RUNNING AND ACUPUNCTURE AND DAIRY FAST, OH MY!

Oh hi. I’m someone who runs for miles at a time, doesn’t eat dairy and regularly gets acupuncture treatments. Who the HELL is this person?

A year ago, if a friend had told me about someone she knows who lives this way, I would have thought, I do not need to be friends with that girl. She sounds annoying. She lives in Fantasy Land. She exhibits a level of self-control about which I know nothing.

So how did this happen to a person who would get winded when going up stairs, fainted at the sight of needles and loved cheese enough to make out with it?

It began with the running about a year ago. Philip and I were talking more seriously about growing our little family of two, and we agreed it would be better to start getting into shape before a pregnancy. (Little did I know I’d have plenty of time to get into the best shape of my life while conception eluded me.) At first, we would walk five minutes, jog five, walk five, jog five, walk five. That’s 25 minutes of physical activity by the way, only 10 of which were spent jogging. Eventually we added another five-minute jogging session. Then we incrementally closed the walking gaps. When I could jog for 20 minutes without stopping, I felt like an Olympian.

We kept adding to the distance — another quarter mile, and another. Now I can do 4.5 miles continuously at a pretty OK pace of 10-11 minutes per mile. If you’ve run a marathon, this probably doesn’t sound too impressive, but if you’re Erika circa early 2011, you’re in shock at yourself.

The acupuncture and diet started much more recently — on March 22 of this year. People had been recommending acupuncture for fertility for months; in fact, I got the suggestion from so many people that I lost count. I did some reading online, and it seemed that while there wasn’t much scientific research in the way of acupuncture and trying to conceive naturally, there was strong scientific evidence that acupuncture used in conjunction with IVF treatments dramatically increased the success rate.

We’re in our 12^th month of trying, but I’ve been reticent to start any sort of fertility treatment. I wanted to feel like I had tried every other option first. From the limited testing we’ve had done so far (pelvic ultrasound, blood work, semen analysis), everything checks out as normal. Maybe acupuncture could help us.

My New Year’s resolution was to change my lifestyle. Start acupuncture. Try yoga. Get onto a fertility diet. I was hopeful; I was ready for a fresh start.

Then Philip’s dad died, and life went haywire. Every out-of-town friend and their brother had made plans to stay with us in early 2012, and between spending time with our many house guests, we were frequently making the two-hour drive down to Frostproof to continue sorting through Philip’s dad’s belongings. Philip was in a distant, sad emotional place, and I mourned the arrival of two more periods alone. I privately wallowed in self-pity, bitter that no one else had to change their diet or lifestyle to get pregnant, let alone try to work in baby-making sex amid all the stress and grief surrounding the death of a parent.

Finally life slowed down a hair. Our visitors left. We returned home from a wedding weekend in Savannah. We transferred the last of Philip’s dad’s belongings to our garage. Philip seemed to be slowly emerging from his quiet sorrow. So I got on the phone with an acupuncturist recommended to me by my primary-care physician.

I was initially struck with her confidence. She was very off-hand about her prediction that I probably wouldn’t need more than five treatments (one a week) to get my system functioning properly and get pregnant. While I guarded my heart, it felt GREAT to talk to someone who felt she could help me.

When I arrived for my first session, we spent an hour talking about my entire lifestyle — diet, exercise, sleep, work, stress, travel, periods, bowel movements, fertility tests we’d had done, how long we’d been trying, if I charted, if I used OPKs, what vitamins I was taking. She wanted to know everything — physical and emotional. She was approachable, compassionate and attentive.

Then it was time for the actual treatment. I was apprehensive about the needles, but I felt so good about taking this proactive step toward our goal. In all, she only used three points that first time — one just below my belly button, and one just below either knee toward the inside of my leg. I barely felt a thing as the points went in. Then she worked on my head, neck, stomach, chest and back using acupressure with her hands. I felt like I was melting into the heated massage table.

She told me to tell her about any sensations I was having, and boy, was I having sensations! I was feeling pins and needles on my shoulders, and my legs were tingling up near my pelvis — and neither were places where points were inserted. It was WILD. She said it was all very good and was in line with the paths my meridians travel. As she worked, she explained some of the tenets of acupuncture and specifically of her Japanese style. She shared why different foods are helpful and others are harmful. She taught me a breathing exercise and explained how it would help prevent my body from automatically reverting to a fight-or-flight stress response. It all made sense, but it was so much information; I felt like I was only retaining a tenth of what she was saying.

