Callie Miller
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Five sentences about me…
I am a licensed esthetician and professional network marketer who lives in Northern California. Since childhood, I have been fascinated with nutrition and how to live a healthier life. Being an entrepreneur has been and still is a path to deep personal growth! I love reading extensively, writing, helping other women, being a positive role model in my community, and connecting with friends. Practicing gratitude and presence is something I feel and do daily.
Five sentences about what I've endured in the fertility realm...
It took 10 years of "trying" before our daughter was finally born. We ended up employing a surrogate, an egg donor, and going the IVF route internationally. At one point, the company we used lost our frozen sperm which had cost $4000 to fly to India. They also had some confusing moments with our egg donor, who we flew to India for the retrieval. If she hadn’t been there to look after the procedure, we would not have our daughter.
Success - we were pregnant! We flew to India 3 days before our baby was born. We met our egg donor in person and all were there for the birth (which was a mandatory C section due to their rules). Then after we proved that the baby was ours (genetic test), we were ready to fly home. But India was not ready to let us leave. It was a legal battle. We barely were able to get out of India with our newborn!
The company we used did not prepare us well, the red tape and governmental entities held us up, and it was nearly impossible to leave India with our child! We had to prove so many things, including that we were married (marriage certificate) and show pictures from our wedding before they believed us. Even after all that, they still held us up. It took one month to get out of there, all the while trying to not get sick with any 3rd world country diseases and how to feed our daughter, and ourselves! Finally boarding the plane to leave India with our newborn baby girl, my husband crumbled to his knees with exhaustion in the aisle, and I wept! Landing back in San Francisco was another round of tears from the entire journey. We feel gratitude each day for her and do not take having her for granted!
One thing I wish I knew going into my fertility journey...
I wish I had tried progesterone oil before consulting fertility clinics.
One thing about me that is forever changed because of my fertility journey...
How much love I have in my life! The love of a child - the love I have for my daughter - makes all the trials and hardships worth it.
One funny moment or anecdote from my fertility journey...
One fertility doctor looked at me and said, "Wow, you are only 38 and so healthy. Look at how nicely your cheeks glow. You are the picture of health - it's so hard to believe that you would have any trouble getting pregnant." (my mouth dropped open, because I remember the gorgeous new blush I had applied before the appointment, and I thought, "he thinks I should be fertile because I'm wearing this new blush?")
One product, practice, or ritual I adopted during my fertility journey, which I have/have not kept a part of my life...
My nutrition and gratitude practice!