When you walk into our new River Walk center you will see mehndi designs on the walls.  Mehndi is the name for the temporary henna tattoos that women from India and Pakistan wear on their hands and feet at weddings and other celebrations.  The mehndi tradition is synonymous with women, community and joy.  Our new River Walk center is “tattooed” with mehndi designs as a celebration of women, their beauty and their innate ability to support and heal each other through community.  We thought we’d share this video, from the movie “Monsoon Wedding” because it is filled with that kind of joy.

We will begin seeing patients at our new space on Sunday, January 23.  Call 312-321-0004 to book your fertility acupuncture, yoga for fertility, FEM protocol or nutrition consult.  We are Chicago’s specialists for the holistic care of women’s health, fertility and pregnancy.

 Ever wondered what makes prenatal massage different from “regular” massage?  Pulling Down the Moon Co-Founder Tami Quinn interviews fertility and pregnancy massage specialist Dana Durand, LMT to get the scoop:

Click here to schedule your FEM (Fertility-Enhancing Massage) Protocol or Pregnancy Massage with Dana Durand at our Shady Grove location.

Are you or someone you know struggling to conceive?  If so, we hope you will pass this video along. 

Pulling Down the Moon and Fertility Centers of Illinois are featured in the first episode of the new WeTV show The Fertility Chase.  The focus of this segment is to raise awareness of how holistic techniques like acupuncture, yoga, nutrition and massage should be used as a first line of treatment rather than as a last resort.   Two PDtM patients and their partners share their personal struggles with infertility and discuss how holistic treatments supported them in the journey.  In addition, Dr. Brian Kaplan of Fertility Centers of Illinois adds his perspective of the role holisitc medicine can play even when couples have moved on to medical intervention. 

Women and couples who are trying to conceive often experience loss and disappointment. Pulling Down the Moon’s Dealing with Disappointment program offers patients an opportunity to come together in community and share those losses in a supportive environment.

Check out our video for more information about this program which happens quarterly.  This month, the program will be held on Monday, February 7 at our Chicago River Walk location.  Click here to register.

If you build it, they will come. Co-Founders Beth Heller and Tami Quinn share their story on why they decided to create Pulling Down the Moon.

My brother Ted Bilich, a D.C.-area attorney and Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown, writes and teaches about the importance of goals, how to set them and how to achieve them.  He has a ton of great info on his blog (www.tedbilich.com), but being the P.I.T.A. little sister, I thought I’d try and stump him with a question:  what advice would he give to goal-oriented people who are up against something that is out of their control (ie. getting pregnant)?  It’s a relevent question since many of the women in the Pulling Down the Moon community (including Tami and myself) are very goal-oriented.  In fact, for many of us, getting pregnant is the first goal we haven’t been able to achieve despite all efforts. 

Within a few hours Ted came up with a response that I found thoughtful and inspiring (read the whole piece here).  What interested me the most was his inclusion of the concept of flow, which resonates deeply with yoga and holistic medicine.  Ted writes:

“…Seek the benefits of flow by finding ways to appreciate the value of the process itself.  As Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers points out, outsized success ordinarily requires substantial practice.  Mastery tends to require thousands of hours of study, and someone will not devote hours and hours if they don’t find some way to love the process.  The concept of flow captures that notion.  Our favorite experiences tend to be those that challenge us sufficiently that we lose ourselves in the moment.”

So from a Pulling Down the Moon perspective, flow is what happens when we begin to embrace the journey of trying to conceive.  Not because it’s fun or because we want to struggle with infertility, but because that is what life is putting on our plate in this moment.   Flow is what our fertility acupuncturists try to achieve when they place needles on the body to direct the movement of life energy in our bodies.  When we begin to eat right, excercise right, address areas of dis-ease our life (stress, anger, emotionality) we enter a flow that is greater than trying to get pregnant.   The benefit of these practices is that they do, as Ted writes, “bring one’s vital statistics into target zones,” that may improve our odds of getting pregnant.  

But if we’re lucky, we find these practices challenge us in a way that allows us to lose ourselves in the present moment, amazed and enchanted by the process of living life at a deeper, more mindful level.  In PDtM, our six week yoga class we study breathing, meditation and even philosophy to help us experience the concept of flow.   On a very basic level, our bodies can also help to unlock the door to the present.  Check out the video below, a sequence of postures that we call our Moon Salute.  This practice stretches the hips and groin, makes the low back more supple, opens the heart and calms the body and mind with rythmic breathing.  One one level it fits the criteria of “bringing our vital stats into the fertility zone,” yet it’s also beautiful experience in and of itself.   When we focus on the breath and the movement, letting the outside world fall away, we find entry into flow.  Asana (yoga posture) practice isn’t the only way to get there…there’s journaling, painting, gardening, cooking, singing…the list goes on.  

We challenge you now to practice this Moon Salute video every day for a week and come back with your comments and questions.   The flow is a wonderful place to be, and that’s what our community at Pulling Down the Moon is all about.   The babies are just a really big bonus!  Be present, be positive…be part of the flow.  Beth

Need to restore today?  Check out this great video of Tami demonstrating Supine Bound Angle, a yoga pose that’s great for both male and female fertility.