Weird Week

I got my hopes up this week... As I was leaving my acupuncturist's office last weekend she said, "Were you planning on eating any red meat this week?" Now, she's given me dietary suggestions in the past, but generally that's because she is seeing something i.e. weak kidney, spleen, low energy.... But this time was markedly different. I told her I was not planning to eat red meat, but I could make some adjustments if needed.  

She continued to explain her rationale, "If you are pregnant that baby will suck lots of energy from you, and red meat will be good to give you additional energy." Now, this is not anything like she has ever said before... I'm used to getting my monthly sign that yet again nothing is new, so I heard her, thought hopefully for a half a second, and then moved on and tried to think nothing of it. Then, as we headed downstairs toward the exit we stopped near the front desk and she continued, "Now, if you get a positive test this week stop taking your herbs and call me." Ummmm.....Now this she has certainly never said before!  I was afraid to look visibly excited, and I simply put these words in the back of my brain and headed to the car as I sat confused and afraid to hope. Background information: My acupuncturist spent years working directly with Randine Lewis, guru pf combining Eastern and Western medicine and the author of, "The Infertility Cure" (pictured below). It's about 750 pages of information  that was totally different from everything I had heard previously. This book gave me hope. 

One of the things that I remembered reading in the book was that by reading a patient's "pulses" that Randine could immediately determine whether someone was pregnant or not. So, needless to say, my heart was racing a bit.  I found myself thinking and processing those words while driving home. Soon I had tears in my eyes wondering if this long and difficult journey was finally getting light at the end of the tunnel. I got home, and to my disappointment, my husband had not yet arrived home from his meeting that afternoon. I found myself unable to concentrate, and extremely distracted.  I ate lunch, and then escaped into the world of my IPad.

Isaac returned home a few hours later and I shared what had happened. He wiped away tears of hope.... We proceeded to talk, cry, pray, embrace, and strangely... both of us got random phone calls from some of our dearest out of town friends that afternoon.  We both asked our friends for prayers and good vibes and then we were left waiting... We escaped into fantasy-land by sitting on the couch and watching a feel-good movie on Netflix rather than doing the homework that continually knocks on our front door and steals our attention from all things seemingly more important.   This was a Sunday night...and we waited.

Tuesday was the day I expected my period. Nothing. No signs. Took a pregnancy test... Negative. Wait...

Wednesday nothing... Thursday second pregnancy test... Negative....By Thursday afternoon it was apparent that this whole week of excitement was nothing but a false alarm. 

Now I wonder, did I make this all up in my head? Did she actually sense something at all? Does she really know what's happening with my body as much as I give her credit for? Is hoping a positive thing, or does it just set me up for more disappointment? So... here I sit... nothing is changed, and the hope is deferred for another month. 

So, life goes on. I go to work, see my friends, live my life, and I continue to wait. 

Realization

This morning when I was getting ready to face the day I had a realization that kind of stopped me in my tracks. I've been challenged to do affirmations and to think positively about this fertility situation as I muddle through the process. I sat at the mirror prepping to do my morning "transformation to public self," and I thanked God for this body of mine, despite it's scars and imperfections. I don't know what I said, but it was something like, "Thank you for the body you have given me. It is a temple that carries my spirit, and the Holy Spirit, and has the power to hold life." 

I thought of my "yoga for fertility" classes, and I affirmed my connections to to the bigger universe and my relationships. I looked at my belly and I realized that my body strengths as well as my body quirks were all a written record of who I am today, and where I have gone before; what I have eaten, what I have believed and how I exercise (or not) is all an imprint of what kind of a steward I have been as I  take care of this physical thing called "self." 

I went back in my mind to the shame I have always felt as I looked at  my stomach. When I was a little girl, with two very lean older brothers, we spent full summers swimming and roughhousing in our backyard pool. Their physical differences from mine stood out daily to me like a scarlet letter. They had not one ounce of fat on them, and their ribs and pelvic bones protruded strongly as if trying to escape from inside of their skin. Meanwhile they affectionately giggled as I sat in a pool float, with a roll that became something like a smiley face at the area where my belly button was hidden somewhere unseen. I laughed with my brothers and even made that smiley face talk, but I always longed for my body to look more like theirs. Somehow, as much as I tried, my stomach always (in my mind) looked more like a bowl of jello than that lean hard look that I longed for, and that my brothers seemed to be given without a second thought. That was a major a source of sadness and lack of self worth, and I carried it from before elementary school... I think even to today (despite the fact that just this week I was referred to as "a rail" by someone at work). 

Back to today... as I look at how God has made me, at Chinese Medicine and how these meridians work (which I truly do not pretend to understand) along with all of this positive thinking stuff... I realized I've found something important today. The part of my body that was intended to be the source of life and joy has been a source of shame since as long as I can remember. As I write this, I'm reminded of a self portrait that I made many years ago, before I was married (and when marriage seemed like an impossibility) that showed myself planted (part human, part tree) next to water... Biblically, this sounds like a good thing and brings references to being planted next to living water. In the self portrait, though, I was in the sand.... seemingly unable to get anywhere near the water, and my stomach was crossed out as I felt cut off from even the thought of marriage, and children, and that life source seemed untouchable, turned off and blocked from all sense of power. 

