"Who. Are. You?"

As I was lying in a hospital bed with a heart rate of 185 BPM, pain every where, I was told I'd likely never be able to carry a baby to term unless I was under heavy medication. 

Homeopathy is my passion. It has been ever since I could speak and pronounce the names of the remedies my parents gave me for ear infections: Pulsatilla and Chamomilla. These names sounded so magical and beautiful to me that I decided that when I grew up I should have twins with those names.

Don’t call child services just yet. I have not traumatized any children with these names so far!

As a teenager I became chronically ill and could not apply for medical school as a result, and so I gave up my long cherished dream of being a homeopathic doctor.  And so I went on to study Public Administration and worked in Brussels for Dutch regional representatives.

After receiving my Master’s degree in European Studies, the global economy had suffered a lot under the economic crisis and the job market was very tight, not to mention that my illness had developed to the point that I really could not work any more anyway.

My low point was when I was visiting my father in London in the recovery room after his triple bypass surgery and I started throwing up because I felt so ill. They rushed me off to the emergency department and after checking my insane heart rate of 185, they threw me in a bed and kept me there until I was able to just talk myself out after a week of 0 diagnosis, medication making me worse, and no sleep. Thankfully, there was a doctor that at least warned me that with my symptoms I'd probably need an epi-pen one day, so to make sure I got one, so I wouldn't die of an anaphylactic shock (she was right, it saved my life a few months later and the 10x following that) and that I'd probably never be able to carry babies to term unless heavily medicated, if I'd conceive at all.

After getting out of that hospital, there were many days of just lying in bed alternated with micro walks with my zimmerframe (walker) that I'd covered with swarovski stickers so I'd not feel like an actual 80-year old.

That is when my long-lost dream started to whisper in my ear again. Was there really not a way to study medicine after all and become a homeopathic family practitioner? It kept occupying my mind, but there was no way for me to study medicine anywhere in Europe.

Then one day, I found a Bachelors accredited course in homeopathy through Middlesex University which included a decent basis in anatomy and physiology. Within a couple of months, I moved to London and started the course.

Thanks to being back under homeopathic treatment myself, my health improved a lot during my studies. After a few months of remedies, I retired my walker, quit ALL the drugs that I was on cold-turkey (not recommended) and by the time I graduated, I had several patients and worked at a homeopathic pharmacy, meaning I was standing on my feet 3 days a week!

I still also had that deep longing of being a mother myself. But no partner, thanks to my illness I hadn't built up any assets and was living with my parents on and off and was still building my practice. The CLOSEST thing to fulfilling that desire, was to help other women overcome their health issues to fall pregnant naturally.

When everyone says something is impossible, my natural reaction is "Oh.. is it?" (Yes, it can be a bit of a handicap when it goes out of control). So it was the fertility cases of my couple patients that were given up on by the doctors, that I'd lose myself in daily. Connecting the dots of their symptoms, their medical history, reading their charts and finding patterns, learning to interpret test results and then finding the right homeopathic remedies to crack the code, put their fertility back into their own hands and getting that positive pregnancy test, but most of all, their longed for child(ren).

I realized more and more how essential preparing for that TTC time is. For both partners. So I continued to work on my (hormonal) health until I met Jeroen. As we started to plan our future, I immediately started to detox him of steroids, heavy metals, and drugs as well as got him onto the nutrient dense diet and supplement regime I felt necessary.

As soon as we decided it was time to start trying - we hadn't even been married for a year yet - we got that positive within ONE cycle. Seriously, that same girl that 10 years prior lay in that hospital bed!!! 
Not only that, when our Noel was only 15 months, his little sister Lili Rose already announced her arrival! 
 

That 24 year old, that had worked her entire life to have a career, do all the right things, build that resume,  but was in a hospital in a foreign country, sick, without answers, without perspective of a better future... she could not have dreamed of what I get to do every day today: having a family, homeschooling my children, being able to care for my loved pets (DeeDelight RIP ❤️, now sweet rescues Pip & Pippa), and empowering couples to take charge of their fertility and their (future) family's health!

I am a living example of how homeopathy and the reminder that our bodies are made to heal themselves, can change a life, a future and a family. I want to pass that on to you and your family (to come).

Ok, here's what you really want to know about me...

I am fine being called Fleur but I hate it when I'm called Inge! (My family calls me Floor actually and my English cousin that couldn't pronounce my name stuck to In-the-floor into adulthood)

I don't like to take tags off new clothes and since my husband made the "mistake" of taking them off for me, I've gotten even worse at cutting them, to the point I'd one day taken off my cardigan during a live meeting and the friggin' tag was still on... 

I wear a dirndl almost daily (look it up! German & Austrian traditional dress). I've got "home" versions that allow me to move and dressier ones that barely let me breathe.

I am actually incredibly shy (I get palpitations just thinking of having to speak) but nobody believes me. I learned quite young that the best defense is offense. 

I was pulled off from a "jeans hanging" contest on a sports day at school when I was 8. The game was to hang onto the legs of a pair of jeans that were tied around a beam. By the time I had broken every record of the entire school by long, they literally had to pull me off but I was adament to hold on longer since I could. My mom often reminds me of this when I doubt if I have the stamina to continue with something.

I went to 16 different schools by the time I was 16 and no it wasn't because I got kicked out! We traveled for my dad's work and I loved it! If I wouldn't be able to have video calls with my patients all over the world, I think I'd go crazy staying in one spot in the Netherlands!

I tandem fed my kids for a year. It was awful, but I was too stubborn to stop. (Oh.. I just made that connection with the jeans... hmm)