Speaking of massage, back when we were trying to get pregnant I did all kinds of Google searches to find out if massage might be able to help. I didn't really find anything. Certainly nothing like the studies that show acupuncture can increase your chances of success.
Because we did not do acupuncture during our first IVF, I went to get a massage on one of the days in between our egg retrieval and embryo transfer. I told the massage therapist what I was doing. I don't know how much of it she understood. But she was awesomely sweet and gave me a crystal she'd bought a while back. She said when she had seen it for sale she knew she was supposed to buy it for somebody and when she saw me she knew she was supposed to give it to me.
The massage itself relaxed me, which is always a good thing. But I don't know if it contributed to our success in getting pregnant.
Of course the cycle was successful, but a bad amnio diagnosis followed. We terminated and started to get ready for an FET. That's when I headed to the acupuncturist, thinking that this was my last chance. We didn't have a ton of money for multiple IVFs and I wondered if my embryos were just too old to have any of them be good.
My acupuncturist was awesome. One of the things she recommended was a femoral massage, which is something you perform on yourself. It is supposed to increase blood flow to the uterus and ovaries. ONLY DO IT PRE-OVULATION OR RETRIEVAL and not in the second half of the cycle when you might be pregnant.
Here's a site that shows fertility acupuncturist and TCM doctor extraordinaire Randine Lewis's instructions on how do to femoral massage on yourself.
People, even Doctors, keep telling me that this is the secret to dealing with fertility problems, and I've been resistant, but I'm starting to think maybe...good book anyway!
Posted by: Aurelia | June 12, 2007 at 10:23 AM