Symphony of a Heartbeat

               On this Thanksgiving Eve, I am thankful for the life that is growing inside me…a miraculous gift from God of which I still can’t quite grasp the reality.  Many people have asked me “what did you do differently this time?”  Well, that can turn into quite a long answer.  We changed several things this summer and tried them for a few months.  I’m fairly convinced that it probably wasn’t just one of them that worked, but rather the combination of all the instruments into a symphony of success (yep, that’s the music teacher coming out in me).  It was a completely different mix of instruments than what worked for us in 2010 when we got pregnant, but after continuing to trust that something would eventually work again we finally found our recipe for success.  So here goes…everything that we tried on me (because, remember, every time Steve was tested he was good) in the few months leading up to the glorious positive pregnancy test we got 2 ½ months ago:

1. March 2012 – Had a series of appointments with a chiropractor (and I’m so awesome that I have forgotten his name…whoops) that my mom’s friend recommended.  This chiropractor was not your average chiropractor, but someone who is known to help patients through the unique avenue of frequency testing in addition to his alignment help.  He found that my alignment was off and putting a lot of pressure on my reproductive organs so he fixed my alignment and checked for a few weeks to make sure it was holding.  He also said that I had parasites in my ovaries and got rid of them with what I can only think to call frequency therapy...kind of an energy thing.  Believe in it or not, it couldn’t have hurt.

2. April 2012 – Recommitted myself to eating on the Kaufmann plan.  While this has been my preferred method of eating for years to help with different issues and just for overall health, I (like everyone else) would go through funks where I would say “screw it” and eat whatever I wanted.  I reminded myself that this was an important part of my journey to motherhood so I rededicated myself to cleaning up my diet.

3. May 2012 – Increased my clomid dose at my OBGYN’s recommendation from 50 mg to 100 mg.

4. May 2012 – Changed the enzymes and supplements I took based on my mom’s recommendation (read more about her here).  She learned about some new protocols and was convinced that my liver was toxic which was not allowing my body to absorb all the supplements I was taking to help with my fertility.  My mom said to give her 60-90 days for the new enzymes to make a difference...3 months later I was pregnant so maybe she was right :).  I also started wearing custom orthotic shoe inserts regularly at the suggestion of my mom to help with my alignment and began taking a Vitamin D supplement (I talked about that here).

5. Continued acupuncture.  My acupuncturist specializes in helping people with fertility issues (whether they have a hard time getting pregnant or a hard time holding on to pregnancies) and continues to attend ongoing seminars to learn more about new ways to help those with fertility issues.

6. Continued tracking my BBT and using ovulation predictors to make sure we were timing things correctly.

7. Continued praying like crazy!  You can never discount the power of prayer – it all happens in God’s timing and I know that He hears our prayers when we share the desires of our heart.

               So, I guess when you combine all those different things it was our recipe for success...our symphony of a heartbeat :).  There are so many issues women and men can face on the road to parenthood that there is no one recipe for success that will work for everyone; however, if you are trying to become a mommy or daddy I strongly encourage you to seek out more information about at least one of the things I tried.  You never know what may or may not work for you until you try.