When she went to remove the points, I was disappointed, because that meant we were wrapping up. Before I left, she commanded that I take a hot bath with Epsom salt and equipped me with recipes and a list of foods to eat or avoid. The biggest change: no more dairy. Because it causes mucus, it can create a “slippery” uterus. No one wants that.

Other changes included no artificial sweeteners; no refined sugar; no white grains; and no tomatoes, white potatoes or peppers (they can cause inflammation). Meanwhile, I’d be adding good sources of nutrition such as coconut water, beef broth, nuts and seeds, kale and spinach, quinoa, lentils, fish and herbal tea.

The appointment concluded, and she warned me to expect some kind of release that afternoon. She said my body had been so tense and pinched and strung out that only my running and Massage Envy membership had been keeping me hanging on by a thread. She didn’t know what the release would look like — maybe some bleeding or a big bowel movement — but whatever it was, I should welcome it.

I always say that with me, there’s no such as thing as TMI. I hope you feel the same way. That afternoon, I proceeded to have diarrhea for SIX HOURS. I didn’t even go back into work, even though it wasn’t the miserable, crampy, clutch-my-intestines diarrhea I’m used to. It as just like my body was going WHOOSH. Get all of that nasty badness out.

I couldn’t wait for my next treatment. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. Four days later, I went back. She was a little more aggressive with the points that time — doing the original three, plus putting one in my hand, one in my foot and five in my ears. She also had me lay on what she called a “biomat,” which is heated and full of small healing stones like quartz and amethyst. I left with tiny seed pods taped to pressure points on my ears and instructions to massage them several times a day. Yes, it’s nutty, but I am a very compliant patient. I will try just about anything at this point. Bring it on, lady!

My next treatment is in five more days, and I’ve been going strong with the diet for a little over a week. It’s challenging for sure, but I like the sense of control and hope it gives me. It’s also a new feeling to be amazed by my own ability to sacrifice and achieve things I didn’t think I could. I definitely think I’ll keep it up for the recommended minimum of six weeks. But then I might allow myself one date night with a big handsome hunk of cheese.

DEAR ABBY

It turns out that for Philip and me, making a baby is not so simple as just having unprotected sex (someone should tell my youth pastor). Given our difficulties, I receive (unsolicited) advice all the time on how to conceive. People say, just relax and it’ll happen, just get drunk, just stop trying. On the other end of the spectrum, I’m encouraged to try much harder — do yoga, get acupuncture, change my diet, have sex more often, stand on my head (I’m not even joking), go to the doctor, get some tests done.

Now, for your reading pleasure, here are three of the strangest pieces of advice I’ve received.

1. My mother-in-law, bless her heart, sent me, for the first time, some literature about improving fertility. I had been warned this would happen, and I actually felt a small rush of glee when it actually did. Inside the envelope, sent via the U.S. Postal Service, was a photocopied magazine article from the year 1980, and she had highlighted and underlined various passages about how vitamin B6 is basically a miracle drug when it comes to cervical fluid and implantation. The story advocated taking 500mg a day … but didn’t mention that this amount is 38,461 times the recommended dietary allowance of a mere 1.3mg. A moderator on tcoyf.com called vitamin B6 a "shot in the dark" and said taking it could result in a "lost opportunity," but I don’t know what’s more reliable — a message board or an article that’s 32 years old?

2. A good friend gave me two pieces of advice: Philip should stop eating yellow curry, and I should avoid tap water. Evidently, yellow curry can have a negative effect on sperm, but luckily, Philip eats yellow curry about zero times a week. I however, drink tap water all the time, which is bad, because the theory holds that there’s enough birth control in the water system to cause problems for some women. I did try to stop drinking tap water for about a day. I gave up when I went to a casual sit-down restaurant and ordered bottled water, and the server looked at me like I had three heads. He brought it though, with a glass of ice made from — you guessed it — tap water.

3. Another friend has been promising to bring me a book about feng shui, which will explain how to align the energies in my house to promote fertility. It’s all something to do with identifying a certain zone and filling it with stones and houseplants (and removing elements like fire — you know, candles and such). Since I don’t have the book in my hands yet, I have yet to try this one, but it seems simple enough, and it can’t hurt to set up a little fertility shrine, right?

999 REASONS TO LAUGH

When I started spotting this month -- my period's friendly little way of letting me know it's coming -- I just rolled my eyes. I wasn't surprised; we had just made one measly (but well-timed!) attempt in the midst of Philip's grief, my mother's visit and my trip to St. Kitts. (I didn't even get up, just stuffed my underpants with tissues and went to sleep -- stay up in there, spermies, dammit! Maybe I need to invest in one of those Batman-style exercise contraptions that hangs you upside down?)

