I never thought it would be a challenge to become a mother. After almost a year trying, I found myself in a place where I spent all my free time reading and researching how to get pregnant and trying to figure out why I was not. I was stressed and sad and angry and was told more often than I care to remember, that those were precisely the reasons I was not getting pregnant! My husband at the time, and I had the preliminary fertility tests performed and everything was ‘normal’ for both of us.
I was an obsessive temperature-taker and I analyzed my BBT chart for hours to plan my next strategy. After a long wait I saw a Reproductive Endocrinologist, but felt I was not ready to begin what he described. I still had hope that I would get pregnant on my own and wanted to try everything possible before surrendering to artificial means.
During my self-education the use of herbs to enhance fertility were of particular interest. I learned about herbs that alter hormones, build the uterine lining, increase cervical mucous and the list goes on. I spent about four months researching herbs and deciding based on my own "signs and symptoms" what herbs might help me get pregnant. I began taking the herbs at the beginning of my cycle and to my amazement, I got pregnant that same month. I didn’t give the herbs a second thought. I was pregnant and I didn’t care how or why. My sweet son arrived just before Christmas that year.
I looked more closely at the role the herbs may have played in my achievement of pregnancy after the RE of a friend of mine who had four failed IVF cycles, refused her another because he said she was too “stressed out”.
When she asked if I did anything “special” to get pregnant I told her of my experience with herbs. Based on information I gathered from her, I made some suggestions and two weeks after taking the herbs herself, she too was pregnant. Her doctor said “impossible”, and even accused me of trying to put him out of business. She went from lost hope to motherhood as her son arrived in May 2003!
During that time I was working as a social worker for the Town of Greenwich, CT. I had just received a promotion and was running all of the youth programs sponsored by the Town. I had always been interested in alternative medicine and left my position to go back to school full time so I could help other women trying to get pregnant.
And today, that is exactly what I do!