Hello, ladies, I hope you are all well and get to enjoy some of the Bank holiday sunshine! We were meant to meet with our NCT friends today, but they all cancelled on us ? one lots has Hand, Foot & Mouth disease, and the other ones gave birth to DD2 on Sunday ? how dare they 
So having a quiet and ?local? day with DS ? Dh came with us to Softplay in the morning, but now has to work (boo), so I will have to entertain DS on my own for the rest of the day. Thankfully, he?s having a monster nap at the moment, so I can finally catch up with you all!
Sorry to all of you that have had some sad news this week, be it in form of a BFN or worse ? Jass and Irish, I feel for you, it must be so hard. Especially, since you?re not telling your other halves about the chemical pregnancies/miscarriages! I can understand where you?re coming from, but still ? it?s bad enough as it is, without having to face it alone. Hats off to you, I hope you?re still getting lots of support.
I?ve had a tough week, all culminating in one of my best friends (the NCT one I mentioned earlier) having her baby no.2 on Sunday. I hate to admit it, but I on and off cried all day when I got the news. At the moment, I feel as if I?m facing this massive wall, and can?t seem to see how I?m ever going to get over it to have another baby. And everyone (well, at least it seems that way) around me is popping gorgeous babies. At least once a month since the beginning of the year, and all I?ve had is bad news for myself.
It doesn?t help that I?m just coming to the end of a 12-day AF ? first one since mc, so I know that they can be all over the place, but it just seems to add insult to injury.
Really doubting it all at the moment ? ttc at 41, and how I can possibly face starting it all over again after having 2 mcs? I went to the acupuncturist for a consultation, hoping it would make me feel proactive and good, but to be honest ? I really wish I hadn?t, it made me feel worse.
The lady spent ages looking at my tongue and my temping charts, asked loads of questions and concluded that a) I have blood stasis, b) have issues with ?hot blood? and c) my charts indicate that I could have endometriosis. Now I?m not saying that that is wrong, she has certainly picked up on me having issues with blood ? which she should have, given my medical history. But she really seemed to focus almost too much on my temping charts, and to me it sounds as if she just wants to get them ?right? before doing anything else.
The more I think about it, the more I think that she just honed in on what she knows best ? she said herself at one point that she has more experience with ladies coming to her with fertility issues, i.e. not being able to fall pg, which is clearly not what my problem is. She was very pleased that I?m charting, again, people usually only start that after coming to see her. But I don?t think that my problem lies with my charts? I have regular cycles, I always ovulate, and always on CD14/15/16, and I clearly can get pg. She very strongly suggested that my follicular phase is not as it should be, i.e. too erratic, too high temps and all over the place. Which I don?t have a problem with ? so the line looks like skyline of the Himalaya, so what?! My average temps have been very high, fair enough, but I?ve been very stressed and not getting a lot of sleep recently (only 4-5hrs each night) ? my temps have plummeted this weekend, now that I?ve managed to catch up with sleep.
She then went on to suggest two possible ways of treatment ? the ?easy? one, where she doesn?t really do very much with the acupuncture (apart from sticking needles in me, obviously), just trying to relax me a bit, hoping that this will resolve the issue. She clearly didn't think much of that option. Or the ?serious? treatment ? where I get acupuncture as well as Chinese herbs to try and address the issues. In combination with that, she suggests a rather drastic life style change ? no exercise, no coffee or tea, only protein for breakfast, and no snacking between meals. And no ttc for at least 2 months, as the herbs are not compatible with pregnancy. I won?t go into the details about why all this (this post is already long enough), but all this all really rubbed me up the wrong way.
So, you can probably already tell that I?ve (almost) decided not to go ahead with this program. She was honest, and she does seem to know her stuff, but everything she suggested goes against what I believe in? I?m not ready (yet) for such drastic measures, especially since it all seems to focus only to get my charts looking ?right?. I challenged her on that, asking about whether she believed that this could be a contributing factor to my miscarriages ? to which she answered (of course) very vaguely and evasively. I know that there is no answer as to why I have them (well, no obvious one), and I know that I can?t expect acupuncture to be the cure, but if I don?t believe in the treatment course, the I don?t see a point in doing it. I?m not giving up exercise, and I?m not going to stop having snacks between meals. And I?m definitely not going to wait with ttc, scrap that!
But then I have this niggling doubt, which is why I feel so crap about it all. Am I dismissing this option too quickly? Should I not be trying everything? Could it work? Am I not dedicated enough to explore every single option? Should I not at least give it a go?
It?s been doing my head in all week. Wondering if I should go to another one, but at £50-60 a pop, these consultations are not cheap?
What do you all think? I?d really value your opinions, I think I need a reality check!
And sorry about the mammoth post!