Brad repeated him. ‘Five rings, whispy nervous system . . . a lot of tension in her lower back.’ Now he was looking at me.
‘Does your lower back bother you?’
‘Yes. I broke my tailbone when I was fifteen. I’ve had a bit of trouble with my lower back ever since. It’s probably not even connected to my tailbone. It could be because I also have shocking posture.’
‘You’ve got a real tilt in your lower back,’ Brad told me. ‘It’s as crooked as anything.’
He talked about my uterus and how it is sensitive and, I don’t know why, asked about Nana, my maternal grandmother. I told him she’d recently suffered a stroke and had the onset of dementia. She’d had breast cancer and one breast removed, had high blood pressure and bad varicose veins, but otherwise she was fit and well.
Brad told me she was the woman I’d take after. I already knew that and it worried me—I’m paranoid about breast cancer. Brad finished looking into my eyes and wrote up his notes. ‘Adrenal fatigue, uterus congestive, lumbar tilt.’
He concluded my uterus wasn’t in an ideal condition for growing an egg. Then he said he usually tries to fix people, and he believes when they are well their fertility will return.
He said we needed to focus on my womb if we were to get any future embryo to thrive. But in order to do that, we had to work on my overall wellbeing.
He started asking me specific details about my period, which was as awkward as asking me about sex. I was squirming in my seat. ‘What colour was it? Lego red? Was it clumpy? Does it hurt?’ The questions went on and I was uncomfortable.
Then he started talking about my slight prolapse, which he said was a prolapsed bowel. I had no idea what that meant so he explained it to me. It had dropped and was sitting on top of my cervix, pushing it out of place and causing cramps and occasional pain during sex. And Dom thought it was just because he had a big penis!
Brad told me I had to lean an ironing board against the couch and lie on it upside down every night for fifteen minutes so my bowel would fall back into place. I found this a little bit hard to believe and told him I thought it sounded a bit kooky. Then he told me I also had an introverted uterus, which was news to me.
Brad said I needed to give him four months before I started my next IVF cycle. He wanted to get my insides ready and he wanted to start me on anti-miscarriage herbs before I even began the IVF treatment. He said his miscarriage rate was about one in eight and the clinic’s was about one in two—those were some pretty good odds. How could we fail?
Brad didn’t have time to gaze into Dom’s eyes on the first visit so we made another appointment. He wanted to improve Dom’s sperm quality. But he did make a passing comment that he knew why Dom’s sperm was crap. He said it was because his guts were rotten. Dom was eating a lot of junk food and running it off.
Brad told us a story about another man he saw who had rotten guts. When he first visited the clinic, everyone wondered why the place smelled of baby poo. Two weeks later, the man visited and it didn’t stink of baby poo anymore. He thanked Brad and admitted that wherever he went for the last few years, people would always complain about a smell of baby poo in the air. Not a pleasant story, but thanks for sharing, Brad.
Dom admitted he was incredibly gassy but not smelly. Brad told him it was because he has a lot of fermentation and said all that gas was like Auschwitz. ‘In a way, you’re gassing your semen to death,’ he said.
‘If we fix your guts, you’ll have between 600 and 900 per cent improvement in your sperm.’
Here I was thinking that Dom’s sperm was the problem, but Brad was convinced my eggs were the issue and wanted to really focus on that. He hadn’t finished with his assessment of me. He asked about the frequency and strength of my urine, poo, my varicose veins and then my sex drive. I told him I was 37 and had been with Dom for thirteen years—he could work it out. Dom cheekily piped up, ‘Let’s just say I could be doing better for myself!’
Brad asked about my diet. My diet wasn’t that bad, but carbs I have no self-control with. I’d always had a problem pooing, which Brad picked up on. Probably because of the carbs, I was pooing only a couple of times a week. No big deal, I thought—until now!
I was sent away with a few bottles of pills—all natural remedies. I had to take 21 pills a day, lie upside down on the ironing board and follow a new healthy-eating diet. One of the pills Brad had me on was to make me poo every day. I hoped to lose weight, but time would tell. I’d already given up alcohol and caffeine, surely I could give up bread, potatoes, rice, pasta . . . Oh man, it was going to be killer!
