The things we do

The desire for a baby has taken me down many roads I never imagined.  And today, I added one more. My friend, Suzanne, who at  41 was also dealing with secondary infertility told me about this woman in the Mission District who does a massage to lift your uterus. She’d heard about it from her cleaning lady who said got pregnant the first cycle after going to her. Her cleaning lady’s friend, another case of secondary infertility, also got pregnant after seeing her. Then Suzanne went and what do you know, she got pregnant the next cycle.

So when my cycle got canceled, the first thing I did was make an appointment. Suzanne warned me it was uncomfortable and the woman, Esther, didn’t speak much English. I imagined she worked out of her home and that it might just be like an abdominal massage. Unpleasant but manageable. Was I in for a surprise!

She led me down an alley behind her house to a small shack closed with lock and chain. The tiny room was filled with Mexican chotkes, two large display cases with vitamins for sale, and a large flat screen monitor on the wall. Her table was a plank held up on one end by a concrete block. In broken English, she referenced a picture of the uterus and ovaries on the large monitor and described how over time our uterus drops and there needs to be space for a successful pregnancy. Her job was to create space.

And creating space is not pleasant. In fact, it is excruciating. Using Bengay and Vaseline on my belly, Esther pushed and pushed, digging into my lower abs, coaching to me to relax when I screamed out in pain. Apparently, my uterus was very low because Esther had to work quite hard to move it up. I begged for mercy several times, just for a moment to breathe, but I focused on the end goal. The baby and if this is the pain I have to get through to hold him or her, its more than worth it. And it’s a whole hell of a lot better than shooting myself up with hormones!

After it was over, including an even more painful thigh massage, Esther wrapped up my belly in an old pillow case I’d brought. She instructed me to leave it on for 2 days, no shower and to take it easy (yeah right!). And then Esther proclaimed me okay and to call her if I was not pregnant in 2 months.  Fingers crossed!