I thought I would get pregnant immediately

When my husband and I first started trying for a baby I thought I would get pregnant immediately. After all, everything in my life had worked on a schedule and I believed that pregnancy would be no different. After three months of "trying" I started to get a bit concerned and began charting my cycles and taking my basal body temperature every morning. Turns out my cycles were very regular and I ovulated the same time every month. After a few more months with no pregnancy I then started using ovulation predictor strips I'd bought off the internet. It wasn't long before I was timing my ovulation down to a 12 hour period. My husband and I timed things just right month after month, after month - but no pregnancy.

Our journey was extremely emotionally painful. Why was everything seemingly perfect with my cycles and yet no baby?? All tests on both my husband and I were normal so there was no explanation for our infertility. I became obsessive about trying everything I could to get pregnant. Special diets, exercise, no exercise, chiropractor, prayer (and lots!), taking vacations, yoga, stress counseling etc yet still no baby. Finally out of sheer desperation we resorted to Clomid (5 rounds) and then Intrauterine insemination three times. Still nothing worked.

We decided that since I was age 38 we had no further time to waste. We decided that IVF was in order and made moves to go that route. I had done a great deal of research on internet discussion groups around infertility and discovered that many women who were successful in IVF treatment did so with acupuncture. A recommended practitioner of acupuncture for infertility was Lorne Brown. Although I was initially quite skeptical, I knew in my heart that unless I had tried "absolutely everything" that I would feel really bad if the IVF was unsuccessful. So off I went to Vancouver on a regular basis to see Lorne even though it cost me great time and expense.

The result was that I felt very relaxed and very positive after each and every treatment. When it came time for my IVF Lorne made sure that I received the necessary treatments at the specific times necessary to optimize success. On the day of our embryo transfer, a day when you should be as relaxed as possible for success, the ferry to Vancouver was late and we had hit major construction on the way. Terrified of being late and jeopardizing the embryo's viability I was a basket case of stress when I entered Lorne's office for our pre-transfer acupuncture appointment. I ended up leaving the session feeling more relaxed than I had felt in many many months. The IVF clinic transferred three embryos. Two weeks later we received the great news - I was pregnant!!!

I delivered a very healthy baby girl in March 2004. I fully attribute our success to the specialized acupuncture I received with Lorne Brown. Although many will likely say that our daughter was the full result of the IVF and nothing more, I have to disagree. Many of my friends I have met on line have had to do two or more IVF cycles to get pregnant and there are many still who are not pregnant from IVF. During our IVF cycle I only produced 4 eggs, which I thought meant inevitable failure of the treatment considering the odds. Those 4 eggs however, turned out to be very high quality and produced 4 top quality embryos - it is this embryo quality that I fully attribute to my acupuncture treatments. One of those embryos is now my beautiful sweet daughter who I love more than anything in this world. I am fully convinced, and have been since the report of my positive pregnancy test, that if not for the very specialized treatment provided by Lorne that I would not have gotten pregnant.

My message to anyone reading this is - I know acupuncture can seem like another added expense and use of your valuable time, especially with the cost and time required with IVF is so high, but this is the one area where you can optimize your chances of success. It is a form of medicine that has worked for centuries and even though it is only recently gaining recognition in our own backyard, it is well recognized as an effective medicine in many other countries ....and for a good reason. I highly recommend acupuncture as a treatment for infertility!

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