The search for missing pieces!

The best way to find the missing pieces is to go about this from another way. What is missing in the puzzle?
I have spent a couple of hours on the internet trying to figure out how you terminate a pregnancy. My goal is the opposite, but trying to understand how I support a pregnancy is obviously not helping me. So I have decided to look at it from another angle and find answers to the question; how you terminate a pregnancy.

There is a lot on the subject, mostly hidden behind a disclaimer. There is some traditional knowledge, but very little that can guarantee success. Unfortunately some of the advice belongs to ordinary kitchen supplies. What I have found so far is that the following herbs can terminate pregnancies if they are digested:

• Parsley (rather small amounts, stimulates AF. Comined with vitamine C it is a strong herb for termination)
• Ginger (also small amounts)
• Pineapple (the more immature the worse the effect. This surprised me since I have seen the advice to drink pineapple juice on a lot of fertility sites)
• Vitamin C (large amounts seems to change the uterus lining)
• Rosemary and Sage (same effect as parsley)
• Horseradish (effects the uterus)

Another group of herbs act contraceptive and can create an implant failure. On that list some interesting stuff came up.

Wild yam
This surprised me since I have seen it on some fertility sites, claimed to enhance hormone production. The answer is it depends on where in the cycle you are. Up to ovulation wild yam is a fertility treatment, after ovulation it becomes a contraceptive, maybe not the most effective one but still a contraceptive.

Wild carrot
From what I have read, the seeds from wild carrot seem like one of the strongest natural contraceptive since it changes the progesterone balance and creates an implantation failure.
This rises an interesting question; what about “domestic” carrots? Since they are a direct child of the wild carrot can they have similar effects? I haven’t found anything on that subject so far, but for now carrots are out of my diet.

Neem oil
Mostly used in natural pesticides, something I don’t usually have in my diet ;-)

What seems to be a very powerful herb is Angelica. Other dangerous herbs are Tansy and Penny Royal, none of these are in my diets.

Well, looking at the list I can come to some conclusions; some of these are in my diet. We like Asian food so we eat some ginger, parsley is high on the list. We definitely eat some pineapple, especially when the fresh season starts. I drink a lot of orange juice and eat at least one grapefruit a week, don’t know if that counts as a lot of vitamin C. I Am not so fond of Rosemary, but eat a lot of horseradish in the summer.

Then we have the question about carrots. I haven’t found anything that says anything about carrots and their effect on fertility. There is also nothing indicating that the substance in the seeds is the same as the substance in the actual carrot so I will think about that one.
At least the parsley and ginger is out of my diet… the pineapple to.

Back on the roller coaster

So we are back on the roller coaster again.... the decision has been made and it feels great, scary, troublesome…. But for some strange reason it doesn’t feel hopeless. During our last IVF:s that was the most overwhelming feeling.

The feeling of hope remains inside me, but it’s not that strong yet and I am not accustom to it. I don’t dare look into the future… not yet.
For the moment I just take on step at a time and look where it leads me.

The first step is in about three weeks. We are going to a new clinic. We have decided that we don’t trust our old clinic any more; basically because they don’t listen to us and take us seriously. Since we pay the bill that is the least they can do, but obviously they don’t think like that. So our trust and our money are going somewhere else.

We discovered rather early that our fertilization rate was very low. The clinic had a hunch that it was hard for the little guys to penetrate the egg shell. Well that sounded reasonable, so our last IVF (#4) we said we wanted to go for ICSI. The clinic said no, and stated that there was no medical evidence that the egg couldn’t be penetrated. After a long discussion we settled on half to ICSI and the other half to a traditional IVF. We had eight eggs, the ICSI:s fertilized, but none of the IVF:s. I feel like they cheated us on what could have been four great embies. So we decided to change clinic.

The last couple of month we have been shopping for a new clinic. An interesting shopping list, not the usual weekend stuff ;-)

• Are you going to let us choose ICSI?
• Are you taking miscarriages seriously
• What does your protocol looks like?
• Do you believe in the possibility of immune issues?
• Are you supporting our need for extra hormones during the luteal phase?

The questions seemed endless and sometimes I feel like I know more about IVF protocols than most of the consultants I have talked to.
We finally found a clinic saying something very close to what we want to here. In about three weeks we are going for a first meeting. If they thought the first list was long…. ;-)