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June 2, 2009

That Spring Thing

Yes, I know. The bellies are everywhere and so are the strollers. Signs with balloons abound in every suburban neighborhood announcing "Sheila's Baby Shower!" or "It's a GIRL!" Inside our adult brain we know that none of these is a slap to our face. Our younger, more ego-centric brain just isn't so sure.

It is so easy to feel victimized by this issue, and yet when we "go there" we give up even more of our power, more of our potential to identify the path and choices that will serve us in reaching our dream.

Feeling sorry for ourselves through this journey is natural. It makes great sense. And, at different stages on the path is likely to arise again and again. Here is the BUT you likely heard coming: We can only find our way to freedom and success by giving ourselves over to the "pity pot" as it is so frequently described for a designated amount of time. Then, we must lovingly reach for our inner strength and proclaim, once again, that we value our inner wisdom, we trust our inner guidance and that we will promise ourselves to pursue this experience from a place of proactive self-empowerment. Yes, we will indeed research, but we won't limit our research to the medical data. We will pursue information that will support our hearts and our WHOLE bodies. We will investigate the role of the thyroid, the pituitary, our adrenals and cortisol levels. We will pay attention to our minds and our feelings and emotions. We will ask ourselves daily, "Am I responding to this with wisdom or reacting from my fear?"

Is this easy? No. But, and this I promise you, the end result, no matter what it is (And I profoundly hope the end result is YOUR name on a sign with balloons next Spring!) will be gentler and far more acceptable when you have been truly present and well cared about by YOU throughout the journey.

April 27, 2009

National Infertility Awareness Week

Hello and thanks for stopping by the Center for Conceiving Health. We are honored to support people experiencing fertility issues in the Madison area, and by phone, throughout the US. If you saw the short informational piece on NBC 15 about National Infertility Awareness, you know that people are becoming very aware, finally, of how painful this issue is. It is my prayer that people will soon know that this issue is huge, this issue is growing, this issue is painful and this issue impacts every aspect of our lives.

It is also my hope that the Center can support you in your journey. We invite you to sign up on our web mailing list this week to receive the little pamphlet on "How to Support Someone You love and Care about who is experiencing a fertility challenge!" It includes five things to consider saying to a woman or couple going through fertility issues, and five things to never, ever, ever say, including: Just Relax, or "Why don't you take a vacation," or "All my husband has to do is walk by me naked and I get pregnant."...you get the idea. I hope people will find this very helpful!

In addition, on the Articles page I have copied a handout with a number of resources in the Madison area for people who saw the segment. I hope you will find this useful as well.

Finally, for every person this week who schedules a consultation or session with Karin, The Fertility Coach and Counselor, or signs up for Yoga, The Center for Conceiving Health will donate one dozen local, organic eggs to a Madison Food Pantry in your first name. We are Madison's Organic Egg Donor! So, click on the articles page and get those resources, sign up on our mailing list and get that pamphlet and then email us or give us a call and get your appointment scheduled! We can't wait to work with you and share your journey!

April 21, 2009

The Definition of Insanity

"Insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different result each time."

It is no big surprise that by the time we have been through 6-9 months of trying - joyfully; valiantly - to conceive, we end up not only sad but on the short path to desperate. Often women around us we once thought of as friends are getting pregnant or giving birth and we begin to feel like we don't want to be around them. We think thoughts we are ashamed of, such as, "Why her and not me? She isn't even very nice." Now on top of being sad, on the road to desperate, we are also feeling guilty and confused. Who are we becoming?

Being women of this generations technological advances we begin to look for information about conceiving and getting pregnant. Within a short amount of time we are buying into what is most readily available when we search.
1. If we are almost up to a year of trying and we are under 35 we should plan to call our OB/GYN soon and accept that we are likely part of the forbidden zone people: The people with INFERTILITY.
2. If we are nearly 35 we likely should have our fear experience shoot up a notch. We are getting older. We should call our OB/GYN NOW just so that we make sure we are on the books if we don't get pregnant in the next month or so.
3. If we are over 35 and moving beyond 5 into the 37 or 38 range, we should not only make an appt, but we should consider going to the hospital supply store and getting a walker. We are old. And our eggs are somewhere between guaranteed to cause salmonella and shriveled up and useless.
4. If we are over 40 - Start feeling stupid for waiting now, start blaming yourself for ruining your life today so you can avoid the rush. Your hope delusional. Can you spell "donor eggs?"

This is what we find when we search, because our "keywords" are likely to pull up the most high profile clinics and information that the medical world has to offer us, along with what popular culture has to say about fertility issues and what the media has to share about the subject.

Because we are scared, confused and overwhelmed, because that word "desperate" and the feelings of grief and sadness are now running us and leaving us a lot less objective and clear than we usually are, we hear this information and buy it as the ONLY thing relevant to our situation.

In truth, we have just entered the Twilight Zone. The reason fertility issues have increased so much has very little to do with our ovaries and testicles changing over the last few decades, and everything to do with our food, lifestyles, environment and expectations of ourselves changing our overall health, and therefore our reproductive health, during that time.

And yet, we run to the doctor and expect them to give us our answers by focusing on our reproductive systems - often not even taking into account our full endocrine system, let alone our immune system, digestive system, circulatory system etc. That isn't THEIR job by the way, but we have entrusted them, based on our one pointed focus, with our whole selves.

