thanks oldhousegirl! I forgot about yoga...
I have a Wii with Wii Fit and there is a yoga module on there. I will start that back up!
Should I do it before bed?
My girlfriend likes the Wii Fit yoga module.
I have always liked doing yoga before bed (Gaiam has an AM/PM yoga DVD with Patricia Walden and Rodney Yee, but I like doing Rodney's AM sequence right before bed! I think it has just right mix of pumping you up a little so that when you relax you really relax) I also have a DVD called "Candlelight Yoga", but I haven't tried it yet. I have heard some people say not to do yoga right before bed b/c you're really not supposed to get into a "sleepy state" with yoga, but I always do at the end, and I have found it really helps me sleep.
If you use the Wii, make sure it has Shavasana at the end, or just do it on your own. I also have a little eye pillow with a light lavender scent . Very relaxing. I also keep a little sachet with lavender in it on my headboard, and I like to scrunch it at night to release the essential oils to help me sleep and relax.
Hi ladies
I'm so glad I found this thread! I'm Catholic and I was diagnosed in 2002.
I've realy been struggling lately because despite my worsening symptoms, my bloodwork isn't showing it.
I have a great family care doctor who is working with me to try and find natural remedies but my multitude of symptoms and lack of conclusive bloodwork make it difficult for him. I recently decided to go back on the pill b/c I have been unable to find anything that worked as well. Obviously, it's not something I'm excited about, but my symptoms have become so unmanagable, I feel like I don't have a choice.
I recently contact PPVI in Omaha, to see if they could make any recommendations, and they recommended I go to fertilitycare.org to learn the Creighton method to track my ovulation.
I don't know much about it, and since I don't really have regular periods, I wasn't sure how that works.
Just really looking to see if you all have had any luck or just more information.
Tradertif, I would also be really interested to know about your experience in Omaha.
Thanks ladies, God bless and best of lucK!
__________________ andrea To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
I definitely don't have regular periods, from 4 weeks to 15 week cycles. I have been charting since 2007 and got married last september. It is defiantly a challenge the first couple of months to understand your cycle and if you are ovulating, when it is. But if you have a great NFP teacher then you will be fine. Make sure that if you do go to fertilitycare.org make sure the teacher has CRM by their name and not CCL. Dr. Hilgers is a great doctor but he only reads CRM (creighton) charting, since he started it! I have been to omaha and had surgery with Dr. Hilgers. He sees so many women just like us that nothing is a "curve ball" for him! Once you get three cycles of good charting in, your NFP teacher should be able to help you get your charts and history together to send to Dr. Hilgers. (I dont know where you live, but in some cities there are local doctors that know the creighton method and can also help you and put you on the correct path to have Dr. Hilgers review your info.) Once you send your medical history and charts in, Dr. Hilgers will review them and recommend what to do next. He normally asks for blood work to be drawn. He is a great doctor and unless you are having surgery, everything is done over the phone. I know many women that have irregular periods and have avoided pregnancy for many years, if that is what you are trying to achieve. If you want to get pregnant, it is a great way to identify when you are ovulating since it can be quite hard to figure it out with irregular cycles. I was put on birth control when I was younger just to resolve some of my irregular cycles and symptoms. Now that I look back, I realize all taking birth control was doing was masking the problem. Taking bc definitely doesn't get rid of it...I'm living proof of that. Now that my problem is worse, it is harder to get pregnant for me.
I hoped this helped! Sorry I rambled on so much! Good luck with everything and please contact me if you have any questions...Dr. Hilgers is really amazing and the only patients he has are women just like us!
__________________ Amanda (24) DH Tim (25) Dx 2007, IR, high prolactin & hypothyroid
Anselmi,
Thank you so much for your post-it was really reassuring.
I found a lady that teaches the creighton model roughly in my area. I'm going to the initial presentation this weekend. It's expensive, and it will be hard out of pocket, but it's nice to hear that someone has had some success! It makes me feel a lot more optimistic.
I'm not ttc right now, but would like to be able to eventually. I'm glad you had such a great experience, and I'm really looking forward to getting things moving with Dr. Hilgers.
Thanks again for your post, it wasn't rambling at all...I'm at work and it made my day!
__________________ andrea To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Hi ladies! I am back after Lent and have some catching up to do! Welcome to everyone new! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.
