Pins and Needles

I'd better hurry up and write this, because while my Internet connection is perfect when I spend forty-five minutes Googling "Rely tampon," it tends to cut out the minute I decide to engage either in blogging or in real work. (As an aside, how did people spend their leisure time between the days when you had to hunt for all your own food and the dawn of the Internet era?)

(As another aside, is that Lori Loughlin in the boat? (Scroll down.) What would Uncle Jesse say???)

So, I recently tried acupuncture, ostensibly for the fertility thing, but, really, because the idea of acupuncture has always intrigued me. I've often had a headache and thought to myself, "If only I could just have knowledgeable person put a pin into my flesh right here, I think the headache would go away."

For my first session, I went and met with this woman, recommended by a friend. First, there's a brief interview regarding your symptoms, and an opportunity to ask questions. My biggest concern was the cleanliness of the acupuncture pins. Fortunately, they're disposable, as I learned towards the end of the interview. With that, I was led to the room to strip down. Having no other worries to fixate on, it dawned on me that, in just a few minutes, someone was going to be sticking pins into my body.

The acupuncturist came back in, and proceeded. The pins get inserted pretty quickly; they feel kind of like a tiny punch. Not a fist kind of punch, but a punch like when you punch a button. Some areas of the body hurt a little more than others, but the pins aren't what anyone would call really painful. If anything, it's more unpleasant. And once they're in, you're fine. Trust me; I'm a big baby with stuff like this.

Once all the pins were inserted, the acupuncturist turned out the light (I had to consciously avoid writing "shut the light," which is how you say it in New Yorkese), instructed me to relax, and said that, hopefully, I would fall asleep. I did relax, and breathe deeply, but I didn't fall asleep. I was too busy speculating about her personal life, the personal life of her previous client, who left as I came in, the personal life of her next client, who I heard arrive as I lay on the table, and the personal life of the woman who had sold me a T-shirt earlier that day at the Salvation Army. I left, feeling like my body was pretty active even though I was very relaxed. Really, my body was pretty relaxed; it was my mind that was active.

The day of the next session, which was last week, I had had contact with many fewer people, and didn't really have anything to speculate about. Instead, I came up with a mantra, a phrase I've heard often and that has had an indirect influence at key points in my life. It doesn't really have anything to do with babies or fertility, and I'm not quite sure why I chose it, but I considered other mantras and dismissed them all, knowing that this was the one. I'm not going to tell you what it is, because I suspect that I need to keep it to myself in order for it to keep working as a phrase I can focus on, and meditate on, undistracted, but suffice to say it is a phrase from Catholicism. I repeated it over and over to myself while on the table, and did, eventually, fall asleep for a brief period of time. The next day, my sinuses were noticeably clearer.

Yesterday, at Mass, the choir began to sing a certain song. I hadn't heard it in a very long while, but knew it immediately.

It was the song that is based on my mantra.

At another point in my life, I might have looked up on this occurrence as an omen, an indication that I will get pregnant this cycle. Now, I don't think it is.

But I do think that it is a sign. That I know what I need, I know what I want, and that I'm moving things in the right direction. Someday, somehow, I will be a mother.

I feel good, I really do.