Overcoming Invisible Inflammation and Recurrent Transfer Failure to Achieve Two Successful Pregnancies

I'm Alex Coleman, and I'm from Novato, California. Well, even before I met her, I found her online. First, she's been doing this for a really long time. But she also has a PhD in acupuncture and a special certification for fertility and just amazing reviews. And as soon as I met her, I knew she's the one, she's amazing. So I started with Susan at the beginning of the fertility journey, which was like, four years ago now. She knows everything, all the lingo, all the drugs, all the meds, everything. You can talk to her about it, and she knows exactly what you're talking about. So she helped clarify and get me focused, and she also helped... I didn't know what to eat, I was like, I'm not eating enough organic. And she's like, let's get you on a meal plan that's organic. And that really helped. She sensed my apprehension and nervousness, and she helped ground me in the whole process. My dad's a doctor. My family are all scientists, and so I'm skeptical of anything that's not Western medicine. So that I had to get over, I've had a really long fertility journey. It took me a lot of embryo transfers just to get enough eggs, so we did four of them, and it wasn't happening. And finally we got enough embryos, but then the transfers weren't working, and they figured out I had some invisible inflammation, some endometriosis that didn't show as normal endometriosis. It was just I have a marker for it. So Susan helped work with me and changed my whole diet for an infertility anti-inflammation diet. And meanwhile, we're doing acupuncture, the whole time, you know, to help inflammation and stress. For my first pregnancy, it worked. And so went on a special diet that Susan helped me with, and we did acupuncture, through the pregnancy, but it worked. And I have a beautiful baby boy! He's two and a half now. Now we recently started up the process again, and I tried the transfer without Susan and without the diet, and it didn't work. I'm like, oh, no, I got to go back to Susan. So I went back to Susan and I went on the diet, and we did acupuncture, and it worked. This transfer worked. And I'm currently pregnant now I'm seven weeks with our second. So it's just super exciting. I know that Susan without Susan, we wouldn't be here. Changes I made to my lifestyle, a big one, was diet with Susan's help. And so it helped both pregnancies, because when I didn't do that diet, it didn't work. So Susan helped a lot with that. She helps me figure out different electrolytes to drink to help with bloating. And every time you meet with her, she gives more tips to help your current body state. And then I go to Acupuncture every week, and it's the best thing! It's like a break from everything. You just relax. Your brain goes ahhhhh it's the best. It's just such a gift. Susan's amazing. She gave me the tools to feel like I could actually do something to help. She gives me the information to know which questions to ask. It's like having personal fertility guru on your shoulder that tells you exactly the right things to ask your doctor and when to be concerned, when not to be concerned. I would text her after every retrieval, every ultrasound, and she'd give me advice or encouragement or holding space, as she would put it, if things didn't go well. So very empowered. Susan is like having a best friend who's a genius in fertility on your side every week, who's there for you and you don't feel alone in this process. And it's so stressful because it's so up and down. And she is like a steady ally through the whole thing. And, I mean, I'm I've been pregnant. It's my second! I wouldn't be here without her, I don't think. I wouldn't have known any of the diet or anything in the fertility world without her. I don't think I would not be pregnant without her. Susan, you are amazing. You are the reason that I'm a mama. and that's going to make me cry. You're so wise and so generous and I wouldn't be here without you. And I wouldn't have a family without you.