Thank you to all who took part in our Help for Haiti Month. Mark is still tallying up the votes but a percentage of each treatment will be given to three great charities.

Doctors without Borders
Care
Friends of the Orphans

A special shout out goes to our YinOva patient Amelia. Amelia, who is 13, has been our patient since she was 5 years old. She heard about our Help for Haiti Month and emailed me and ask if she could join in by holding a bake sale in our office. So last Monday evening she stayed up untill 3am baking an enormous amount of cookies, muffins and cakes. On Tuesday she arrived with her Mom, Joanna, and set out her stall in our waiting room. Many of you met her and bought her cakes, which were delicious. She tended to her stall from 9am until 9pm which was an amazing achievement, especially for someone who had been up so late the night before.

Many of you emailed me to tell me how inspired you were by Amelia’s efforts and on behalf of the whole YinOva community, I’d like to express our appreciation for her hard work and enthusiasm. Way to go, Amelia!

Amelia raised $250 dollars and decided to give the money to Habitat for Humanity a charity that she had researched on the internet and she chose because they had been working in Haiti for over 20 years and so, she felt, they would have the infrastructure in place to be of real benefit to people who were rendered homeless by the earthquake.

One of the many things I love about the YinOva Center is our sense of community. I am thrilled that Amelia felt so at home here that she chose us to host her bake sale and so grateful that you all  supported her, enthusiastically, by buying her cakes and cookies. Thank you.

We love Kiva!

Praised by Oprah and endorsed by President Clinton in his book “Giving”, Kiva aims to encourage micro-financing by matching ordinary people, willing to provide small loans, with entrepreneurs in developing countries who will use the money to build a business and climb out of poverty. The loans, which can be as small as $25, are usually paid back over 12 months allowing the investor to reinvest their money in someone else’s venture. 96% of borrowers fully repay what they owe, a statistic that represents how seriously these loans are taken.

At The YinOva Center we like to support women who are starting small businesses. We have enormous fun choosing who to lend to. We like logging on to the Kiva website and reading people’s stories. It’s inspiring to hear how people plan to expand their businesses in order to support their families. Why not try it? It’s like internet shopping but with more heart. For as little as $25 you could support a woman in Nepal who is trying to expand her sandal shop or a woman in the Philippines who is making and selling crispy snacks. Seamstresses, farmers, bread makers and shop keepers around the world from Africa to Azerbaijan – the choice is yours. As women who run a business it makes us proud to lend money to entrepreneurial women and play a small role in helping them to help themselves and their families. You don’t earn interest on a Kiva loan but you do get the satisfaction of knowing that you have made a difference.

So far Kiva has attracted nearly 250,000 lenders and disbursed $22 million across 40 countries. You can withdraw your money when your loan has been repaid but almost everyone keeps on lending. That way Kiva keeps on growing and the charity expects to have distributed $100 million worth of loans by 2010.

If you decide to be a Kiva member we’d love you to join our YinOva Kiva Team. We focus on providing small loans to women. So start lending and spread some love. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find it a bit addictive.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours from all of us.

I am with my family in upstate New York. It’s early on Christmas morning and everyone else is asleep. I am puttering around the house wrapping presents and preparing vegetables. The turkey is brining outside in a big bin. We brine our turkey according to a recipe in Nigella Lawson’s book Feast: Food to Celebrate Life. After trying out many different recipes over the years our family have settled on this one. The brine has orange, cinnamon, maple syrup, caraway seeds, allspice, ginger, salt, sugar, honey, cloves and star anise in it. The turkey looks and smells festive even before we start cooking.

I like my Christmases to be traditional and usually balk at attempts to change things. My late Mum loved Christmas and I reconnect to her and to my Gran by doing things the way they’ve always been done. So I’ll be making my Gran’s pork and apple stuffing and serving my Mum’s plum pudding. I’ll be singing along to Christmas carols whilst I make the gravy. There will be Christmas crackers (I think you call them poppers) and I’ll insist my family wear the silly hats inside them. I always get a little bit homesick at this time of year but all in all it will be a very English Christmas here in snowy upstate New York.