I was on bc before I became Catholic and it was the thing that made my symptoms worse! I was only on it for 3 months, but gained 30 lbs and then the hair really started becoming a problem. The thing that got my symptoms under control was major excercise and eating a lot of whole foods. I cut all forms of corn syrup out of the diet completely and went to hardly anything processed. It isn't the easiest thing to do, but it was so worth it!!! My hair problem was becoming less and less, and I had lost around 40 lbs (I was REALLY overweight at the point I started getting things under control).
Of course everyone is different, but that is what has helped me. I am back at square one since having my last baby - I really need to get my motivation back, I had my cycles to one every month and now they are starting to get longer again. I use the sympto/thermal method of nfp and found that it helped my conceive our #4 baby and has also worked well to avoid. I love being in tune with my body and living naturally!
I started out doing yoga at night and found it made me sleepy too and I always slept really well afterwards. I may have to start doing that again!
__________________ Tam
Me 33, Dh 32 To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Mother to 4 DD's
Anna DeEtte - 4/5/95
Mackenzie Grace - 7/30/04
Edyn Alexandra - 8/3/05
Kathryn Nicole - 2/26/08
Dx w/Dermoid cyst in 1994
Dx w/PCOS 10/03
Andrea, I am so glad to hear that you went to your first meeting last weekend. Please let me know how it went, any questions or concerns? I wasn't even married when I started charting with the creighton method to figure out what was wrong with me. It is very important for us to obtain the correct treatment early on, even if we aren't trying to get pregnant. If we can be treated earlier, it will decrease our risk of a lot of the problems involved with long term pcos, like diabetes, heart disease, and cervical cancer. Dr. Hilgers will be able to help you control your pcos prior to trying to conceive and when the time is right, he will definitely help you ttc! He has been great help to me. I went three months without having a period a few months ago so I sent him my charts and he started me on progesterone shots so I could at least have a period. He has also told me that when I am ready to conceive he will start me on clomid. It makes me feel so comfortable about us trying to get pregnant knowing that I have a plan...I'm wired like that! Well good luck with charting! It can be a little difficult at first but you get the hang of it in no time!
__________________ Amanda (24) DH Tim (25) Dx 2007, IR, high prolactin & hypothyroid
Hello, I am new here and I'd like to introduce myself. I am a 25 year old cyster that also teaches at a Catholic school for children with special needs. I struggle with the views of our faith vs. the views of gynocologists and not wanting to be in misery and not able to have children.
Waterfalllady...Welcome! I just want to let you know that there are ways out there to not be in misery and to have children without challenging any of our catholic beliefs. I know I keep pushing Dr. Hilgers, who started the creighton method of NFP, but he is an ob/gyn that will not do anything that isn't following the catholic faith. He is a great doctor that has found all the possible ways to help us out without making us challenge our faith for our desires. There are other doctors in the country that have been taught by Dr. Hilgers. They can help you out and consult with Dr. Hilgers on any issues that you have. These doctors are not necessairly ob/gyns, but because they have been trained by Dr. Hilgers, they are the best resource we have in our local area. Here is a list of all of the doctors http://www.onemoresoul.com/nfpbycat.php You sould still have an ob/gyn that takes care of most of the normal female issues and pregnancy, I do! But on day one I told her what my beliefs are and she respected that and she helps me with everything according to my beliefs...By the way I think it is awesome you work with special needs children! Good luck!
__________________ Amanda (24) DH Tim (25) Dx 2007, IR, high prolactin & hypothyroid
Hello everyone! I thought I'd drop in and introduce myself. I'm a 26 year old Catholic who works at a Catholic high school as a technology coordinator and computer programming teacher.
I was recently diagnosed with PCOS, but it's not my main problem, unfortunately. I, thankfully, do ovulate on my own. I did recently start metformin, however, and my RE is hoping my cycles will shorten if I take met and loose a little weight (I need to loose about 15 pounds). Right now I have 32-37 day cycles. My real problem, however, is that my DH has extremely poor semen parameters. We'll never conceive on our own unless things get better on my DH's side, so we've been focusing on that for the past 6 months.
I often get kind of down about our problems having children. We both wanted a large family. Our doctor has told us that IVF is our only option to have our own children, and he's probably right. We've decided not to pursue IVF, though, because it goes against the teachings of the Church. I can't express what a difficult decision it was to make, but I pray that God gives me peace in time with it.
Hope everyone is doing well, and it's nice to make your aquaintance!
