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I don't know why it took me this long to try acupuncture. I mean, I've been studying Making Babies as though it were a holy screed for the last two and a half years, and the book clearly says acupuncture and Chinese herbs would be beneficial for me.

Timeliness is not my strong suit, I guess.

Anyway, I decided on Friday to just go ahead and do it. I called the office to make an appointment and they were like: Would you like to come in today? And I was like: Sure.

So I went in and met my acupuncturist, K. She asked a lot of questions about my medical history. She is officially the first person I've sought fertility help from who's asked me how I have dealt with my miscarriages emotionally. Just her caring enough to ask made me a little teary. She confirmed that Paleo is the best diet I can be on right now in order to minimize insulin surges.

I asked for her thoughts on the crinone gel I'd recently been prescribed and she said it can certainly help, but that her take on my condition is that my eggs need to be nourished and built up so they'll be strong. When I produce a strong egg, my body will react in accordance with the proper hormones. I'm not totally sure I agree, but I do agree that I'd like strong, nourished eggs.

For the treatment portion of my visit, she felt my pulse, palpated my stomach, and felt my cold hands and feet, at which point she declared that my yang is stuck. Although she pronounced it "yong." My qi is deficient and needs to get ... efficient. This information totally jibes with what Making Babies has told me.

She popped some needles in my forehead, lower abdomen, legs, and feet. Then she did this moxibustion thing I'd never heard of, where they heat some kind of dried Chinese plant and touch it to the needles. I think the theory is that it stimulates circulation. She placed a heat lamp over my belly and a heating pad at my feet. I was instructed to let my heart grow with unconditional love and send that love down my right arm, into my hand (which was resting on my lower stomach), and into my ovaries. I began to picture my ovaries as purple mirror balls. It was involuntary, what can I say.

I was left to relax for ... I don't know. Half an hour? I laid there and listened to the hippie music and got nice and deliciously toasty, and once I got bored of sending love to my glittering ovaries, I let my mind wander wherever it wanted to. I didn't fall asleep -- I'm simply not that chill of a person. Perhaps on a future visit I'll be able to relax that deeply.

When the session was over, K asked if I'm familiar with basal body temperature charting. Um. YES. She wants to see my charts. She is the first person I've sought fertility help from who's expressed the slightest interest in my charts. My personal belief on this subject is that most doctors have no clue what the temperatures mean.

K also wants to see my most recent blood work, so I got that for her as well. She prescribed some herbs and gave me a moxibustion stick to light and hold over my stomach. I told her I will try anything. Why not?

When I got home, there was an email waiting for me with my treatment plan inside. I'm to go for weekly sessions for one full cycle, and then reevaluate. She also strongly suggested I buy a certain book ... you guessed it! Making Babies! I believe I've stumbled upon the holy grail of acupuncture practices.

Because I had such a positive experience, I'm seriously considering not taking the crinone gel when I ovulate this cycle. Is that insane? I just kind of want to see how my body responds to acupuncture first ... maybe give it a couple cycles. We'll see how I feel after the next session on Friday.

To top it all off, I got a card in the mail today from K, just welcoming me to the practice and wishing me a happy weekend. Which is way more than I can say for the multitude of doctors I've seen and paid wayyyy more money to. Now, if it works? I'll be completely sold.

Ovulation ... ?

Because my life follows Murphy's Law, I became rather ill during what The Machine told me were my most fertile days. We managed to get some good "work" done before I turned into the walking dead, and then I waited for ovulation.

And waited. And waited.

And then my temperature spiked on a morning after I'd slept fitfully. This was three days after my last peak fertile day, according to the fertility monitor. The previous night I'd slept two hours. I can't be sure if the temperature spike can be attributed to illness, or actual ovulation.

The next day the temperature dropped back down to pre-ovulation numbers. In case you're not familiar with how tracking basal temps works: Your temperature is supposed to spike when you ovulate, and then basically stay high for the rest of that cycle. If the temperatures drop back down, that's usually an indication of low progesterone, according to Making Babies. That's something I've suspected for a while.

But I gotta say, I am suspicious of that temperature spike. I don't think it's genuine. Next cycle's temperature chart will be more telling, as long as I don't come down with The Crud again. But honestly, I don't think I ovulated.

MB says the most common anovulatory condition is PCOS, and that 10 percent of women have it. I've never been diagnosed. Post-miscarriage the ultrasound showed only one unruptured cyst, but that's been seven months now. Who knows what my ovaries have been up to since then.

Most women with PCOS have weight issues (yes), hair in unwanted places (hello mustache), and insulin resistance. I've been tested for insulin issues a number of times -- my sister has Type 1 diabetes and I'm overweight, so doctors probably assume I'm a ticking time bomb. But the results have always come back normal.

However, there are actually two faces of PCOS; one that involves insulin resistance, and another that involves hyperandrogenism -- elevated androgen levels result from unruptured cysts. I don't know if I've ever been tested for that, but you can bet I'll be asking for it. 

MB says the best at-home remedies for PCOS are eating well and exercising. Unfortunately, "eating well" for PCOS means something close to the Atkins diet. The disease responds well to it. And the book says, encouragingly, that the majority of women with PCOS can get pregnant naturally. 

So, as usual, I'm basically self-diagnosing. Something else entirely could be causing my temperatures to be off. In any case, I'm still planning to give it one more cycle, and then it's off to the doctor. I'll reluctantly give low-carb eating a shot for the next month and keep trying to knock off the pounds. Diet, exercise, and The Crud helped me lose another few pounds since last week, so I'm on the right track.