A week later we were back and it was Dom’s turn in the hot seat. Brad started with an examination of Dom’s moles—he’s very freckly. His advice: ‘Get some Black Salve from the internet. It kills cancerous tissue in one day.’
Looking into Dom’s eyes, Brad proclaimed that Dom had a twisted back, but nothing serious. He said people wouldn’t be paying money to come and see the man with the twisted back. Then Brad asked Dom to poke out his tongue and he described what he could see—the back half was creamy and the front half was clean. That was a sodium phosphate deficiency and had something to do with the gassy guts.
Gazing into Dom’s eyes again, Brad looked perplexed as he jokingly compared Dom’s eyes with the view he had on his recent trip to Tahiti. Beautiful! However, he said Dom’s liver wasn’t good looking—perhaps that’s the bottle of red wine Dom consumes most nights.
Brad concluded Dom’s sour guts could have something to do with him being hyper. This made sense to me. After all, Dom had a large adrenal tumour and when we first met I was convinced he had ADHD. I was so convinced I made him go to his doctor, but the doctor laughed and told Dom he was fine but I was nuts.
We were getting down to it, when Brad told Dom he had a weak vein in his left testicle and told him he’d have prostate problems when he got old. He said he’d inherited a weakness from his paternal grandfather.
‘But he lived until he was 95,’ Dom bragged.
A few months ago, Dom had had a prostate exam on air—we’d gotten a doctor in the studio to shove his fingers up Dom’s butt and he concluded that Dom’s prostate was healthy. So, Dom wasn’t too worried about his prostate.
Brad seemed to be fishing for something to be wrong with Dom but he was struggling. Dom’s a fit machine. He runs marathons. He never gets sick as such—the tumour was a medical emergency.
When Brad asked Dom how frequently he poos, I started giggling. Dom and Brad both stared at me like I’m immature and I guess I am. I don’t know why but I find any conversation about poo or periods or sex extremely uncomfortable and when I get nervous or uncomfortable I giggle. Yes it’s immature, but I can’t control it.
Brad told Dom to cut back on the starch—bananas, potatoes, bread, rice, pasta. All the good stuff, the stuff we both like. It’ll be a challenge for Dom—he was having two bananas a day. Brad can’t fix retrograde ejaculate but if he can help with Dom’s sperm production, we’ll be a calling him a miracle worker like so many of his other clients.
My social life revolves around glasses of wine with my girlfriends. It’s very difficult to avoid it. Naturally you go overboard at Christmas and New Years, but I was determined to cut back. I signed up to become an ambassador for FebFast, a fundraising event organised by the New Zealand Drug Foundation. The idea is to give up alcohol for the entire month of February—at least it’s the shortest month of the year—and raise money for deserving charities at the same time. I convinced Dom to sign up, too.
In preparation for FebFast, I stopped drinking after my first visit to Brad in mid-January. It suited me because I was trying to keep our plans for IVF on the down–low this time and FebFast provided the perfect cover story. Dom lasted three days before he caved. His birthday is 3 February and he decided to organise his own birthday present on the air—he ordered three sexy promo models in bikinis to give our car a wash while he sat watching from a fold-out picnic chair. Of course, it had be
er holders in the arms. Dom had an ice-cold Pure Blonde in his hand—the beer, not a promo girl—and three hot blondes cleaning his car.
Having broken his three-day drought, he figured it was okay to drink that night, and then the next day at a mate’s stag do. He withdrew himself as a FebFast ambassador, but I continued on. Off the wine, I didn’t feel any better but I felt good that I’d stuck with it. I found myself asking friends for a sniff of their wine. Is that weird?
It’s hard work being an ambassador, though. It’s always difficult trying to get money out of people, even if it’s for a good cause. There are so many charities and so many appeals and so many people asking for help that people tend to become desensitised to it. I’m the same. Every time we have a money-can’t-buy prize to give away on air, such as a meet-and-greet with Taylor Swift, so many people email, text or call in begging for the opportunity, followed up by a sob story. Very genuine stories, of course, but when you have 30 people battling cancer wanting the same prize, you can’t help everyone.
