TCM and shit

I freaked out on my acupuncturist today.

Since late February, I have been – faithfully I might add – going to an acupuncturist who specializes in fertility every week. I have paid the co-pays, sucked down the awful tasting herb teas. I have maxed out my annual complementary insurance coverage.

On her advice, I have quit doing Ashtanga yoga, which I love, in favor of yoga-lite classes at our corporate gym. I have stopped running as much as I used to, and it wasn’t like I was training for a flippin’ marathon. Just a friendly little trail run or jog.

During our first meeting, she asked me to commit to 1x per week for 3 months. She said that was all she thought I needed to get me back on track. I was sooo hopeful, so I agreed and honored that commitment. I also incorporated every suggestion she made.

After today’s session, I casually noted that we were coming up on my 12th visit. She looked stoically stunned (is there such a thing?). She wanted to know why I didn’t want to continue with the “treatments.”

I mumbled something about her comment 2 weeks ago – while I was in the process of miscarrying Junior #2 – that perhaps my issues were beyond the scope of what she can provide.

She (stoically) admonished me. TCM doesn’t happen quickly. It can take months. And, in my case, since she has come to know my body, she thinks it will be another 6 months at least until my kidney yin & yang issues are fixed. She goes on that she had merely suggested I seek out other practitioners, such as a naturopathic doctor, because she sensed that I was frustrated that my getting – and staying – pregnant wasn’t happening according to my timeline.

Well, fucking excuse me! I am sorry if I am a little anxious that on May 15th I will have been charting for exactly 1 year. And June 23rd is Junior #1’s due date. That right now I should be hugely pregnant. Oh, or starting to have morning sickness with Junior #2. Let’s not forget about the middle child.

So, yes, this is SO not according to my plan. My plan is now chucked out the window. Actually, I have angrily ripped my plan off the wall, wadded it up in a ball and taken a blow torch to it. So I have no plan. My fucking “plan” each day is to keep myself from breaking down and crying at my desk. I’ve stopped wearing eye make-up to work for chrissakes.


Yeah, um, so that -- the aforementioned tirade. That’s what kinda happened in the zen little space of my acupuncturist’s office today.

And now I’m embarrassed to go back. I think it is because every visit there reminds me of what a failure my body is. Every visit there makes me either (1) hopeful for like 2 seconds or (2) completely despondent. Jeez, not only is my body so effed up according to TCM but I’m also horribly impatient. And I left wondering how it can be good for me if it makes me feel so bad emotionally?

But my RE said that acupuncture was good. And I should keep going.

So I am torn. Not to mention how stupid I feel for putting hope in this. I mean, it’s not like my acupuncturist has ever asked for my info from my Western doctors. But she has supposedly built her practice around this fertility shit. I don’t know what to trust.

So much for the daily meditation I have added to my regimen. RUHLLY fucking helped me today.