Here is a story for those who were told that they could not have their biological child because of their high FSH.
My journey with infertility started in 2006. My husband and I got married late. We waited until we finished our school. Since both my grandmothers had multiple (4 and 7) kids and my mom didn’t have any issue getting pregnant, I wasn’t too worried. I thought it was only a matter of time before I got pregnant. I was 33 years old. After a year of trying on our own, we saw an infertility specialist. After a week of testing, I received a phone call from a nurse. She said that my FSH was 23 and I have about 1% chance of getting pregnant. The doctor told me that my only chance of experiencing pregnancy was through IVF with donor eggs. I was devastated. I immediately went on-line, going through all the available literatures on high FSH and infertility. I also switched to a different infertility clinic. The new doctor recommended that I try Chinese acupuncture. I was skeptical but I wanted to give it a try, especially since number of studies had shown that acupuncture could improve infertility treatments.
I chose Dr. Lin because she has a M.D. degree, which made it easier for me to discuss my infertility treatments, and she was trained in China. She was supportive and positive. Instead of treating my high FSH as an incurable disease(?), she said that we needed to correct the balance. I wasn’t sure what that meant but that made me hopeful. She was very patient with my skepticism. What I liked the most about her approach was that she didn’t try to sell acupuncture as cure it all, which, to me, was much more reassuring. She was very much in sync with what was going on with my hormone treatments, IUI, so forth, and worked with me. Again, she was patient with my skepticism and remained more positive than I was.
We first tried clomid stimulation and my ovaries produced one dominant egg. We stepped up to IVF regiment and my ovaries produced two dominant eggs. After maybe 4-5 months of treatments, my husband and I decided that we should give donor eggs a try. My fertility specialist wanted to check if I would be a good ‘receiver’. She put me on a regiment called, ‘estrogen priming’, to see whether my system would respond to an estrogen stimulation. I told my fertility specialist, ‘after [estrogen priming], I want to take a break for few months, while I look for a donor’. Meanwhile, I kept up with my acupuncture appointments and tried to conceive on our own – you never know. To our wonderful surprise, I got pregnant! I delivered a healthy boy on March 2007. To us, this was a miracle.
We tried our luck for the second time in the beginning of 2008. We tried on our own for a few months but knew right away that we needed help. We went back to our fertility specialist and tried another rounds of IUI and IVF regiment with no result. Since nothing had been working, I thought, ‘maybe there’s something to a combination of estrogen priming and acupuncture.’ I went back to Dr. Lin. This time, I saw her with considerably less skepticism. I made all my acupuncture appointments and even took herbal medicine. I started looking forward to the relaxing acupuncture sessions. I did ‘estrogen priming’ and went to acupuncture sessions. What a surprise…. I got pregnant, again! I gave birth to a healthy baby girl on September 2009.
So, in my case, results say louder than words. I’m glad that Dr. Lin did not kick me out despite of my obnoxious skepticism. I saw Dr. Lin a few weeks ago - this time, to keep me healthy and to prevent menopause from knocking on my door too soon. I don’t know about other Chinese medicine doctors but I am impressed with Dr. Lin. I trust her ability and her integrity. She knows what she’s doing. All in all, I would certainly recommend anyone struggling with infertility to try acupuncture/Chinese herbs and to certainly seek out Dr. Lin. As far as I’m concerned, she is the best in town!
-K.