So with Aunt Flo on her way, I did what any sensible woman in my position would do: I Googled "Why the f#*k am I not pregnant yet?"

I wasn't sure what the old trusty search engine would do with such a query, but on page 2 of the results, I came across this post on 999reasonstolaugh.com. O. M. F. G. This website is the greatest thing to ever happen to a woman struggling to conceive. Its author, who calls herself "Infertile Naomi," has the most amazing sense of humor about all of this infertility nonsense. I spent two hours on her blog, soaking up every entry with a vengeance, sometimes laughing so hard I cried.

This woman is IN MY HEAD. It's all there -- the feeling that everyone has a baby but you; the obsessively inspecting your toilet paper; the well-intended but frustrating advice from people who have no idea what this is like; the pain and jealousy anytime you log onto "FertileBook" ... The blog's author has the guts to say what I won't, and the wit to say it in a way that's disarming. Not being able to get pregnant when you really want to is absolutely awful, but I can't stay upset about it when I read a line like, "Why don’t you just adopt? Just fill out a form and a brand new baby will be delivered within days!"

In honor of finding this blog, which I just want to hug, I came up with my own list of five reasons to laugh at infertility. Here goes.

1. You give major props to Up All Night for actually being watchable even though it's about a pair of new parents adjusting to life with a baby.

2. When you see that Honda Leap List commercial, you want to crawl inside the TV and shake the naive husband who wants to see the Northern Lights, go spelunking and build a fighting robot before trying for a baby. "No you fool!" you want to shout at him. "You can go all the way to Thailand and Tanzania and then try for a year in vain and realize you're probably going to need nasty meds and inseminations and even IVF, and you would trade all of the exotic travel and any other baby-free achievement you've had for a positive pregnancy test! START TRYING NOW!"

3. At Christmastime, you're legitimately jealous of the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary.

4. You are jealous of your own mother for the ease with which she conceived your own deranged self.

5. At the office, when your pregnant coworker tells you that your hair looks great, you briefly consider offering to swap your hair for her womb. Then you say, "Thank you."

SCENES FROM THE PAST TWO WEEKS

The phone ringing at 10 p.m. on a regular Tuesday night. Philip calling from a work trip to Detroit, weeping. His father, Herman J.W. Hueneke, has passed.

Wednesday night, a family meeting. Luke, Sara, Lydia, Brian, Philip and I picking at pineapple enchiladas. Awkwardly, delicately discussing subjects like cremation versus burial, memorial services, and going through belongings. Groping for what J.W. would have wanted. Lydia’s face in her hands. Brian calling his friend from the funeral home. Philip on his cell, breaking the news to Jimmy, the one who found J.W. and called the ambulance.

Thursday, Philip getting home past midnight after driving around all day with his siblings, meeting with the funeral home, touring rural cemeteries, getting his dad’s keys from the Holbrooks, who had collected the personal effects at the hospital.

Friday morning at the Tractor Supply Co., buying clothes for J.W. — a western shirt, Wrangler jeans, a flashy belt and hat. Then to the funeral home, hours around a shiny wooden table, struggling to plan a memorial service for a man who had lived such an angry, fragmented life. The kind funeral director on the phone, cold-calling country churches; nobody’s home. Tensions mounting between the siblings; Philip walking out. Finally making a decision. Wandering around a showroom of coffins; flipping through a catalog of urns; straining to recall J.W.’s favorite Bible verses.

Friday afternoon, perusing the inventory at Southern Monument. Finding out we can’t choose a gravestone until we’ve selected the cemetery and learned its regulations. Using the bathroom and my period has started. No tears. Being so mad at God I could spit.

Dragging out of bed Saturday morning for the two-hour drive south to Frostproof. A lonely homestead on the side of the highway, two airstream trailers, a barn, a rusty old truck and a dry field. Sorting, sorting. Tools. Oxygen tanks. Canned food. Soiled clothes. Empty bottles. Faded photos. American flags. Spare tires. Fishing poles. Jangling key rings and loose change. Notes scribbled on index cards, unfamiliar names and phone numbers. Envelopes addressed to P.O. boxes. His father’s Bible! There on the dash! Sorting into piles and garbage bags, sun beating down hot. Jimmy hopping the fence, approaching in his cowboy hat and rodeo belt buckle. Facing him for the first time, broken hearts and wet faces. The sun sinking as we search for buried treasure and clues from the past.

The clock ticking 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. while Philip and I sit at the dining room table, me searching for photos, Philip writing his eulogy.

