Every breath I take

I attended a yoga class last night in my ongoing attempt to relax. Everyone knows that stress is the wrong thing to have in your life when you're trying to get pregnant. Research even shows how severe stress in utero can have a negative effect on babies. So I've scheduled relaxation into my life, which means at least once-weekly yoga classes, as well as (what's supposed to be) once-daily meditations.

Oh yes, meditation. Yoga Nidra (a 35-minute guided meditation on CD, during which I invariably fall asleep), Insight meditation (rain and whatnot), my own quiet, sit-and-observe-your-breath meditation practice with accompanying gong, even Gregorian chants to help me access the desired state.

I realize that none of this can hurt, but I can't help thinking of women with exponentially greater stress in their lives who easily manage to get pregnant. Nevertheless, in the pursuit of healthy pregnancy achievement, not just simply getting pregnancy, I will persevere - one breath at time.

To tell the truth, the full truth

I went to the "conventional" doctor today. I figured it was high time to get everything checked out internally, make sure there isn't something wonky preventing me from conceiving. And I lied. In great detail. About how Chris and I have been trying for a year to get pregnant. All I wanted was a referral to a gynecologist, but most doctors won't bother exploring fertility options until you've been trying a full year. So I lied.

After hearing my sob story, the doctor decided that any ol' gyno wouldn't do, she was going to send me straight to the regional fertility clinic for a full work-up - accompanied by all her lie-filled notes she so diligently took.

Now I wait for an appointment, one I'm surely stealing from a much more deserving woman who actually has been trying for a year. But, as bad as I feel, I'm not so honourable (or foolish) that I'm willing to give up this appointment. I will simply go in and ask for a basic internal exam and be on my way - with plenty of time left over for them to help the next hopeful candidate...

In the beginning...

Well here it is, my first post. I suppose now would be as good a time as ever to fill you in on what prompted me to wax lyrical about making babies.

Chris and I have been trying to get pregnant for eight months now - still within a perfectly acceptable, normal conception time frame. Unless you're a low-patience high achiever like me, then it's an eternity. I was absolutely certain it'd be a slam dunk the first month. Oh, how blissfully ignorant I was back then...

After four months of failed attempts, I took action - outside of the bedroom. I enlisted the help of a dynamic duo, a husband and wife team of Naturopathic Doctors whose practice focuses on fertility and healthy pregnancies and births. After my first appointment, I was sent home with a (graphic) handbook titled The Justisse Method for Fertility Management, charts to fill out and a medicine-cabinet full of herbs, vitamins, oils and powders that promised to do everything from cleanse my liver to boost my faltering adrenal glands.

As it turns out, there's something I like to call the Golden Triangle, a nice, helpful trifecta of glands and organs related to pregnancy achievement - healthy ovaries, a balanced thyroid, and robust adrenals. I was seriously lacking in the last two of the three. One month and one $300 "spit test" later, and it appeared I also suffered from slumping progesterone and a.m. cortisol (a.k.a. hydrocortisone, a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex); never a good sign.

Herbs/oils/powders were altered, treatments continued, charts were analyzed, cervical fluid was examined, and bi-weekly acupuncture sessions were commenced. I'm still not pregnant, but my oh my have things changed. I no longer experience the down right unpleasant PMS I've suffered from my whole life and other indicators of success are positively shifting. I'm a believer.