Product Rating

Buy it.

by V. Bowman 2007-05-10

I bought this tea yesterday. I was a hot day and since I'm pregnant, I've been avoiding regular and diet soda, and I think water, at least here in Akron, tastes terrible, so I've been making sun tea. I drink almost an entire tea jar every day. But the delicious red tea I'd been drinking was getting tiresome and I was looking for something new when I saw this tea. It is SO refreshing as an iced tea. I'm SURE I'd drink it even if I wasn't pregnant because it tastes so delicious. As far as the "claims", who knows... the ingredients like raspberry leaf, etc, seem harmless.

Product Rating

A Tasty Tea, and More

by viktor_57 2006-05-26

My first-time pregnant wife saw this tea and thought that it couldn't hurt, even if she doubted the efficacy of its claims. She offered me a sip of the tea, and I must say that I liked the combination of mint, fruit, lemon, and spicy flavors. I bought some more tea, and together my wife and I would each enjoy a cup in the evening while sitting out on our back porch and watching the sun set.

About a month after drinking this delicious tea, I woke up one morning feeling very queasy. When I told my wife why I looked green in the face, she smiled at me with great compassion and love. "You're having sympathy symptoms." I looked at her blankly. She continued, "It's called Couvade syndrome, from the French `couver', meaning `to hatch'. It's when men feel and experience the physical symptoms associated with pregnancy." "Oh," I said, "I wonder how far it goes." My wife looked at me with loving eyes, laughed, and gave me a hug. "I love you," she said.

A few weeks later I found out just how far Couvade syndrome can go when I gained twenty pounds; began suffering backaches, stomachaches, cramping, and mild incontinence; and started craving some foods while finding others nauseating. My wife found my symptoms amusing and endearing, and in that spirit I took a home-pregnancy test, for fun. When the results came back positive, I became concerned. My wife thought I was playing a joke on her, but when then next two tests also came out positive, she also became worried. On our next visit to her OB/GYN, we asked her doctor about my positive results. She looked at me with some concern and told us that elevated human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG--the hormone tested for in at-home pregnancy tests) levels in men are sometimes indicative of testicular cancer. I think I fainted, because I next remember waking up on an exam bed. The doctor recommended an oncologist to me and I set up an appointment right away.

The oncologist explained how hCG may be produced by germ cell tumors and had some of my blood drawn for tests. That night was the most terrifying of my life as I waited for the lab results. When I saw the doctor the next day, she gave me the happiest news of my life: besides the hCG, all the other tests were negative for the most common testicular cancers. She still wanted a biopsy to be safe, and I consented, even though the idea of extracting it was not pleasing, to say the least. The biopsy results also came back clean, but the oncologist recommended that I come back in a month to monitor any changes. In the meantime, my wife and I went back to her OB/GYN for an ultrasound, and just for fun, I asked if I could have one too. The doctor humored me and scanned my lower abdomen. When she saw the screen, however, she nearly dropped the probe. "What is it?" I asked. "It looks like you have a uterus," she said, "with a fetus inside of it." I think I fainted. When I woke up, my wife and her doctor were both looking down at me with concern. "Is he always like this?" the doctor asked. "Yes," answered my wife, "but it's been especially bad since the pregnancy." "Whose?" the doctor asked. Everybody laughed. I asked her how this could have happened, and she mentioned intersexualism and chimerism, but I assured her that I was as male as male can be. Nonetheless, she suggested genetic testing.

I began to think very hard about when my pregnancy symptoms began, and I realized they all started with the tea. I immediately stopped drinking it, and I began to notice my symptoms slowly disappearing. I had the genetic testing done and all my cells were typically XY male, with no abnormalities. The second ultrasound showed only the appropriate abdominal organs for a male, with no trace of a uterus or fetus. In fact, the only evidence that I had ever been pregnant is a grainy photo from the first ultrasound. The medical community has dismissed my case as mass hysteria, or "folie à deux". They may be at a loss to explain what happened, but I know the truth.