If you know anything about Gopher basketball, you know that the team has not had a successful season in awhile. Short of catching a few headlines in our local paper or catching glimpses of the games if Jon has them on the TV on some lazy Saturday evening, I never emotionally involved myself nor had enough passion to follow them. So what was this sudden exhilarating interest in a team that I hadn't cared enough about before? The beauty of sports is that you don't have to be a fan of the team to attend one and let yourself become caught up in the excitement. Watching the team second by second detailing every pass, foul, baskets made, near misses and those whopping 3 pointers were enough to hold my interest because when it's front of my face I want nothing more than for them to win.
This is what TTC is like. Not necessarily for those self-labelled "NTNP's" (not trying, but not preventing), but those that are actually monitoring their cervical fluid, noting the subtle pains in their ovaries and fixating on the daily intricacies and fluctuations otherwise known as the basal body temperature chart. We are often reminded that an isolated temperature will never tell the full story and that it's the overall chart pattern, but I can't tell you how many times I woke up, took my temperature and thought to myself, "Ugh, I can't wait to go back to bed and take my temperature again tomorrow morning because this temperature sucks!". I can't help but notice the irony when I get so caught up in the frenzy of what my body is doing on any given day when a year ago I had no idea that my body even DID these things nor did I care. This daily monitoring of my body can trigger emotional investment that is sometimes not wanted. It's hard to avoid though because just like watching a basketball game, once you witness it happen, it's painfully hard to not care what happens next.
So what to do? Whip out your iPhone in the middle of the basketball game and suddenly you're only looking up from it incrementally when you hear the cheers or boo's because that's all you care about (the extremes). Suddenly winning and losing seem considerably minor in comparison to what you're doing on your iPhone. I'm told by many that have struggled to get pregnant right away that it only happened when they learned to let go. They managed to become distracted by something that took their mind off the everyday trials and tribulations consequent to TTC. Therefore, I've found my two distractions---planning our trip to Europe in April and.......wait for it, wait for it---traditional Chinese Medicine!
Following the news two months ago that this process had only gotten a wee bit harder because apparently my progesterone levels were low which may impede on my ability to get pregnant, I curiously became a little calmer. Not to say that I was inconsolable before this point because I wasn't, but I have become more accepting that this may take awhile and I've learned to let go just a bit. Suddenly my goal is no longer 100% to get pregnant every cycle. It has transformed to--ok, what can I do to get my body to successfully develop healthy follicles in order to maximize ovulation and progesterone levels? (I'm sure that was on everyone else's New Year's resolution list, right?)
(Enter acupuncture)
Acupuncture has proved to be an enlightening experience as I begin to explore aspects of my life that never heeded notice before. I had my second appointment a few nights ago and as I lay there thinking once again about the needles protruding my skin and how at any moment someone could barge into the room with a heavy text book and slam it on top of me thus forcing the needles to dig deep into my body (being rational is definitely not my strong point), I became acutely aware of my weaknesses. Periodically, as I felt my body calm down and the sensation of relaxation soothed through my body I would suddenly feel the urge to move a limb because I felt paralyzed. I shuffled through series of un-ivited and irrational twitches that were keeping me from falling asleep on the table. OMG (I thought to myself).....I have no idea how to relax!
I'm not talking the type of relaxing you take on your vacations laying in a hammock thinking, "aww, this is the life!" as you put your hands behind your head and bask in the sun. Or the relaxing after the end of long day laying in bed reading a good book (my favorite!). I'm talking about the type of relaxing that is not allowing myself to lay perfectly still during my acupuncture appointments thus allowing me to let go and shut my mind off.
Jon and I have been partaking in a weekly Yoga class at our fitness center, and I notice that while everyone else is undergoing mind-body connection sitting cross-legged inhaling and exhaling under carefully planned rhythym, I am usually peaking my eyes open to make sure I'm doing it right and wondering if the class is almost over so I can go home and eat dinner. Or else I'm laughing at my sloppiness and fixating on the fact that I'm dressed all wrong for the class by wearing a t-shirt that is falling over my head with every downward dog pose I do while all the other girls wear cute little Yoga outfits (ugh, why don't I have a cute Yoga outfit on?--note to self: buy cute Yoga outfit). I'm not saying this is impeding on my ability to get pregnant. I doubt this piece alone has any association with it, but it does trigger curiosity towards why others seem to reap the benefits of Yoga while I can't.