It’s the same with fundraising. I’m well aware of this, but I had a job to do for FebFast—raising money for groups like Rainbow Youth and CareNZ to develop drug- and alcohol-prevention programs for young people. I had a fundraising page and the platform to put the word out to lots of people for FebFast, including 450 000 Edge listeners, 75 000 fans on Facebook, 15 000 Twitter followers, but still, it was like getting blood out of a stone. I wrote about it in my weekly column in New Idea and was even on TVOne’s Good Morning program, but at the end of the month I had only raised $321. I guess it wasn’t a bad sum when I compared my total to that of the Labour Party, who raised $1998, and The National Party, who raised $1560. They had a whole party campaigning for donations and I was just a party of one!
When TVOne’s Good Morning show asked me to come on to talk about FebFast, I was worried our decision to keep things quiet about a fifth IVF cycle might be blown away. I know how these things work—talking for eight minutes about giving up alcohol for charity is hardly riveting television. They would want more, and they’d be digging for it. The producer called me and asked me a few pre-questions. She asked about my nephew and I told her it was a very personal and delicate subject but, yes, I would be able to speak lightly of him. She asked me about his parents and if I had any experience with drugs and alcohol. Obviously, I did. It’s on the record that Seven’s dad has have battled addiction and, of course, that has been a huge stress on our family but I knew if I spoke about it, it could really upset the apple cart.
I can’t tell you all the details here. It’s not about me, there is an innocent child caught in the middle. I told the producer it was extremely sensitive and I understood that in order to make the interview more interesting I would need to say something about my personal situation.
In the days leading up to the interview I was a bit stressed about it and contemplated pulling out. Firstly, I get camera shy so that wasn’t helping and, secondly, I was nervous I would be put on the spot. It’s not a hard news show so I knew it couldn’t be that scandalous but how would I answer their questions by giving them something without giving them too much?
I told Dom about this dilemma and he said, ‘You don’t have to give them specific details. Be careful what you say about Seven, and just tell them we’re doing IVF. You don’t have to tell them when. But you can say it’s coming up.’ Sounds easy enough!
On the day of the appearance I arrived at TVNZ and waited at reception to be collected. The producer came and took me straight to hair and make-up. The people are very friendly and relaxed there so that helped. By the time I went into the studio to be seated and miked up I was feeling better. The Good Morning hosts, Jeanette Thomas and Rod Cheeseman, were ready to roll. There wasn’t time for any small talk beforehand and we got straight into the interview—live to air. My mouth went dry and I was so thirsty I grabbed a half-empty cup in front of me that the last guest must have used.
The hosts introduced me with talk of FebFast and how it was helping raise funds for charities helping young people with alcohol and drug problems. We chitchatted for a bit then Rob Cheeseman cut to the chase.
‘Why is this so close to your heart? You’ve got some experience with drug and alcohol abuse in your family?’
Now I was shifting awkwardly in my seat.
‘Yeah. It’s true. My nephew lives with us because . . . um . . . my brother has had drug problems and has been to prison for drug-related crimes. And um . . . yeah . . . um . . . it’s quite a sensitive subject but there are a couple of people in the family who have battled really bad drug addiction and who still are.’
My voice was wavering and I was looking down—obvious signs of discomfort.
‘It’s quite heartbreaking actually. Drug addiction breaks families apart and the person who is the addict often doesn’t see that. And I’ve never seen a happy ending for someone who is on drugs. Even if they say they want to get off them and they try to get off them, they really are caught up in this world. It takes a lot of willpower to get off the drugs but they have to think about the innocent victims as well—like my nephew, for example.’
After a bit more chitchat about day-to-day stuff Jeanette got to the next big story and we chatted about the Sunday doco, they showed a clip from it, and I confessed Dom and I were getting ready for another go. As Dom suggested, I kept it light and didn’t say when. And that was it. My mic was removed and I was ushered out of the studio.
