Waiting for January for our first insemination is proving to be difficult. I feel like I need to do something to get my body ready and hopefully improve my chances to conceive. A couple of weeks ago I had blood tests done and it was hard to wait for the results to come back. Everything came back normal including my cholesterol, but my thyroid is on the high end of normal. My doctor thought about putting me on medication, but I really don’t like that idea. I want my body to regulate itself without putting unnatural things into it. So I decided to do acupuncture as a way to treat the thyroid and help ready my body for pregnancy.
Yesterday was my firs appointment with the acupuncturist. I’m really fortunate to have insurance that values alternative medicine. My appointments only cost me $10 and the clinic is within walking distance, although it’s raining a lot so I don’t see me doing that at the moment. I went into the clinic, filled out some paperwork, and was offered an assortment of teas and water while I wait. The acupuncturist, who I was scheduled with, walked into the clinic wearing brown knee high boots, red skirt, dark orange sleeveless top, and long black dreadlocks. She led me into another room with a wicker chair and a massage table. The walls were painted in a light brown color with the tan ceiling. We talked for a half hour about my long cycles, the thyroid, and hormones. She looked at my tongue a few times and commented on how thick it was. I felt very comfortable with her and remember thinking how happy I was that I had chosen this place to do treatment.
After she inserted the needles, turned on some Chinese ting-dong music, and left the room, I thought about my dad. A little over two years ago, I had my dad do acupuncture to fight the fatigue and pain he was feeling. The A. doctor kept saying that there was something wrong with his liver, but we didn’t really pay that much attention since that was not were the pain was. We went to my dad’s lung specialist (he had lung cancer a year or two before, which led to a small part of his lung taken out, but no chemo) because the pain wasn’t getting any better. I was just about to start grad school, finishing up my B.S degrees (yes, 2 of them) when we learned that he had several tumors throughout the body, including the liver. Lying on that table with the needles sticking in me brought me back to what he must have been going through when he was having acupuncture. If I could have traded places with him I would have, to take all the cancer out of his body and place it in me. It was hard to get married without him physically being there, but I know he was there in spirit. I have a whole new life that he’s not here for. He never met my wife and she feels sad for that. She says that she thinks about him every now and then.
Anyway, the acupuncture was great and I look forward to doing it again next week. I’m still trying to remember to take the prenatal vitamins and I have modified my diet to be healthier. Like I might have already said, we don’t eat any red meat, no fast food (which was hard for me to break that habit), and we even make our own bread thanks to my sister-in-law for that wedding present! I’m committed to exercising 3 days a week and I’ll build up to more as time goes on. I’ve been told not to go on a diet because that could mess up the hormone levels and my cycles. I’m definitely overweight with a high BMI, but my doctor assured me that just losing 10 pounds by January would help increase my chances, though it’s not necessary. Since I have seen her, I have lost almost 5 pounds with doing nothing more that eating healthy and moving a bit more.
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