A Conundrum - Your two cents

When I first began fertility treatments, I was intrigued by Chinese medicine - mostly because I hated the emotional and physical pain and the frustration surrounding Western treatments. Through RE#1, I was introduced to my TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) practitioner. She was kind, helpful and thorough. She cared about my whole body health. I counted myself lucky when any of my Western doctors managed to get even one of those right. However, I didn't have the money to continue with the program, and I was also getting very impatient. Lots of things happened between changing RE's and the mixing of Eastern and Western medicine that caused me to give up TCM at the time.

When she sensed she was losing me, Dr. L. started to get very worried. She felt I was very out of balance and that Western medicine alone would not do the trick. She stated the belief that it was unlikely I would conceive, but that if I did, it probably would not be viable for long. Here I am, a year later, lots of dollars more broke, emotionally exhausted, and that's exactly what happened. Last cycle, it's doubtful that I ovulated, but at least AF came at a normal time. I am currently on cycle day 41 with no ovulation or AF in sight, my anxiety is getting worse again, and I feel "out of balance" like I did before. My Western medicine doctors (including my wonderful endo) are all at a loss. Every one of them had previously stated that I should be pregnant (successfully) in no time and that I was in prime health other than my few "small" problems. My Hashimoto's wasn't terrible they said, and my PCOS was mild if even a full syndrome. At some point though, when nothing works, almost every doctor seems to lose faith in their ability to "fix" my problems and gives up on me. The next logical move to them is IVF. But why would that be any different when they are all continually confounded by this seemingly "mostly healthy" specimen's inability to even ovulate correctly? I'm glad I went to Western medicine long enough to get my diagnoses and treatment for hypothyroid. But why is there suddenly another brick wall in my way? The answer seems simple to me. They're missing something. Is this a something that TCM could help?

So now we come to my conundrum and your part in it. I have lost that dreamy, happy, "free of treatments" dreamworld. I relaxed. I found myself again. Now I'm ready to give it another go. Hubs and I had some serious talks about what we want. I think he's ready for adoption only if I'm ready for it. And we both concluded that I am not ready yet. I need to see this through. I desperately want to grow a child in my womb, and I'm pretty sure DH really wants to be a part of that process as well. Therefore, we must make a decision. Do we go back to Western medicine or Eastern?

DH's parents may help us with costs, but even with help, we probably only have one shot at a Western medicine assisted IUI at a time with long breaks in between to build up our financial stores. Furthermore , my last (supremely unsuccessful) IUI was done with Femara, gonal-f and ovidrel. I'm pretty sure RE is going to just want to jump right in where he left off with pushing much more injectibles without finding out why I stopped ovulating on meds and probably strongly arguing the case for IVF. IVF is just not an option for us. It's not. I don't know if I could handle it anyway, but the point is moot since it's so financially out of reach, he may as well try to get us to force flying primates out of our nether regions (to nicely quote a favorite SNL skit).

But - there is the fact that with Western medicine, you know exactly where you stand without the guesswork. And if there is a problem with me killing off all of DH's sperm, as I suspect there is due to the fact that I have such a short period of good, fertile CM, then an IUI takes care of that.

On the flip side, with TCM, I will feel comfortable again. No more miserable side effects. No more needles - not even acupuncture because we could only afford herbs. Maybe Dr. L could figure out why I'm still all "unbalanced" and work to fix it. Maybe I would see some results and a healthier me. Maybe I could get this crap under control and actually get pregnant. Also, the herbs are affordable enough that if she does get me ovulating again, we have multiple cracks at conceiving rather than just one every 5 or 6 months.

The drawback to the TCM is that I have to be patient, and I am really miserable at that. Can I wait it out long enough to even see if it makes a difference to me? I'm also on the fence as to how effective I really believe it is. Sometimes I'm very optimistic about it. Sometimes I believe it's just wishful thinking. And if I spend months and months trying to make it work, that's months more than I've lost. But on the flip side, we're kinda stuck right now anyway due to hitting our insurance limit (oooh 3 IUI's. Thank you ever so much generous corporate entity), and having no cash.

It's obvious that I'm leaning toward the TCM. But every other hour, I second guess my decision and fret about it all over again. Can you weigh in with what you think about my situation? Feel free to deal out the assvice in spades here. Just don't tell me to fix something that I can't, or suggest that maybe God "has a plan for me" ok? Tell me your experiences. Relate that article that you read. Tell me how you think I'll feel. I just need some help here. And believe me, you won't even offend me if you've never even experienced infertility. I'm looking for advice from all corners. (H - I'm thinkin' of you here! Would love input from that big brain of yours!)

Signing off and looking forward to your responses and our ttc journey starting up again.

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