becoming aware that you have a filter and paying attention to its impact on your ability to remain positive. Here are some ways you can change your filter:
•Ask yourself, is your diagnosis the ultimate truth? When I received my diagnosis (see Chapter 8), I acknowledged the condition but refused to live with the label “infertile.” Instead, I opened myself to creative ways of building a family, including IVF, donor eggs, and adoption. At the same time, I continued with my healthy diet, moderate exercise, and positive lifestyle.
•Surround yourself with positive people.
•Be grateful for your overall health.
•If the doctor says you are reproductively old, find examples of women who defy the odds and tell yourself you can be one of them. (I hope you will find yourself in some of the women I describe in this book.)
•Remind yourself that the tests form a baseline picture of your current reproductive health. Focus on what you can do to improve that picture by taking charge of your diet, lifestyle, and stress-management strategies.
•Remember that a diagnosis is usually more opinion than fact; you can always get a second opinion.
Pregnancy really is a miracle
We see pregnancy around us so often that we take it for granted. Few of us realize how many conditions must line up perfectly just to prepare a woman’s body to conceive. Consider this simplified list of requirements for an embryo to become implanted:
1.The brain (hypothalamus, pituitary) must release the right hormones properly to stimulate egg development.
2.An egg of good enough quality must develop to maturity, and it must be chromosomally normal.
3.The brain must release luteinizing hormone (LH) to stimulate final ripening of the egg and ovulation (release of the egg).
4.The follicle in which the egg develops inside the ovary must rupture at time of ovulation and release the egg.
5.The fallopian tube must “pick up” the egg.
6.The sperm must be of good enough quality to survive and swim up the fallopian tube from the vagina and through the cervical mucous.
7.Once there, the sperm must sit ready and perched, waiting for the egg to drop so it can penetrate the shell.
8.The sperm must release its DNA of twenty-three chromosomes into the egg to fertilize it.
9.The fertilized egg must undergo cellular division to become an embryo and then continue to divide normally.
10.The embryo must make its way down the fallopian tube into the uterus by the third day of development, where it will have a different environment in which to survive and grow.
11.Once there, the embryo must continue to develop and expand into a blastocyst (a multi-celled embryo) and then hatch out of its shell and implant in the uterus.
12.The endometrial lining of the uterus must be ready for implantation (a complicated, multi-step process of its own).
Western medicine and fertility clinics focus on what might be wrong with any of these details, how they might explain it, and how they might fix it. They test blood levels of reproductive hormones and examine ultrasounds of developing follicles. They administer hormones; perform IUI, IVF, or surgeries; or combine these technologies.
TCM looks less at the details and more at the big picture. After all, women’s bodies have been going through this intricate process for millions of years. According to TCM, when the conditions are right and your internal environment is balanced and healthy, your chances of conceiving and carrying a healthy and successful pregnancy to term are great.
What is “unexplained infertility”?
Infertility is defined, in Western medicine, as when a woman has been unable to conceive after a year of unprotected sex. When a doctor can’t find a specific explanation for this, he or she may diagnose unexplained infertility. Twelve percent of couples experiencing fertility challenges are diagnosed with unexplained infertility.2
I see women nearly every day who have spent months conscientiously trying to conceive, feeling hopeful and excited. They’ve also had monthly feelings of disappointment and sadness when they discovered they weren’t pregnant, whereupon most resolutely return to baby-making. But many of the women in my practice admit to going online and diagnosing themselves with unexplained infertility after only a few months of unprotected sex.
Please don’t do this. It has a negative impact on your ability to keep a positive state of mind. I rarely use the word “infertile” in my clinic. In my opinion, this word alone can create a negative environment in your body, mind, and spirit. It’s a word I’ve spent many hours counselling my patients to stop focusing on.
Unfortunately, when a woman hears a diagnosis of infertility, she infers, “I am infertile.” My perspective is that, at that moment in time, that woman’s system is simply saying, “No, not now” to having a baby. Instead of using the words “infertility” or “infertile,” I encourage women to say, “At this time, I am having a challenge with my fertility.”
In my practice, I have seen many women conceive outside of the one-year time frame. The only fertility challenge I diagnosed was that they were out of balance and needed guidance to create a nurturing environment and prepare their soil to receive and nurture their seeds.
How TCM can help
One of the first things I do with patients who’ve been diagnosed as infertile is to help them let go of their negative assumptions. Acupuncture sessions may help them release thoughts and feelings that seem stuck in their minds, while counselling or hypnosis may help them process upsetting experiences they’ve had on their journey to conceive.
What you can do with any TCM practitioner is optimize your chances of creating life by treating underlying imbalances that Western diagnostic tools may not reveal. TCM goes beyond technological diagnoses to look at your overall state of health by inquiring into your lifestyle habits and your physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. The philosophy in Chinese medicine is that you are most likely to conceive naturally when you are more balanced physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Using Chinese medicine, I guide my patients to achieve balance in their overall well-being rather than focusing on the twelve tiny details of implanting an embryo or the specific challenges their body is going through. Throughout this book, I will share with you the same guidance I share with them about eating healthier, engaging in moderate exercise, relaxing, and creating a positive environment in which to grow a baby.
Blending Eastern and Western medicine
Vanessa and I began weekly acupuncture treatments—at the same time as she went to her fertility clinic—to help dissipate and rectify her imbalances. Although her menstrual cycles were regular at twenty-eight days, her other symptoms, according to TCM, reflected imbalances within her cycle.
Western medicine focuses on the numbers associated with menses. It considers a menstrual cycle irregular if it is less than twenty-five or more than thirty-five days; twenty-eight days is considered normal. In TCM, however, we also consider the quality of menses
