A Long Time Coming

It has been almost a month since my last post (which doesn't really count since it was 3 words) and I have no explanation as to why I am not posting these days. 

For a while I felt like I just was not motivated to post, didn't feel up to it, and just didn't want to talk (type) about it anymore than I had to.  It seemed that my whole life was constantly consumed by infertlity and I was becoming very tired, both emotionally and physically.  While I can't say that it has really changed all that much, I can say that I am becoming a stronger person and making some changes in my life.

I have new hope that I can get back to being my normal, happy self.  I am in no means giving up on our journey to conceive a child, but I do need to take a gigantic step back and analyze all the pieces in my life to determine how to be "me" again.  Trying to explain the way I feel is difficult, but it can be summed up in that I feel like I have lost myself with only a shell remaining.  Everyday hurts more than the last.  Our dreams seem to be fading quickly and the harder I work and scramble to pick up the pieces and achieve success, the further away it becomes.  Quite frankly, it's one viscious circle.

Now, I was pretty sceptical about acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine to begin with and tried it because I kind of felt like I was running out of options.  My IVF nurse and my doctor both recommended it, so I made an appointment.

This week, I was able to find the smallest glimmer of hope and light to help guide me into a happier existance.  I started acupuncture on Tuesday evening and I already feel as if it has begun to change my life.  I'm not trying to be overdramatic here, and believe me, I don't think its some magical treatment, but I do think that I finally hit a wall in where I needed to choose either to continue to be someone I was not, or to become happy again. 

The entire appointment was a little over 1.5hrs with a 45 min consult to begin things.  My acupuncturist is one of Chicago's best and I could tell after the first few minutes that he just "gets" it.  When asking me questions he seemed to already know the answer and understand what my body is doing...or rather what I am doing to my body.  He was extremely encouraging in that he has hundreds of patients that have very similar stories to mine.  While there are no guaranties that I will become pregnant (which he is quite encouraging about), he is helping me to see that I can help myself to become a more healthy, balanced, and happy person.

He gave me some new and very restricting diet recommendations.  I say very restricting because one of the things I have to get rid of is dairy....My favorite food is cheese.  Not to mention I love milk.  I have committed to myself that I will follow his guidelines since I should have been eating better than I have been to begin with.  Thankfully, I can "have fun" as he puts it, 20% of the time. 

In addition to my new diet, he recommended some books to read: "The Fertile Soul" and "Making Babies 2009."  I started reading The Fertile Soul last night and have been so moved.  I continued reading it today on my lunch because I just can't get enough.  I feel like this book is hopefully going to help me figure things out and become a happier person.  Of course I also hope that it brings me closer to a child, but I realize that I can't be so focused on that all the time.  If I don't start making time for myself to heal, I'll never get any closer to reaching my goal.

In the coming days I do plan to post an update about all of the other things that have been going on this month, but for now I need to wrap things up.