The Fertility Journey
made a profound change in her thought processes, but it helped her create the outcome that she had desired.
Michelle’s Story Alternatives to the Western Route I had been trying to get pregnant for over a year when I went to a reproductive endocrinologist who did a series of tests and found that there was nothing wrong with me, except that my FSH was “ominously” high, at 17. He recommended donor eggs, due to my “mature maternal age” of forty-five. He asked if I had a younger sister or friend who might be willing to donate an egg and also referred me to an agency for egg donation. I decided I didn’t want to go through the typical Western medical route of having an in vitro procedure. My husband suggested I see his friend who was a traditional Chinese practitioner specializing in endocrinology. The first thing the practitioner did was check my adrenal glands with a saliva test which showed that my adrenals were not producing enough precursors for making a sufficient amount of estrogen. Basically, it was Mother Nature’s way of saying “this woman is so stressed out she can’t possibly deal with another pregnancy.” So he gave me some adrenal supplements and told me to change my lifestyle. I cut out all of the caffeine, started doing yoga, and concentrated on decreasing the stress in my life, both mentally and physically. He then referred me to another traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who gave me herbal teas to take twice a day. I got acupuncture treatments from her once a week. She asked many questions that seemed unusual, but in the Chinese medicine system, it gave her an idea of where I was depleted or weak. She also referred me for Maya uterine massage, which I did once a month. During the uterine massage, they discovered that my uterus was tilted to the right side. It was interesting because a month earlier, when I had gone in for my hysterosalpingogram (HSG)—