<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666699;"><span class="drop_cap">W</span>e find it always refreshing to hear stories of overcoming odds, finding new paths, and achieving your dreams. Here is a collection of stories from our customers that will serve as inspiration as you look to the future. Then, come back whenever you desire to share your own. Your story may just be what another needs to hear.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666699;">Our first story is a video by a Circle &amp; Bloom beta user.  Her story demonstrates the bravery, resourcefulness and optimism needed to weather the infertility ups and downs:</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666699;">Here is Lauren's story, which is so inspirational because of the trust she found within herself.  She researched a special kind of yoga that gave her what she needed to find the warmth and balance inside again. Lauren is also the very talented artist who is behind all of our beautiful watercolor artwork.  When I asked her for help and explained about what I wanted to do with Circle &amp; Bloom, she said "chills ran up and down her spine." She's a very intuitive person and feels strongly in the mind/body connection.
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<blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #808080;">I got pregnant with our first child, Grace with really no trouble at all.  When Grace was just about a year old, we decided to start trying to get pregnant with a second child.  I expected to get pregnant with our second baby just as easily as I did with our first.  I nursed Grace for a full year, and when I stopped breastfeeding, my periods were irregular.  I managed to get pregnant after a few months, but miscarried shortly thereafter.  I miscarried one other time before seeing a fertility specialist who put me on Clomid to help me get pregnant with Nolan.</span>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #808080;">After my first miscarriage, I began the whole fertility "dance"... taking my temperature every morning, checking cervical fluid, anything to pinpoint ovulation--if there was any.  After almost a year of trying I got pregnant again but miscarried a second time two days before Christmas 2005.  It was a devastating loss.  I sank into a deep depression.  I was so angry with my body for not supporting me in my quest for another baby.  After hitting an emotional low I came to the realization that my body wasn't trying to hurt me--my body should not be my enemy.  The thought occurred to me that perhaps my mind/body disconnect was partly to blame for my fertility issues and I should try to align my thoughts with my physical body as a means to an end.  My body needed help, and just like I would have helped a good friend in need, I decided to do everything I could to help heal my body.  I began seeing a fertility specialist, and I also started seeing a friend of mine, a yoga instructor, for embodiment yoga sessions once or twice a week.  Embodiment yoga is a special form of yoga designed to restore energy to the base of your spine, your sacrum and your lower pelvic area.  It was an hour long session consisting of a few minutes of my instructor getting my body in alignment, followed by nearly a half hour of lying on my back in a position my instructor put me in, while she used her hands to apply pressure to two different spots at the base of my spine.  We repeated the process for another half hour on the other side.  The idea being to bring physical stimulation and awareness to the area thereby increasing energy flow.  It doesn't sound like much, but I was amazed at the physical and emotional results!  I would actually be sore the next day, like I had gone through a good work out, and I had just layed on my back for an hour.  So, it turned out that my fertility specialist diagnosed me with ovulating bad eggs, late.  He started me on Clomid.  In my first cycle on the medication, I was very physically aware when I was ovulating.  The Clomid of course, gives you a couple of days of an ovulation window, but I could literally feel my body getting ready to release an egg--sounds wierd, but true.  I called my yoga instructor and asked to come over that afternoon.  After our session, I was actually in pain.  I felt myself ovulating, it actually hurt.  I went home, my husband and I gave it a shot, and nine months later I had my beautiful son, Nolan. </span></p>
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