Happy Christmas to those of you who celebrate, happy 5th night of Chanukah to others of you (including my husband) and for everyone else whatever you wish yourself, consider yourself wished.

Love,
Jill

Illustration
— Pkruger | Dreamstime.com

We wish all our Jewish patients and staff a very Happy Chanukah.

These healthy Chanukah recipes from the Dallas News caught my eye. They look great although to be honest in our house my husband insists on making potato latkes the old fashioned way. He may have a point. Although grilled latkes sound very healthy, frying potato pancakes in oil symbolizes the miracle of one day’s oil lasting for eight days and so is an important part of the ritual.

May the eight days of Chanukah bring happiness and love to you and yours.

Photograph
© Woo Bing Siew | Dreamstime.com

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

I have much to be thankful for. When I think about The YinOva Center, what I am most grateful for is the sense of community that we have been able to create. All of us – practitioners, administrators and patients feel connected. I love the fact that I can walk into the waiting room and see you chatting, sharing your experiences and supporting each other. You are a great group of women and I feel privileged to have met you all. I love that you are willing to share your stories with each other and would like to encourage you to read the blog where many YinOva patients have passed on something they have learned. I have been particularly struck recently by Suzanne’s description of her recovery from breast cancer, Jane’s essay about her stroke, Monika’s story about her breech baby and Kate’s description about how her fertility diet got out of control. Over the years I have learned so much from my patients. You are wise women and I have appreciated the chance to play a role in your healing journeys.

New York can be a complicated city to live in and I see us all, staff and patients alike, as a group of women trying to keep ourselves and our families healthy as we juggle our heavily scheduled lives. We are blessed to be able to support you all.

Recently I read some of the reviews of our center on City Search. I was struck by how often people mentioned our friendly staff. I feel very lucky to have Marie, Mark, and Sarah on the front desk. Each of them really cares about our patients and their warmth and kindness shine through. Many of the reviews mentioned that the office is immaculate and for that we have to thank Dorothy who puts so much energy into creating a clean and supportive environment.

My colleagues Liz Carlson and Margaret Sikowitz practice Chinese Medicine at a very high level. They bring love, compassion, skill and humor to their work. I feel very lucky to have found them and know, because you tell me, how much you appreciate them. If you have never experienced her work I would encourage you to do so.

As many of you know I’ve just finished writing a book with Dr. Sami David. Making Babies will be out next year and I hope it will be useful to many of you. Dr. David is a very good doctor and a kind man and I am grateful to be able to share so many patients with him. His experience and wisdom have enriched my knowledge of fertility medicine.

On a personal note I’m grateful to my husband Noah, who has always supported me 100% in my work and has understood why I find it so consuming. Many of you have met my daughter Emma because she often works for us in the school holidays. She is a source of love, laughter and sunshine in my life and I am proud of the woman she is becoming.

So thank you all — my friends, colleagues, family and you our patients. Together we’ll get through what life throws at us. I look forward to continuing to serve you.

— Jill

© Ingrid Balabanova | Dreamstime.com

Hello Everyone!

It’s Emma, Jill’s daughter here. I’ve hijacked my Mum’s blog to thank all of you who supported my trip to Thailand to take part in the Water Project. Without your generous donations none of it would have been possible. So…Thank you.

As some of you know I was in Thailand as part of an ongoing project that my school organizes in conjunction with The Pakanyor Foundation. Our task was to build a well and purification system for a village without access to clean water. My school has sent a team to do this every year for the past 20 years so it felt like a real privilege to carry on the tradition. We lived with the villagers of Ban Huay Laung and worked along side them to build the well. I have been back for about a week and no longer take turning on the tap for granted and it is safe to say that my appreciation for the smaller things has grown, and my hunger to help more people has increased. Continue reading…