The 10 a.m. private family viewing at the funeral home in Eustis. No rest for the weary. Philip in a black suit, carrying the worn Bible in its stretched black leather case. Just the six of us again, and J.W., a clean-shaven face, resting in satin, the cigarettes that devastated his lungs in his left breast pocket. Hank Williams Jr. on the stereo. Philip on a chair, pain-stricken face, crumpled tissues. Lydia adding photos to the posterboard, images from another lifetime, after Philip and J.W. had slipped into estrangement. Philip wanting time alone with his dad, so the rest of us file out, wordless.

Later, at the small-town Baptist church. Johnny Cash gospel in my ears, dread in my heart. Thirty of us dotting the pews, staring forward at J.W., framed by flowers and memories. Isaiah 40:31. Psalm 23. Philip going forward to speak, face twisting, tears spilling. So much sadness and regret. Luke rising, standing beside Philip, hand on his shoulder. Philip’s words, so honest, so sweet, reaching back, back to childhood delights — a wooden fort his father built; his dad spraying the bushes with the hose to make icicles in the winter. Driving quiet country roads with his dad, driving, driving. Selling watermelons and tomatoes. Fixing a broken axle on the truck, a shirtless man with salt-and-pepper hair and a grinning 10-year-old boy. And in the Bible, a notation — the date Philip accepted Jesus as a six-year-old boy. Tears streaming silently down my cheeks, my heart swelling with so much love and pride for my husband that it might burst.

Lydia, J.W.’s little fisher girl, standing to share. The pastor, preaching, pacing. Who knows a man’s heart? Aunt Marie, J.W.’s sister, sobbing. After, talking with the Holbrooks, who nursed J.W. when his own children couldn’t bear it. The sanctuary clearing, the siblings wanting a moment together with their father, alone. Philip sharing later that they all embraced and wept, closing the casket, staining the wooden lid with their tears.

Philip and I in the car. The longest route home. Passing pastures and forests, old-time country on the radio, Hank Williams Sr. and Waylon Jennings. Back home, collapsing on the bed. Philip’s head in my lap, his body wracked with sobs. So helpless, me, just rocking him, the boy who misses his father so desperately. Death is so final.

Luke and Sara coming over, saving graces. Eating beef brisket and second-guessing the decision to cremate. Leaving urgent messages with the funeral home.

Sleep. Deep, regenerating, long sleep. Then in the car again, driving more country roads, up to the Old Sugar Mill Restaurant at DeLeon Springs. The six of us making our own pancakes out of stone-ground flour and deciding on a full burial.

More days driving the back roads, Philip, Luke and Lydia searching for the right cemetery. Pinpointing hidden graveyards on Google maps, calling seven-digit phone numbers on faded signs. Finally, discovering the Weirsdale Presbyterian Church Cemetery, down a dirt road. Sparsely populated, a hill sloping down to a pond, cranes calling. Horse pastures and woods, tall pines, sturdy oaks and Spanish moss. Excavating survey markers, pressing little orange flags into the earth, marking the spot for the gravediggers.

Another Saturday, another rural drive, the Bible in the back seat, passages underlined in red with a steady hand, words that spoke to Philip’s father once upon a time. Down the dirt road to the cemetery in Weirsdale, warm sun and a brisk January breeze. A green tent, 12 chairs and a simple wooden casket. The six of us again, filling only the first row. Philip reading the Scriptures underlined in red, voice catching. Luke praying, Lydia praying, Philip praying; our little family clutching each other, weeping, thanking God for the beautiful day, the beautiful cemetery, for the closeness we’ve found in these grief-saturated days.

Waiting as the casket is lowered, the clay moved over the grave, pounded down firm. The workers’ truck rumbling away and then quiet, us walking back up to the freshly turned ground, the temporary marker so simple there, bearing his name, flanked by purple flowers and a little American flag.

Later, at the house, chicken barbecuing, fire pit blazing. Philip drinking too much whisky. Country and rockabilly and bluegrass on the radio. “All my rowdy friends have settled down …” “Down in the river to pray …” “Because you’re mine, I walk the line …” “I am a man of constant sorrow …” Brian melting Reese’s peanut-butter cups into marshmallows. Luke sinking into quiet sorrow.

Sunday, another new day. Showering, dressing, pouring a bowl of cereal. Attending the community church with Lydia and Brian. Singing “Be Thou My Vision”: Thou my great Father, I thy true son/Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. More silent tears. Feeling both forgotten by God and at the same time breathing and upright by His very grace.