I didn’t anticipate how big a deal my statement about doing another cycle of IVF would be. I guess I thought not many people would see me on Good Morning. I immediately got Facebook, Twitter and email messages from people offering congratulations.
I was invited to join a secret Facebook group for people going through IVF, and a woman called me at The Edge and offered to talk me through glycol nutrients. I felt exhausted at the thought of having to reply to all of these people. That’s why we were going to keep it quiet. I remember now!
I was keen to check out the secret Facebook group—it sounded like something that could help me and I also thought that, as I was about to embark on a fifth IVF cycle, I might be able to help others in return. The group had about 150 members and you had to be invited and approved before you could join. That was to protect existing members—someone may ask to join who a member knows and doesn’t want the applicant to know the member is going through IVF. I don’t know if any women have been denied acceptance but, if so, I hope they were let down gently!
It’s such a good group and we all support each other and share stories. Although there is so much heartbreak within this group, there are also quite a few success stories. Best of all, we trust each other to keep our posts private.
By the end of FebFast I was used to not drinking and decided to keep off the booze as much as possible. I’d have the odd drink here and there but where I could avoid it, I would. I’d also quit caffeine. The rest of the radio team had also quit the 7 a.m. booster. I just hoped it didn’t send our favourite local café broke.
Drinking decaffeinated tea wasn’t so bad. But I was getting serious coffee envy seeing people in my neighbourhood walking their dogs or kids on a Saturday morning with a takeaway coffee cup in hand.
Dom has also made a few sacrifices of his own to get his sperm in tiptop shape. He complained about it and was rushing me along to book in for our fifth IVF cycle so he could get back to his daily hot baths!
IN HIS OWN WORDS—ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT
I was going to go all out to make sure my sperm was the best it could be when the time came to slice my scrotum open for a third time. It takes three whole months to make sperm, so things you do today will impact on the quality of the sperm that comes out 90 days from now. I did a lot of independent research to make sure I could do everything in my power to increase our chances. Here’s what I did.
No hot baths.
If you are not a bath person this will mean little to you. Jay-Jay and I have a big old claw-foot bathtub and I love it. If
time permits, I will always have a good soak in the bath rather than a shower.
No alcohol.
I am not like a roadie for the Rolling Stones but I do enjoy my red wine. Saying goodbye to this old friend for over a quarter of a year would be tough
Learn meditation.
I read that this relaxation technique could help. It seemed far-fetched but I reasoned that being relaxed and calm surely could not do any harm. I did a course on transcendental meditation or TM and still practise it today.
Wear loose fitting underwear.
Testicles hang away from the body to stay cool and tight undies risk overheating them. I’m sure plenty of men over the centuries have worn tighty-whiteys and have managed to have families but I could not risk it.
No caffeine.
The morning coffee was out, and so were soft drinks.
Pills from a naturopath.
I had a cocktail of pills to take every day—a dozen or so, to improve my sperm health.
750mls of vegetable juice every day.
I made my own and dabbled around with the formula until I came up with a taste that was okay, but not something I could not describe as delicious or refreshing. I thought it would be great for my entire body—immune system, digestive system, clearing out toxins—and reasoned that it had to be awesome for my sperm.
1 cup of sunflower seeds every day.
I read somewhere they increase sperm production so I decided to eat a cup a day. It was hard work! They may be a wonderful snack for small birds but for a human being? Not so much.
Preparing for our fifth IVF cycle
The beginning of 2012 was a busy time for us. My mum, who had been living in Waverley, South Taranaki, wanted a break from the small town so came to stay with us in the middle of March. She owns an antiques shop in the main street of Waverley but it’s not a thriving metropolis, so earning an income is hard. Also, a huge storm hit the lower half of the North Island and damaged Mum’s shop (and house). The roof came off, rain came in, stock was damaged. Mum decided to shut up shop for a while and come and stay with us in Auckland. It worked out perfectly because we were between babysitters. Our latest morning nanny for Seven got a full-time job in PR so had left us just before Christmas. We had a friend helping us out until we found a replacement, but with Mum living in our house she could look after Seven in the mornings and we would save a few hundred dollars a week!
Misconception Page 9