And now we wait...and wait...and wait...

The title kind of sounds like I am in the "two week wait" mode again, but unfortunately I am not. FYI, in the infertility world, the two week wait is the two weeks that you have to wait once your fertilized eggs have been implanted for IVF or once the sperm has been injected for an IUI, to take a pregnancy test. Having already gone through one round of IUI I can tell you how excruciating that two period is.

Why then am I waiting? Because we cannot start the process of IVF until my cycle starts. I cannot start my stem drugs until day 1 or day 2 of my cycle. I thought that I would have started on Monday the 23, but alas it still had not come. Where are you Aunt Flow??? The one time in my life that I have wished her to come, she doesn't! I know some of you are thinking and hoping that I am pregnant, well...that is not to be either. I took a pregnancy test on Wednesday and it was negative. At this point, I am not a big fan of those things. They are too disappointing.

I am frustrated, very frustrated. We are in a holding pattern and I have no control over it. Thankfully the acupuncturist gave me some other needles yesterday when I went to see him to hopefully get things flowing...literally. I am really crossing my fingers that it worked and I will start some time this weekend.

Yum, yum, you know you want some???

As promised, I have finally taken some pictures of the most wonderful Chinese herbal "tea". It's honestly hard to tell how disgusting this stuff looks from the pictures, but really it looks like dirt, smells like dirt, and well...taste like dirt. I actually believe there is dirt in in, haha.

The tea in its package and in the glass that I "shoot" it in. Here you can not quite capture the essence of the tea and how disgusting it looks, smells and taste. But I promise it is disgusting!

In this photo it kind of looks like strong coffee with a bit of cream. At first it kind of taste like that, and then it hits you. The best comparison I can give it is the Beverly Coke that you can taste at the World of Coke. For most of the Atlantians out there, you know how bad that taste. This is worse!

Now, who said that they wanted some???

Acupuncture and Herbal Tea

I have been wanting to write about my acupuncture appointments and the herbal tea, but have been putting it off, because I wanted to get a picture of the tea. So it seems I can't remember to get that picture, so I decided to go ahead and blog about and hope to give you picture later. Why is the picture so important you ask? Ohhh because you cannot understand how WONDERFUL it is without seeing it. More on that later.

My first acupuncture appointment was pretty uneventful. It was a lot of talking about my history and everything we had gone through thus far and about only 15 minutes of actual treatment. My second appointment was an hour or so of treatment where I fell asleep and felt very relaxed afterward. My acupuncturist also gave me my first helping of my own personal herbal "tea". Tea is in quotation because you can hardly call it tea that we are use to. It's about 4 oz and it is not a tea you sip or enjoy. You shoot it and take it with a chaser. It looks like baby poop, and well, taste like you might imagine baby poop would taste. It isn't pleasant AT ALL and I get the great joy of drinking it three times a day! If I come out of this pregnant, then it will so be worth it and I will quickly forget the horrible taste.

My third appointment was the beginning of my IVF treatment. They do something totally different the 5 weeks leading up to egg retrieval. I was on my stomach and he put a couple of needles near my ankles and a couple on each of my caves. He also put a few on my back. He then attached electric probes on the needles to give extra stimulation. He would turn it to my uncomfortable point and then turn it down slightly. I laid there for about 15 minutes before he came back in and did the same thing, because you get desensitized to the feeling. I again laid there for an additional 15 minutes and I was done. Every appointment will be the same from here on out until egg implantation. The evening before egg implantation I will go in and they will do a special treatment and a hour after my egg implantation I will go back to have another special treatment.

Here's praying to all of this working and a successful IVF procedure and having a baby in 9-10 months!

Traditional Chinese Medicine here we come!

To start this blog I first have to thank God for putting in my heart to start this blog. Everything happens for a reason, and if it were not for this blog and outlet, I would not be writing this current blog post. With that said...

I have to thank a friend of mine who read my previous post for turning me onto Acupuncture and Infertility. She sent me an article, which you can read here http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/health/traditional-chinese-medicine-more-than-doubles-fertility-rates-western-meds-not-so-much/ about how acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine has proven to decrease infertility rates. This article sent me on a day search of related articles and further research on the topic. What I learned? China has the lowest infertility rates in the world. Study after study has proven that with acupuncture and Chinese herbs women who have had years of infertility, and many failed IUIs and IVFs have gotten pregnant naturally and have been successful getting pregnant with IUI and IVF when previously they were not. I of course immediately went looking for an acupuncturist in GA who specializes and is board certified to do acupuncture and prescribe herbal medicines. Yes, there are people out there who practice that are not board certified. There are 2 in the state of GA.(http://www.metroacupuncture.com/ and http://atlanta-acupuncture.net/). I chose to go to Mark Schwartz at Buckhead Acupuncture.

I am excited to say that my first appointment is tomorrow and that I have found new hope where hope was all lost. Thank you Kristi for directing me this and giving me new hope!