My name is Mary, myself and my partner are a same sex couple who were on the IVF journey. We wanted to do a shared maternity, to use her eggs with a sperm donation and for me to carry the pregnancy. We went through the usual processes medically with a clinic in Ireland and also abroad and after a year had reached the first stage. My partner is 8 years younger than I am and successfully had egg stimulation and retrieval, which resulted in healthy embryos waiting to be implanted into me.
I just needed to get my period and we were on to the next step. But there was no sign of it, just the odd day of minimal brown discharge that I wasn’t sure if I could call part of my cycle. Five months passed with no real period, I was 41 years old and worried that I was becoming menopausal. After a conversation with a friend who had been a patient of Siobhan’s previously, I decided to make an appointment. Within five minutes of asking about my life and examining my tongue, Siobhan could see that I was ‘stuck’, with all of my energy in my head and my cognitive functions, which resulted in making me deficient in blood. We had just built a house which was exhausting and full of stress and I was coming towards the end of studying for a doctorate on top of my full-time job, again, lots of stresses that I was just ploughing through.
Siobhan did acupuncture with me and prescribed a Chinese herb decoction (which was very unpleasant but once you hold your nose you get used to it!), as well as other supplements; barley grass, spirulina, mushrooms and castor oil packs to ‘unstick’ me and build up my blood. Awareness, meditation and journaling were also good strategies for me. 5 weeks later I got the heaviest reddest period of my life and we went for the embryo implantation. It worked first time and I am currently 39 weeks pregnant, having had a very smooth pregnancy and we are so excited to meet our little baby soon, due just before Christmas 2019.
Siobhan is a wealth of knowledge about fertility, diet, immunity and how to balance life. She is also really warm, open and completely dedicated to her job. I honestly believe that she got my body on track to be able to hold, nourish and grow a baby. We are so grateful to her.
Mary & Nikki - Kilkenny
April 2020.
UPDATE: February 2021
We had a little baby girl Nessa in December 2019. She is perfect and we are so delighted with our luck. I want to thank Siobhan for everything and all the care and energy she spent on me. I really appreciate it.