Welcome to My Heartfelt Beginning

Hi, I’m Amanda, founder of Heartfelt Beginnings.

I’m a mama of one, and an Infertility and Postpartum Doula and Coach, passionate about sharing my education and experiences with new parents and parents-to-be.

When I started trying to conceive in 2017, I knew next to nothing about infertility. Negative pregnancy test after negative pregnancy test left me feeling overwhelmed, disappointed and alone. I remember trying to decipher what to search for online, and how to interpret the information I was finding. None of it really helped me to understand what my choices were, how it was going to impact my life, my marriage, and my finances, and how long it would take to have a baby if we pursued fertility treatment.

To be honest, I have wanted to be a mom my whole life, and after struggling to get pregnant on my own, I spent another year undergoing testing, multiple failed IUI’s, and finally, success through our second round of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). This made my ‘timeline’ feel endless, my body feel broken, and my heart feel weary. I would’ve been so grateful to connect with other women who were going through or had gone through shared experiences, but I wasn’t sure how to find them. So, my husband and I decided to share our journey, out loud, with our family and friends and on social media.

As I chronicled my IVF journey, followed by my pregnancy, natural delivery, having a premature baby, a short NICU stay, and challenges with feeding my baby, I realized how hopeful I was that my experiences would prevent other moms-to-be and new moms from feeling alone in their stories. With several years of experience in the healthcare field spanning public health work to patient and mental health advocacy to clinical research management, I thought I was both educated and prepared to enter motherhood. What I didn’t know during my pregnancy, or even really in the first few months after I delivered my daughter, was how much I didn’t know - about the fertility industry, the impact of fertility treatments, and how those things impacted my entrance into motherhood, and about postpartum life - physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally or with my identity.

Enter here my deep dive into research, support groups and my own postpartum doulas in order to come out thriving, and now feel adamant about giving that support ready and willingly to new moms & families, along with helping women navigate this vulnerable time in their lives - one that they're generally skipped over during.

Today, I am serving clients virtually around the world, and in person in the Chicago area and surrounding suburbs, meeting them where they are at in their parenthood story, providing coaching, resources and tangible in home support for families as they struggle to conceive, experience fertility treatments, prepare for their baby, prepare for their postpartum life, and for the days, weeks and months after the baby arrives.

My passion is supporting the intersection of infertility and community, facilitating honest and candid conversations about infertility, how to navigate the professionals you may work with, determining which options are available to families, and providing local resources for women and couples standing right where I stood.

Giving other moms and dads-to-be the information, resources and a support system I felt was missing for me is life affirming and my hearts work, and I am so grateful you’ve decided to join me.

Welcome to Heartfelt Beginnings ❤️