My Million Dollar Discovery To Women’s Womb Wellness
On the CEO:
Jennifer Cagle founder and CEO of V Spa, Is dedicated to Women’s Health & Wellness Advocacy. She is active in independent research & studies, as well as women’s leadership and has successfully refreshed and revitalized the ancient practice without watering down its significance by blending traditional philosophies & modern standards. She lends respect for the tradition with an awareness of the various cultural methods around the world on the practice of Vaginal Steaming. Above all, her work affirms that health surpasses the physical, an idea that ultimately has metaphysical implications when we realize our innate abilities to heal and fortify our mind, body, & soul with natural alternatives using plant medicine-nature’s abundant gift.
Hi, I’m Jennifer Cagle, that’s Cagle not Kegel. But, I’ll take both. As you may not know, when I started V Spa in 2015 I was a 24-year-old Single Mom. Juggling both full-time employment and out-of-state college schedule. I soon would learn just how much stress had affected my overall health and Womb Wellness. I was the furthest thing from the vibrant and vivacious young woman that I am today. From fatigue to poor diet, and mental exhaustion, I silently suffered from a multitude of small stressors that contributed to the continual pressure of my very busy lifestyle. About a year earlier, I had endured child loss which had become problematic due to my far less than perfect obstetric and gynecological history. As someone who lost her mother at the young age of four years old and later experienced a very traumatic child birth experience, it was challenging. Child loss was difficult for me on an emotional level. Although I’d grow to learn just how much my emotional wellness would affect my physical health.
I have a history of diagnoses for Placenta Accreta, which is an uncommon and severe condition that is dangerous for both mother and child. The most significant risk is life-threatening hemorrhage, wherein severe blood loss can lead to maternal or infant death. In fact, my emergency C-Section with my first child had required a blood transfusion at the time of delivery due to complications. This condition would later prevail in each of my pregnancies making me a very high risk to carry out any pregnancy to term. So I definitely wasn’t always so excited to talk about Wombs, Vaginas or Uteruses as it seems now. Fun fact, I was raised by my then, single Father so he didn’t always give the best advice on Vaginas either. Bless his dear heart. Dad if you’re reading this, I’ve got this Vagina thing figured out now-thanks a bunch!
Following my second pregnancy and first child loss, It had been an entire year that I was silently suffering from the most heavy, prolonged, and excruciating periods. Aunt Flo Jo would run her mad, red, 7-8 day marathon every month and I had grown to accept that as my normalcy. In the strangest way, I grew ashamed and almost afraid to talk about it because period-care was not a hot-topic, until now. I didn’t understand menstrual irregularities or abnormalities us women are naturally prone to and how these gnarly conditions that no one ever asks for can affect and disrupt not only our fertility, hormones, weight fluctuations, skin, hair, our livelihoods and well being as healthy whole women. So like most women, I ignored my own bodies crisis cry for help. It’s easy to neglect self-care when you don’t know how to listen to your body. I had always limited self-care to a pedicure, face mask, bath-bomb, or candle-lit bubble bath. Yet, it is so much more than that. Furthermore, Pap Smears are not exactly a girl’s best friend, if you know what I mean. Speculums just give me the creeps, I mean that thing looks like a nutcracker or silver shoe horn of some sort going right up your hot-pocket to scrape the paint off your walls. Though I’d never dare skip an annual, I’m not gonna have a party about it either. Sorry, not sorry.
My Discovery To Healthy Womb Care Would Soon Eventuate.
Much to my dismay, In 2014 I got a surprise from a hospital visit caused by hemorrhagic bleeds, that I was sporting two subserosal Cervical Fibroid masses found in my uterus on an MRI scan. Fibroids are tumors made of muscle cells and fibrous connective tissue that grow within the reproductive tract. Alarming enough, I was informed that these were benign tumors otherwise tissue overgrowths. Basically, pathological accumulations in the uterus that can enlarge and cause complications. They posed no serious risk to become cancerous. It’s just there, creating blockage, bloating, and anguish in your womb. They can go away or last a lifetime, be either harmless or life-threatening. Luck of the draw kind of thing. The cause of Fibroids isn’t well understood. The doctor’s solution for me was an open myomectomy. In lament terms; a surgical procedure requiring large incisions to the uterus, to allow for removal. Not only leaving unsightly scarring but also risking chances at fertility in the future. I knew I was a one-in-a million probable case for successful and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Still I wasn’t certain that I was ready to give up any potential on giving birth in the future. Instead, I opted for observation, otherwise known as “watchful waiting” as oppose to unnecessary treatment. This of course would warrant me to become extremely conscientious of my feminine health & womb wellness. I changed what I ate, started using only natural plant based body care such as Queen V Life, stopped using tampons, switched to cloth re-usable pads like Charlie Banana, and began nurturing my womb like I would a baby.
I’d stay up for nights on end binge-reading megabytes of internet junk and thumbing through books and a plethora of articles on fibroids and black women, myomectomy and hysterectomy rates and so on. Even leading me to search for specialists to get second opinions. I often wondered why this was never talked about in any of the health classes I’d taken up in college. Why weren’t women being informed on preventive care? Why were there more harmful toxic products on the consumer market for feminine hygiene than that of natural or organic based ingredients? At 24 years old, I demanded to learn of my alternative options -I needed to be in complete control of my body. When I finally became fed up with the complications such as the mood swings, emotional breakdowns, that of which caused unhealthy relationships (personal, and work-life related), pregnancy issues, weight gain, acne, tired and dull skin, and hair thinning and breakage caused by my severe anemia- I made a peace promise to myself that I would heal from inside out.
One day while searching the internet for at-home remedies for heavy painful periods, I stumbled across an outlandish article which talked about “Yoni Steam” aka Vagina Steam, an ancient Hippiedom Modality used for cleansing the womb of excess waste and tightening and toning our Vaginas. Even claimed to help balance our tricky pH levels and hormones and rid of toxic ex-lovers, and while that may be far-fetched, Tuhhh…bring on the steam is all I could think.