Keirin, Welcome! I am really sorry about your DH's problem. That has to be difficult for both of you! You are both amazing people to put your faith before your desires. I definitely commend you both for your love for God! I know everyone on this site probably thinks I'm obsessed with Dr. Hilgers, but he really does amazing things for those who choose to ttc within the faiths boundaries. He does work on male infertility! I have no clue what all he could do for your dh but it may be worth a shot, at least to call his clinic and talk to one of the nurses to see if he can help. The website is http://www.popepaulvi.com/ and he talks about male infertility at http://www.naprotechnology.com/maleinfertility.htm The reason I am suggesting this is because he works with so many couples that will not do IVF I'm sure he has a few tricks up his sleeves. Dr. Hilgers even goes as far as to use a condom with perforations in it to take a sample. That way you are still receiving some of the seamen in you and you are not breaking any of the catholic beliefs where any ejaculation should end in the possibility of life. (don’t quote me on the way I said it) Anyway, I hope this can help you…if not, best of luck, I know that God takes care of all of us and I am sure yall will be blessed some how some day! Never give up hope!
__________________ Amanda (24) DH Tim (25) Dx 2007, IR, high prolactin & hypothyroid
Anslemi - we've actually always used a perforated collection condom for all of our SA's. Most fertility clinics will give you the option to use one, and I just use a pin to poke some holes in it. I've looked into the Pope Paul VI Institute before, but, unfortunately, there isn't much that they can do for us. They recommend fertility focused intercourse for male factor, which we already do.
Keirin- Welcome! There is a great way for helpig conceive called GIFT. I forget some of the details, but what happens is that you and your husband have the marital act and then a doctor 'helps' the sperm along. It is in total line with the Teachings of the Church.
GIFT is actually neither approved nor disapproved by the Church, just like IUIs (with your husband's sperm). You can see the guidelines from the usccb here. We don't have enough sperm for an IUI, and GIFT is about as expensive as IVF - around $13,000. The average success rate is somewhere in the 20-40% range for GIFT. We're not rich enough to afford that, unfortunately.
The clinic we've been going to actually has a program for IVF which is a "guaranteed pregnancy" program... where you don't pay anything if you don't succeed with IVF, and you pay a little more if you do. A lot of clinics have that sort of guarantee program for IVF. Unfortunately, they don't for GIFT... so if it doesn't work, you're just out a lot of money. I'd rather take that sort of money and put it towards an adoption, since you have a much better chance of ending up with a child at the end of it.
Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I have looked into this a lot, so I know what our options are. Unfortunately, like most people who don't have infertility coverage, we don't have a lot of options.
Hello everyone
I'm not sure if this violates some sort of code, but I'm wanted to reply to the last few posts.
Anselmi-again, I really appreciate your feedback and encouragement. I had my first introduction (slide show) about a week ago, and tomorrow nite I have my first personal session with my coach. I'm hopeful that this will provide some help. It is a little bit expensive, but I've spent at least this much on things that didn't work, it just takes a big gulp for me when I think about the number. I really feel for all the couples ttc, b/c the costs associated with that are astronimical! I will definitely be keeping in touch!
I had the same results as Tigir from cutting out the terrible corn syrup and working my way to whole unprocessed foods. I fell off the "bandwagon" b/c of some things that happened and am trying to get back into it now, but that was the only thing that worked for me and I did see a decrease in my secondary symptoms (facial hair, dark skin, etc). I also used supplements to help boost what my body was missing. I have probably plugged this book like anselmi plugs Dr. Hilgers but ULTRAMETABOLISM by Dr. Mark Hymen made a HUGE difference for me. My doctor actually recommended it and it helped me connect a lot of my health difficulties with food, and work on improving them.
Keirin-so sorry to hear that you and your hubby are having such a hard time. I'm not ttc right now, so I don't know much about the process but can imagine the difficulty. B/c of my PCOS I actually had one of my tubes removed, so my odds of getting pregnant are already much less than an "average" woman, and that's assuming everything else is working! I too have always dreamed of a big family, so I can imagine how crushing that must be.
I will pray for you and hope that whatever is meant to happen is something you can be at peace with. If you are unable to conceive, I'm sure your passion for having a child will make one child already in this world very lucky
Good luck everyone-keep your chins up, b/c I'm thinking if God only gives us what we can handle, he must think we are some pretty fantastic women
__________________ andrea To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
I was only on it for 3 months, but gained 30 lbs and then the hair really started becoming a problem. The thing that got my symptoms under control was major excercise and eating a lot of whole foods. I cut all forms of corn syrup out of the diet completely and went to hardly anything processed. It isn't the easiest thing to do, but it was so worth it!!! My hair problem was becoming less and less, and I had lost around 40 lbs (I was REALLY overweight at the point I started getting things under control).