The everyday trudge of life is done so habitually and seamlessly we never question if its right or wrong--we just do. The exercises of Yoga and acupuncture focus on mind-body connection which are the basic fundamentals of traditional Chinese medicine. For the past 8 years I've exercised at a moderate to high intensity regularly in addition to regular weight training. Throw that into the mix of training for long-distance races--anything from 5ks to half marathons to a (never again) marathon. My philosophy on life is that if you take care of yourself that rest will take care of itself. I make a pointed effort to eat right and exercise regularly because western medicine tells me that this is the right thing to do and that I will reap the benefits. Epidemiological (epi what?) evidence indicates there are many benefits of a balanced diet and exercise which can prevent conditions and diseases from manifesting or corroding our lives.
Yet, what we understand less about is the power of the mind. No one can measure your thoughts that control the mind because we all carry different perspectives and outlooks on what is normal and what isn't, therefore it makes it difficult to study (although researchers do study it). Traditional Chinese medicine not only attempts to evaluate this mind-body connection, and but also explains our ailments to be a cause of imbalanced (yin-yang) energies. Once again, my acupuncturist pointed out that my exercise may be placing undue stress on the muso-skeletal system which forces my internal energy to devote too much of itself on healing this area and thus compromising less energy to other areas not essential to survival such as the reproductive area. She explained to me that when I exercise, my body is in fight or flight mode which causes stress on the body. Surely the stress that comes from exercise is arguably a healthy stress since it teaches your body how to control your stress levels which can be essential skill for everyday life stressors. However, exercise can cause too much stress (thus releasing too much cortisol) which my brain interprets as, "hey-this girl is stressed so let's not worry too much right now about getting her pregnant because we need to get her through this hardship before we even start thinking of letting her create a new life inside of her". Survival of the fittest at its finest, right?
My acupuncturist doesn't claim to have the answers, but these are the core principles underlying Chinese medicine and she is merely relaying what is understood from the eastern perspective. Our western culture clings so heavily to scientific evidence because we have the tools to study evidence. Evidence sways common practice, and as a society, we determine common practice to be the norm and thus the best way. Yet, can it be that perhaps we cling so heavily to scientific evidence that we're too quick to dismiss the areas that are less understood? It begs the question of how my mind and body would be different if I didn't push my body so hard to exercise. Would I be less tired? Would I have more energy? In all honesty, I have no idea. I can't compare my energy and aches or pains to someone else's because I only know myself. What if the everyday habits I've engaged in for the past 8 years has created a new level of "normal" for me that is anything but normal? What if I took a break from exercising (Ok--not going to happen!), would my body begin to heal (both physically and mentally?). The best I can do is take a recourse from my habitual training and try something new in hopes of shedding light on how to ehance my physical and mental sense of self. What do I have to lose by at least trying?
I passionately took a trip to my library today to check out some books on traditional Chinese medicine and infertility. As I read through "Infertility for Dummies (::blush::), I found a reassuring fact under the "complementary medicine" section that stated one IVF study found a 62% increased pregnancy rate in women undergoing both IVF and acupuncture versus women undergoing IVF alone. Granted, this is just one study, but I've found similar data stemming from other studies that seem to indicate the benefits of acupuncture. As I mentioned in a previous post, I take all of this with grain of a salt because I don't understand it all myself, but that is what learning is for. Even if I gain little from acupuncture or reducing my work-outs if I decide to follow the core principals of Chinese medicine, the invaluable experience and insight I'm gaining about myself is enough to deem this complementary medicine practice a "success".
As I begin reading the books I checked out at the library, I will blog about what I learn because I think it's worth it to share. In the mean time, I'm happy to embrace this welcome distraction.
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