I am happy to announce that I am 16 weeks pregnant. Happily we were able to conceive naturally.
Three years ago I had an emergency laparotomy (like a Caeserean section) to remove a 3.5 kg abscess from encasing my womb and my right ovary. It seemingly appeared overnight. I am very thankful and lucky to be alive. As a result I only have a working ovary on the left hand side. This operation took a long time to recover from; my scar opened up so I had an open wound for 4 months that required daily dressing; it was huge and quite scary; my lovely boyfriend nursed me through this. My hair dropped out, I gained tons of weight and my face was covered in stubborn facial psoriasis - that I was only able to manage effectively with acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
Unsure of how this life threatening condition had affected my fertility we tried to conceive for a year. We then went to our GP and requested to be put on the waiting list for IVF. Being close in age to the 40 cut off limit we were anxious to start the process asap; knowing that they would only give us one free round of IVF.
A year and a half later, after a plethora of tests, appointments and investigations, we were about to start our induction on how to 'inject hormones'; they just wanted me to do one more scan. They wanted to check on some cysts and check that my egg situation was stable - 8 active follicles on my left side which is apparently quite good for my age.
I just needed to wait for my 'moon'. It never came, we delayed and delayed the test - I kept rescheduling in the secure knowledge that it would soon arrive. Finally after it being 6 weeks late we decided I should do a test. Having done so many of these test before and being disappointed I was certain I wasn't pregnant.
Both me and my partner were in shock; Al (my partner) said that for this to happen in the 11th hour was so lucky he really couldn't believe it. I think that after trying for so long we both thought that it wouldn't be possible naturally.
Wait - where does the acupuncture come in? About a week before my (unborn child's) conception date, I had an appointment with my acupuncturist and incredible teacher John Tindall www.yuantmc.co.uk. He had healed my facial psoriasis and a long list of other health problems, I just mentioned to him for the first time that we were soon to start IVF. He did a treatment on me and told me to 'get busy' at the time of the month & to try and to tune in to which side was 'ovulating' (aiming for the left side). Knowing that this kind of pressure would be exactly the WRONG thing to tell my partner I said nothing at the time.
If you are having difficulty conceiving then please do consider acupuncture before IFV.
Here are list of my recommended fertility acupuncturists in London
http://www.drgangzhu.co.uk/ Dr Gang - specialist in fertility also works at the Life Centre in Notting Hill (I am there on Wednesdays)