Yoga for Fertility

UPDATE: This was one of the best classes I've taken since I started (on and off) yoga in 2003. There was no pressure to get the poses perfect. It was 100% about feeling good and relieving stress and aches and pains. I cannot WAIT for next Sunday's class!!!

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This evening, I start an 8 week Yoga for Fertility class.

A little background information. I organized a yoga class at my office for a few years. We met every Monday over the noon hour and had some great instructors from a local yoga studio. When I did my fresh IVF cycle in January 2012, I stopped going because I didn't want to try to explain to anyone, including my yoga instructor, and have stuff get out. I took 3 weeks off work for the cycle, so it was pretty easy to avoid the class that semester. I skipped the next few sessions, too, including this summer because I did my donor egg bank FET.

I need to get back into yoga, though. My mind and my body need it.

So when a woman I met through the RESOLVE group I just started attending emailed about a Yoga for Fertility class she'd found, I got excited. I got in touch with two IRL friends who are battling IF and also a few other women I met through RESOLVE. We pulled together 6 women who are in and the class starts this evening.

During this IF journey, I have done just about everything to increase my chances of getting pregnant. I didn't drink coffee for the first 9 months of TTC, so I am quite sure my morning lattes are not the reason I'm not getting pregnant. I've taken Chinese herbs and vitamins. I've done acupuncture. I've exercised and I've not exercised, depending on what I thought would help my cycle. I've pricked, prodded and poked myself or allowed myself to be pricked, prodded and poked by others. None of it has worked.

So ... do I think Yoga for Fertility will work for me? Will I be one of the lucky ones the teacher told us about: one of the ones who gets pregnant and leaves the class? NOPE. Not me. But I do think it could help the other women in the class (some of whom are friends) and I also firmly believe it will help my MENTAL HEALTH. I am looking forward to a few things, including (1) being in a room with other infertiles who understand me and why I am there, (2) having 90 minutes of quiet time to myself and my body, and (3) helping my body start to recover from the war that 2012 waged on it. I am also (4) looking forward to further developing relationships with the women I met through RESOLVE as they are strong, independent, kind women who - infertility aside - I would like to be friends with. Finally, I hope the quiet space to reflect will (5) help me get through this next round of holidays. Last Christmas, I wrote my mother a card saying "hopefully this will be your last Christmas without a grandkid." Last Christmas, I was 7 days away from starting Lupron in my fresh IVF cycle. With that history in mind, you can understand how this Christmas has an extra sting to it (the holidays have their sting for all of us IFers).