Hell-bent on natural pregnancy

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not exactly the woo-woo type. I eat meat, shave my armpits, and Birkenstocks don’t fit my feet. But the year I turned 35, I went a little nuts in the New Age department. My husband, Ron, and I had crossed the three-year mark of trying to conceive. So far, our fertility journey had amounted to one miscarriage and countless trips to the doctor. Tests all showed the same thing: Ron had Super Sperm; I had a luteal phase defect. Every month, my period started too early and lasted too long. It’s difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in a uterus that’s constantly shedding its lining.

Attempts to fix my cycle didn’t work. Over time, my bleeding worsened. That’s when my fertility specialist recommended in vitro fertilization. IVF, he said, would allow him to “toy around” with my hormones. As he explained how many types of drugs he planned to inject in my body, I nodded politely while screaming no way inside my head. I was skeptical of high-tech baby-making measures. All that medication didn’t appeal, for one thing. Neither did the odds: I’d seen friends go through multiple failed rounds of IVF (chances are about one in three). From what I could tell, the stress of IVF wreaked havoc on relationships. Couples pillaged their savings and retirement accounts (the procedure is $15,000 a pop). I figured if traditional medicine wasn’t for me, perhaps I could cure my infertility a more traditional way, by changing what I ate and how I lived.

Salon.com > Jenny Rough

Hell-bent on natural pregnancy