The WHY of fertility problems is multi-dimensional and multi-layered. The approach to healing the issue needs to be as well. Again, due to media, some of us will also get acupuncture. That's great! We are opening our minds and hearts to other possibilities. And, acupuncture is terrific for enhancing circulation. It is the herbs that stimulate healing and changes for the most part, because they are food, nutrition, supplementation to our usual ingested fare. Here, though, is the problem: we are once again calling someone and turning our care over to them, rather than identifying just where our greatest issues in this physical/mental/emotional/spiritual crisis lie and identifying the best ways for US to approach the solution. And we will keep running this hamster wheel month after month, even when the result never changes, and indeed we will likely feel insane!

Most of us will benefit from acupuncture, if only in that it will relax us and ease our stress and/or depression. Just don't expect your acupuncturist or your fertility doctor to fix you. They can't. Besides that you aren't broken!! You are out of balance, and the constant, grueling experience of running to appointments, limiting our diets to the point of having the choice between cucumbers and 35.00 a lb. salmon is enough to cause anyone to lose it.

It is my strongest feeling that when we engage in our treatment in a passive yet reactionary way (reacting to the fear by doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and hoping someone else has your answers) we lose a little bit of ourselves each day until ultimately we forget who we were when we started this journey. If we commit to exploring all of who we are, what our issues are and what will best facilitate health, balance and clarity BEFORE we go any further with "hoping treatment x or y will work next time" we return to sanity and substantially enhance our chances of success with whatever we do.

Take the time, today, for you. Away from the internet. Away from chat rooms. Away from research, appointments or "planning." Get quiet. Ask yourself how you are really feeling about your life these days. What do YOU really need? Not to get pregnant, but to return to balance and well being for a day or so, and to improve your well being from here on out. Ask yourself how well YOU are taking care of you - not your doctors or acupuncturist but YOU. When was the last time a sunset brought you joy or you laughed with a friend?

The irony is, the LESS you do sometimes the greater the chance of success in what you want. If that doesn't make sense to you, stay tuned for the next postings. We are in this together. We will find solutions together. You don't have to walk this path alone.

April 2, 2009

Why do we do this?

I have just spent another hour with a woman bemoaning the nature of fertility issues and how they are approached in our culture. I never talk about this here. Today I am asking myself why I don't and why I don't speak more of my real truth.

I am going to spend the next few posts exploring my deeper feelings about what has happened in our culture and some of the problems I see with the way we jump into heavy duty treatment or fixate on acupuncture as the remedy to get us pregnant. Both have their place and are great resources to utilize for the right time and the right thing. Neither are right for all situations or more importantly, neither should be seen as a magic answer and magic pill. I remember a time when the magic answer was vitex, or Chaste Berry. It is a wonderful and very useful herb, especially for women who need it. To assume that it will fix YOU because it helped Susie is like taking cough syrup because it helped Susie feel better last week and now you have a SORE THROAT. Okay, so it is in the same basic area of your body...that doesn't mean the same solution is ideal.

I have decided I will approach this issue from the bottom up, by first discussing WHY fertility issues are actually so huge now, WHAT is contributing to the problems and HOW it makes sense to approach the issue in my mind.

Fertility issues are so hard to walk through, so hard to deal with. I just can't keep pretending that because I care so much about how painful they are and how challenging it is for people I come to know and love through my work, or hear about day to day from friends, that I shouldn't voice my opinion about how we as a culture approach the problem.

If I offend anyone in the next few weeks, I apologize in advance. If you have comments or want to tell me why I am horrible for having these opinions, please do write to me: Karin@ConceivingHealth.com. I promise to respond personally. Alternatively, if you feel supported, please let me know that as well.

Stay tuned for my rantings!

March 31, 2009

Spring Fever

Spring is such a mixed time for those of us on the fertility journey. Beautiful flowers begin to emerge from soft, wet earth. Trees, stark and empty, wake up one morning to find pale green buds rippling forth on their limbs. LIFE is suddenly rich and evident everywhere you look. Birth happens in nests, farms, friends' homes - seemingly everywhere except your own. Warmth creeps into our faces not from sun that is hinting it really may begin to grace us once again, but from the sadness that is rising from our bellies to our hearts, from our hearts to our eyes, threatening to spill over and water our lives with grief once again.

While the brilliant colors of spring, and the joyful expectation of the season turning to outdoor play, long afternoons on the deck and laughter emerging from local lakes are great, the dark side also rears its head, reminding us we are not among those giving birth right now. At least not to a baby. And while through the winter our pain could be hidden under coats and scarves and other bulk, now we begin to shed those layers and our sorrow lays closer to the surface.

This is the time of year to offer gratitude for our many gifts, especially those of health, no matter how much we grit our teeth as we begin the process. This is the time to recognize how much we do create each day, how much we birth into the world that is rich, vibrant and ever so alive. This is the time to remember, we are mothers. And for this moment, for this season, we must mother ourselves with love, softness, and tender reassurance, that as surely as spring arrived despite the bitter cold of winter, our dreams will come as well. We can't be sure the date, as that last, "Are you kidding me?" six inches of snow always reminds us, but our dream, our vision of a family that is ours, a baby that we get to nuzzle to our nose, will be part of our future. We don't know how. We don't know when. But if we keep breathing, if we keep taking excellent care of ourselves and nurture our health as well as our intentions, he or she will surely arrive. Amen.