you feel isolated and alone, thinking no one understands what you’re going through?
•Have work and trying to conceive become your full-time jobs, or are you doing other things so they don’t consume your life?
Unfortunately, when most women who come to my clinic answer these questions, they realize how isolated they feel and how consumed they’ve become with their fertility journey. Stress is part of living, but you can strategize to limit your stress where you can, create a supportive environment around yourself, seek ways to soften your reactions to stress, and make a positive difference in your own life.
Decreasing your stress levels
Acupuncture is one way to manage stress, but, realistically, you cannot do it every day. So what else can you do?
•Say “no.” You do not have to agree to every request someone makes of you. Learn to say “no” to organizing a work event, going to a baby shower, or spending time with family or friends who do not support you.
•When you can’t say “no,” such as when your stress involves caring for a sick parent or grieving the loss of a loved one, acknowledge it. Close your eyes and notice where your stress is sitting in your body. Consciously relax that part of your body. Stress in and of itself does not impede pregnancy. It’s how we respond to stress that may have a positive or negative impact on our body, mind, spirit, and ability to conceive.
•Connect with nature. Fresh air is healing. It can help you put things in perspective by seeing yourself as a small piece of the universe.
•Connect with your partner. Go for date nights. Keep intimacy alive. Remind yourselves why you became a couple.
•Go for walks. Moderate exercise helps work off stress hormones and replace them with feel-good hormones.
•Pick up a hobby. Find something you can be passionate about or something that just makes you smile, like pottery class, belly dancing, gardening, or crocheting.
•Create support. Talk to an understanding friend, join a fertility support group, or see a therapist who specializes in fertility. Do not rely on your partner’s support, because there is a limit to how much he can support and understand you, especially when he is mourning in his own way, a way that is likely very different than yours. It is too much to ask any one person to fulfill every one of your physical, mental, and emotional needs. That’s what friends and professionals are for.
•Assess whether you are a Type A personality, and realize you don’t have to do it all and do it right. Every day, patients ask me “What else can I do?” I usually say, “What can you let go of today or this week?”
•Take the herbal medicines your TCM suggests. These are time-tested to allow for the free flow of energy throughout your body and nourish, restore, and replenish your energy, blood, body fluids, and essence.
•Try meditation or hypnosis. This does not have to be a sit-down thing, unless you have a personality that finds stillness rejuvenating. If you are a Type A, the exercises in the next bullet might be better for you.
•Try mind-body exercise like Tai Chi, Qi Gong, yoga, and even walking or running moderately. Any exercise that combines breathing with movement and increases self-awareness can have a calming, meditative effect on your body, mind, and spirit.
•Clean up your diet. Eating organic foods and minimizing your exposure to toxins can decrease the physical stress on your body.
•Practice gratitude. Create a routine when you wake up, before you go to bed, or before meals, where you think about one thing you are grateful for. Allow your mind to focus on one positive thing in your life, even if it’s only for five minutes at a time. When I started working on this book, I created my social media Gratefulness Project, 365 Days of Keeping the Grass Greener on this Side, to create a supportive environment for my readers and reduce my own worries. I find myself happier, more content, and less likely to sweat the small stuff. Practising gratitude can help you mitigate your stress as you deal with your fertility challenges.
•Learn to mother yourself first. When you are in an airplane with a child sitting beside you and the oxygen mask comes down, you put it on yourself first to ensure you’ll be able to help your child. Mothering yourself means respecting and caring for yourself. In Avery’s case, this meant understanding her own limitations and learning when to say “no” or ask for help. It meant going to work and doing her job well and then going home and leaving work behind. It meant taking yoga classes and going for walks with her husband, eating organic, hormone-free, pesticide-free, antibiotic-free foods, and cutting out coffee and alcohol. And it meant recognizing how much to indulge her sweet tooth and when to stop.
•Remember, you are not your diagnosis. The fertility doctor’s words made Avery feel broken, but she was not broken. She didn’t need to feel imprisoned by her diagnosis, and neither do you. Instead, use your diagnosis as a jumping-off point, an opportunity to take care of yourself in ways you never have and see what happens.
The way TCM looks at your health
Avery reported herself to be healthy, active, and normal, with a regular menstrual cycle that was twenty-eight or twenty-nine days long. However, she experienced abdominal cramping and bloating, lower back pain, breast tenderness, lowered energy, and cravings for sweets for two days pre-menstrually and on the first day of her period. Even though these symptoms were normal for Avery, and typical for many women, they suggested an underlying imbalance as, according to TCM, menstruation should be uneventful and painless.
It’s not unusual for a TCM practitioner to spend one-and-a-half to two hours with a patient on their first visit and sixty minutes on subsequent visits. This is not about running up fees but taking time to listen, question, counsel, provide lifestyle advice, check in on them emotionally and physically, provide dietary advice, suggest herbal medicine, and treat overall health, not just reproductive health, since everything is interrelated.
At each of our sessions, Avery was surprised at how much time I spent with her, especially when I was coming up with her TCM diagnosis. Women continue to be surprised by the questions I ask and the depth and precision of information I gather. In addition to asking about her overall health history, bodily functions, and lifestyle habits, TCM practitioners learn to diagnose illness by palpating the radial artery pulse and looking at the tongue.
When a TCM practitioner feels the radial artery through their finger pads, they are paying attention to the rate and rhythm of the pulse, as well as its qualities. How the blood flows within the blood vessels, and how fast it flows, indicates the person’s health and vitality. Avery’s pulse was deficient and slightly choppy.
To a TCM practitioner, the tongue provides another glimpse into the overall state of an individual’s health. The tongue is the only visible internal muscle in the body. Its colour, size, and shape, as well as the thickness of the coating on it, reflect a lot about one’s health. Avery’s tongue was pale and swollen with teeth-marked edges, as if it was too big for her mouth. Increasing blood flow would make the tongue pinker, and increasing Qi (vital energy) would help the tongue hold its shape better.
To improve Avery’s blood and energy flow, we began weekly acupuncture treatments and Chinese herbal medicines. She began to make some lifestyle changes, which included eating warm, cooked foods and drinking warm drinks, in contrast with her usual fare of frozen berry smoothies and cold salads. According to TCM, when we eat cold food and drink, we use energy to heat it before we can digest it. If we want as much energy as possible to go toward reproduction, we must conserve our energy by eating warm
