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Mind Over "Matter"

Using the Mind/Body Connection
to Conceive

By Kelly Burgess

Tammy Quinn and Beth Heller know from personal experience that infertility impacts every aspect of a couple's lives. It's stressful, painful, depressing and discouraging. Marriages break up. Family ties are strained. Some people lose their jobs or suffer terrible financial setbacks.

In the not-so-distant past, infertility treatments focused on the patient's pelvis, not on their psyche. Fortunately, that's not the case any longer thanks to places like Pulling Down the Moon, a holistic center dedicated to redefining the meaning of fertility. Pulling Down the Moon was founded by Quinn and Heller and based upon their individual experiences with infertility treatments.

Heller of Chicago, Ill., was in the hospital when interviewed for this article; she had just given birth to her first child, Jackson, conceived with the help of Clomid. All births are special, but Jackson's birth followed a harrowing journey down the path of infertility that included one miscarriage and the devastating stillbirth of her previous child at 38 weeks.

Her friend and company co-founder, Quinn of Wilmette, Ill., had been through her own infertility ordeal. The end result was the birth of her twins six years ago, but she still remembers the emotional anguish she and her husband endured.

"While I was going through infertility treatments I just got to the point where I felt that I could not see one more specialist or get one more injection, and yet you want that result," says Quinn. "It becomes a vicious cycle. Having gone through the process [of infertility] I felt there was a lack of dealing with the emotional component."

Both women are registered yoga teachers, and Heller was still actively involved in infertility treatments when the team began Pulling Down the Moon. They marketed their idea to infertility centers and endocrinologists, and the result was a partnership with Illinois Fertility Centers.

"As far as we know there hasn't been another physicians' group that has partnered with a company to provide alternative modalities, so this partnership is unique and unusual," says Heller.

Want to see more?

• Dollars and Sense: Affording Infertility Treatment
• The Facts to Relax: Coping With the Stress of Infertility
• Truth Be Told: Uncovering Common Infertility Myths
• Talk about it!