So now, this makes me think....When I  finally got married at age 35 and I first began to think about the possibility of getting pregnant six years ago, I fearfully thought, "What would pregnancy do to my body? My sense of freedom? My independence?" There was a pride in me that did not want to change or get stretchmarks. I feared getting fat,  being the center of attention with a baby bump, and I dreaded the thought of strangers touching my stomach (shame) as if they were long lost friends.  All this because of what? Because I didn't want to lose the figure that I had  (even though I was filled with self loathing and never felt proud of it anyway)? 

So now...This is clearly a process, but today I feel like I've been told to love my body. It is a gift from God, and to dishonor what He has given me is to dishonor God's creation. My scars, my beauty and my imperfections are "my perfection." They are my personal history. Perhaps this is part of the mind transformation that needs to happen before I become a mom. I think I need to start working on an updated self portrait. 

Someone Told Me Recently...

So, I apologize for going back in time here... but eh... I'm just talking to myself right now... or I was until Isaac told his therapist about this blog. (Hi Charlie!) Looks like I've been outed!

I'm doing this blog for me. I never thought anyone would really read it... at least until our story has been resolved. Who knows? There is a community of women that I've been connecting with via an email thread. They all go to the same fertility center that we are transitioning to, and they are all going through the same thing. Someday I might have a reason to share this, but right now it's just for me.

Anyway... back in time... A while ago Isaac and I went to a workshop at CNY (where we've been doing acupuncture treatments and yoga for fertility classes) where Dr. Kiltz talked about his book, "The Fertile Secret." and about practical things you can do "on your way to parenthood."

Note that last statement... The previous center that we had worked with continually spoke about and wrote down our diagnosis, "unspecified infertility." In contrast, CNY calls it, "the journey to parenthood." We're in progress, it's not hopeless... Everything in this place just feels different than the medical machine we had grown accustomed to at "the other center" that we're currently transitioning out of. The "Fertile Secret" meeting was hosted by Dr. Kiltz, along with an acupuncturist, a massage therapist and yoga instructor. They talked holistically about our mindset, our food intake, our exercise habits, and our spirituality. This makes sense to me.

In contrast, the first center we had worked with just took my blood at every visit like a sanitary vampire (who often missed on the first try) with no explanation of what they were looking for. They handed me shots to self-administer on my belly with no directions of how to do it or where to put the sharps after we were finished injecting them. They gave me 2-3 vaginal ultrasounds a month with limited explanations of what they were seeing and what was good or what was bad. I also "got to take" Clomid (a pill which made me a crazy roller coaster of emotions, a.k.a. a sarcastic bitch), and they acted  we'd been through all of this before and this was no big deal--- but this is too big and too emotional to go through without knowing what's going on.

So, back to the Fertile Secret workshop day... It happened to be Ash Wednesday, which I only knew because one of my students had come into school that day with ashes on his forehead. I was raised Catholic, and found my own faith through a non-denominational youth group in high school (Young Life). When we went this workshop Dr. Kiltz said something to the tune of:

"You are living your perfect life right now." 

I looked around incredulously at the 30 or so young, beautiful and infertile couples who sat around this room and thought, "He has a hell of a lot of nerve!" He continued (I'm paraphrasing),

 "Whatever hardships you are going through were designed to build you into the person you are supposed to be. You have a choice, you either fall on your face crying and give up, or you get up and begin the fight of your life." 

Now, I'm not one to give up, and I've never done anything the easy way, but he's a doctor who owns 3 beautiful fertility centers in different cities and is building a 4th one, from what I hear. What does he know about hardship? Then he talked about his upbringing... The first person who ever believed in him was an art teacher who mentored him and helped him to believe that he had something of value to share with the world. You see, before that, Dr. Kiltz was a teenager who involved in a gang in LA. He went on to talk about other challenges that he needed to overcome, all the while talking with this glowing smile on his face that exuded a sense of joy rarely seen in this day and age. I listened. He continued to speak his magic spell over me and I made a few decisions that night. One, we're leaving the first fertility center and moving to this one! Two, I am giving up negative thinking for Lent.

Lent is over now, but honestly... giving up negative thinking was the best thing I could have ever done for myself! We can stew in our misery and insist that the world around us is a terrible place.  Honestly, sometimes it is incredibly unfair! Be real, and grieve when you need to. But, no matter how miserable the world is in our heads the birds still sing, the sun still shines, and the ocean waves still lap up at the edge of the rocks and smooths them over time... I'm still surrounded by some of the most caring, compassionate and loving people on earth.  I have a good job, I'm in multiple leadership positions, I'm connected in this community, I'm in great health, I'm married to a man that I love, I have a dog who makes me laugh, and, well, honestly, a lot of people would dream of having my life! I need to have a greater sense of the big picture and a sense of gratitude for the good stuff.

Before that seminar night I was in probably one of the deepest ruts of despair I have been in in my life. I hated being in that ugly place, but I didn't know how to get out of it. I was even at the point where the thought entered my head one night on the way home from work, " It would be so much easier if I could just speed up my car as fast as it can go and crash into a tree." Never in my life had those words entered my head. I've had friends say those words, and I never understood how someone could think them or actually speak them. Life still isn't easy. This whole positive thinking thing is still a process and I fail sometimes. A friend said to me when I told her about this, "Now, I understand giving up negative speech, but negative thinking.... I'm not sure anyone can do that?" I responded, "You know me, I don't want to scratch at the surface, get me to the root of this thing, then I'll resolve it once and for all!"