not/cannot address. He made that very clear: At the university hospital he's lecturing at, out of the 5 couples who underwent IVF recently, only one couple succeeded and it was the one that had undergone TCM treatment with him. Their IVF specialist was very impressed with her egg quality. He also told me about another IVF specialist who now refers many of her patients to him. She was astonished at the egg quality she retrieved from patients who had undertaken his treatment. She claimed that the egg quality was "beautiful"! And guess who this IVF specialist is? Dr.Crap! Yes, the fertility specialist I first consulted whom I didn't like at all. I blogged about her here. She's quite prominent in her field and Dr.NeverGiveUp's patients seem to like her a lot! Now that's astonishing to me!

So I am really counting on Dr.NeverGiveUp's TCM pills to make me ovulate beautiful eggs. Although I am not going for IVF, I really feel for you girls who are going through it and are devastated when you find that you have issues with egg quality, even with all the drug stimulation. From what I've read/heard and what Dr.NeverGiveUp has told me, Western medicine has no treatment for improving egg quality which greatly impacts success rates for IVF. But do not despair and do not give up yet. There is this avenue down TCM that you can try before resorting to donor eggs or adoption. It appears that women have been getting promising results with TCM treatment. I personally have a friend whose doctor said the same thing about her eggs after she underwent TCM. Her first two rounds produced crappy eggs but her third round produced very good eggs after TCM. She finally managed to get pregnant at age 40 with her third IVF.

Now, I don't really know what Dr.NeverGiveUp puts inside his pills. I never really cared to find out because he has rattled off a whole bunch of names before to me and it still left me clueless anyway. But I did wonder about the efficacy of pills as opposed to boiling the raw herbs like I did before with my previous TCM doc. I always thought that the pills contained herbs that were ground into powder form. Well, silly me! Apparently they're not that low tech! The essence of an herb is extracted by a very high tech process to preserve its medicinal properties, and is sourced from China. Dr.NeverGiveUp has visited the lab and commissioned them to make a blend of his different formulae. I am very happy to hear that I'm not paying high prices for low-tech medicine! And I don't have to extract them the old-fashioned way myself by boiling them for an hour, which inevitably end up in disaster sometimes! So, yay! My days of burning my herbs dry into carbon and having my own smoking Icelandic volcano in my kitchen are over!

And here's another piece of good news. I am not diabetic! I've been feeling thirstier than usual over the past month and Dr.NeverGiveUp said there was a possibility of me getting diabetes "because you are FAT!" Yup! Those are his exact words! Yes, cut straight to the point why don't cha! Well, I never said he was charming! Even though I had a blood test last month I could become diabetic anytime, so he tested me. So that's one less disaster in my body to deal with! Phew! He did tell me that one thing I could do though to help lower my testosterone levels was to lose some weight. OK! Got it! Lose the fat!

Blog Spring Clean

I took some time to clean up my blog over the weekend. Don't worry if you just got here and thought,


"OMG! Where am I? Where's Zengirl a.k.a. Chasing Pitter Patters? What happened to all that hot pink?"

We're still right here, but all cleaned up with some new make up on!  

My blog needed a bit of updating since my latest diagnosis. Seeing that I have a new doctor and am at a new phase of my TTC journey, I've revamped my blog to reflect that change too. But I've kept the pink vibe going. Here's a surprising Zengirl fact- hot pink is one of my least favorite colors. I don't wear pink, I don't own anything pink and nothing in my house is pink. But for some funny reason, I really wanted my blog to be pink! In cyber world, I'm crazy for pink! Pretty strange huh?

And because Zengirl is neurotic, she just has to customize the blog to the littlest detail. (Another surprising fun fact-you'd think Zengirl was acually ZEN, but noooo!). So after sifting through tons of styles and HTML code to personalize the blog, (by the way, those people who invented HTML code for web design are either satan or deranged), I still have some hair left on my head which I haven't all pulled out! And my blog is all cleaned up and refurbished! I'm a year older since I started this blog so I updated and rewrote my profile blurb too.

Now I'm really in the mood to do some serious spring cleaning and redecorating. I've always dreamt about doing up our spare room into a nursery but looking at how far we're at, it would be crazy to even consider that!  So my next target - our master bedroom! It's been 10 years since we've done anything to it. Hmm... it might be appropriate to vamp it up into a hot passionate love nest for our baby-making! Hot pink perhaps? Uhm, maybe not. I'm sure my husband would kill me!!! I heard the latest, hottest 2010 color for room interiors is turquoise. You like? What's your favorite color for the bedroom?