My infertility nightmare started almost 3 years ago when my husband and I started trying to conceive, I was 36 at the time. After 7 months I became pregnant but unfortunately lost the pregnancy at 6 weeks. The months following my miscarriage are a very black time in my life. I grieved our loss and became increasingly depressed due to our inability to conceive and maintain a pregnancy. (I had chemical pregnancies following the first miscarriage). In my mind only a healthy pregnancy could help me to recover from all the loss and become the happy, healthy individual I was before we started on our conception journey.
We tried everything possible to improve our chances of conceiving from counseling to fertility testing, only to find we had ‘Unexplained Infertility’.
We moved onto Genesis for months of IUI’s and clomid with only chemical pregnancies to show for our efforts.
My husband recommended we try acupuncture after reading a very positive article about its success with infertility in the newspaper. My fear of needles and the expense had prevented me from trying acupuncture thus far, but as I became increasingly desperate I was willing to try anything.
When I first met Spence I was a complete mess. Life was such a struggle for me and it literally felt as if I were drowning in a pit of black depression and grief. At this lowest of points I decided to give acupuncture a try as a last resort but I truly didn’t have any faith it would work as nothing so far had, only a healthy pregnancy could bring light back into my life.
I was wrong. Over time I started to feel better. Some of the black lifted. Making it through each day wasn’t such a struggle. Each month when I would find I wasn’t pregnant, I would grieve but I was able to pick myself up and move onto hoping for the following month. I was no longer engulfed in my grief as I had been. I had an overall sense of well being and even a bit of happiness, despite the fact I was no closer to pregnancy.
The only thing I can attribute this dramatic change to is acupuncture as nothing slse had changed with my situation. My desire to have a baby was still as strong as ever as was my grief over the pregnancies I’d lost. The way my body responded to all this was the big difference. I was finally coping.
Eventually we came to the conclusion, and Spence agreed, that I should proceed to IVF. this seemingly huge next step terrified me. My fear of needles, the expense and especially my fear of failure all made this decision a difficult one.
However, we decided to go ahead with the IVF and I continued with acupuncture throughout my IVF cycle. In addition I also listened to the inspirational fertility CD’s offered. I found they really helped to relax me and focused my mind in a positive direction. I suffered none of the symptoms or complications generally associated with the IVF procedure. I’m not sure if this was a result of the acupuncture treatments or if I just got lucky but I believe in my heart the acupuncture made our IVF cycle the success that it was. The overall feeling of positive energy, well being and good health that I get from acupuncture simply had to have helped the whole process along.
I am now blissfully enjoying my 38th week of pregnancy. I have continued monthly acupuncture treatments throughout my pregnancy and attribute these to my lack of complications/pregnancy symptoms.
My experience has truly been an amazing one. Spence has been so incredibly supportive and caring throughout. He has such a kind, gentle demeanor and his steadfast belief (when I had none) in the ability of acupuncture to help gave gave me much needed strength to preservere on.
It is my firm belief that acupuncture helped my body and mind heal to where I became healthy again and worthy of a ‘soul’ choosing me.
I traveled a long, painful road to get to where I am today and I know medical science (IVF) played a large role in my current success but I truly don’t think even science could have helped me had my body and mind not been healthy, stong, and well, and I completely attribute that to Spence.
SR
