Heart-Centered: My IVF Story

Gratitude for the Flower of Life Team

by Dr. Laura

2013:

I started my chiropractic career in perinatal & pediatric care because thinking about the potential of a brand new life with a regulated & thriving nervous system being so expansive and limitless as it is - it brings tears to my eyes. Call me cringe, call be biased - that’s how the bigness of chiropractic really hit me smack in the chest and has stayed ever since.

As one would expect (given all that), I have also always wanted my own small family. To live my professional and personal lives doing the thing! When I got married in 2016, I thought it would be easy. Ten years later …I’m still waiting. There’s been tough times. There’s been heartbreak. But there’s also been so much love, caring, and deep understanding - and a lot of that is because of the team at Flower of Life.

So, this November (traditionally a classic time to Give Thanks), I want to show you through my story and my gratitude what exactly you get when you come to Flower of Life Chiropractic.

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2020:

After a few years of trying and celebrating other friends' pregnancies, I was getting anxious. When the pandemic rolled around and with so much time suddenly on my hands, I enlisted my colleagues to help optimize our fertility health. Over the next few years we were all in:  Chiropractic.  Acupuncture. Functional Nutrition. Supplements. Herbs. Therapy. Pelvic Floor Therapy. Sugar Detox. Food sensitivity testing. Gut Microbiome Repair. No gluten. No dairy. No cooling foods. Warm food. Warm feet. Warm belly. Moxa. Lots of sleep. Gentle movement. WimHoff. Meditations and visualizations of all kinds. All the pee sticks measuring all the things. When a rock fell off an office shelf and smacked my foot and I found out it was a FERTILITY rock, I thought THIS MUST BE IT.

And yet. Each new cycle began to feel like its own loss.

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2024:

When I started working at Flower of Life, I had a strong chiropractic background - but I had been looking for something that tied the whole body and nervous system together. I knew bigger, deeper shifts could happen, but I couldn’t reach them yet.

Bio Geometric Integration (BGI, the foundation of how we adjust at Flower of Life) was a new lens for me to understand the depth of tension that patterns through our bodies & systems. It made sense the moment Drs. Erin, James, and Jaime told me about it - and when I was adjusted by them, something integrated in a way it hadn’t before. It felt… more complete.

By this time, I had done all the fertility things, taken a break from all the things, tried IUI (where I learned that clomid makes me severely depressed), and was contemplating IVF. Now, don’t forget, I’m a chiropractor - I believe our nervous systems and bodies have so much potential to be unlocked. I know to expect miracles. I know the body is capable of so much on its own. So, when I cautiously shared that I would be starting IVF, I was SO relieved that I was simply met with support, excitement, and the reminder to please, come in and get adjusted.

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2025:

From that point, I learned firsthand what makes Flower of Life unique. This is a team who will meet you where you’re at. Coincidently, that’s a line I always close my own newsletters with because it is paramount to how we as chiropractors respect and support each person we have the honor of working with. Its mutual trust and deep caring and I found myself on the receiving end of it both clinically and on a very human level.

Despite the incredible AND incredibly hard process of IVF, the FOL team supported me in deeply meaningful ways. It came in the form of gentler schedules, so many shifts picked up last minute (thank you, Dr Jaime!), conversations that always started with “How ARE you?”, and, of course, the adjustments.

THE ADJUSTMENTS. During the better part of 2025 my body didn’t feel like my own. After my first retrieval (zero viable embryos) I developed stabbing pain in my middle back through to my sternum.. Swallowing hurt, eating felt nearly impossible, sleep was trepidatious. These symptoms sound dramatic as I type them, they were dramatic! But I had no idea stress would hit me so hard, so physically. Over and over, stress would show up, I’d start to feel disconnected, then the adjustments would bring me back into my body, grounding me every time.

In December of 2025 I had gone through multiple retrievals and was finally ready to transfer our only embryo. (And since you’ve seen me this fall very not pregnant, you know how this story goes). - by Christmas we were brimming with excitement, by the New Year I was nervous my bloodwork wasn’t progressing as expected, by mid January it was over. By the grace of the powers that be, everything ended quietly, gracefully.

Again, the FOL team supported me immediately - no weekly team calls, no work messages, no shifts to worry about covering. It was all done. In an instant. Without asking for a thing. After some space, I got a text saying to come get adjusted when I felt ready. I said I’d have to come on a day off at the end of a shift so I didn’t fall to pieces in front of everyone. The text back was simply, “I got you”.

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2026:

Do I think chiropractic has let me down? I think the opposite. Chiropractic has supported me during the hardest times of my adult life. Chemical stress? SO MUCH. Physical stress? SO MANY KINDS. Emotional stress? Every flavor. The team at Flower of Life kept my nervous system more grounded, adaptable, and resilient. The adjustments kept me from floating away in all the hormones and what ifs during such a stressful year, and they absolutely contributed to my successful transfer and my resilient return to practicing what I love and what I know still helps miracles happen - big and small.

I will be forever GRATEFUL for FOLCNY. For the understanding they didn’t have to give. For the space from work (their business!) that left them covering my shifts or needing to close early. For never asking “well have you thought about [insert alternate ways to have a family]” because anyone who’s had fertility challenges has thought about them and while the alternate options are very obvious the decisions around them are very personal.) And, of course, I am grateful for the heart centered adjustments that allowed my body & soul to find each other again.

I’ve been a chiropractor for 13 years. I’ve worked in many offices. I’ve led meetings and built systems to keep teams focused on what really matters (the members) and our personal why (what was it that hit us squarely in the chest, that moved us to become chiropractors in the first place). Flower of Life is the first place I’ve been where the focus is ALWAYS on our purpose and our people. I am so grateful to be a part of both sides of this practice. If you’ve been away, if life has been hard, if schedules have been busy - I urge you to remember what waits for you here. A team that will meet you where you’re at, create the space for ease to shift into focus, and a team who truly cares about YOU.

Have a beautiful, bountiful November.

We’re here to meet you where you’re at, so you can be your very best.