Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Samantha Curtis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Samantha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

I have been in practice for nearly 8 years. Time has flown! I knew while I was in school that fertility and pregnancy were going to be the bulk of my career, but like anyone starting out, my best estimate on how to start was to find giants of the field and get in line. I’d been working in a practice for about 4 months when my mentor said, “This patient is in labor and goes really fast. I told her to call you if she needs you.” When he said this my eyes went wide. I had never been around a laboring woman. This woman was one of my favorites. She handled pregnancy with such grace! She was so brave and soft and strong.

While I found the process of birth beautiful and terrifying, I had no idea how I would ever belong in such a sacred space.

I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t hear from her. However, around 8pm that night, I got a phone call. She sounded good but there was a pitch of concern in her voice. She asked me to come over. I arrived and the lights were low. Her long curly hair was loosely tied back in a braid. She was wearing her husbands undershirt and some pajama pants. I remember being hit with humidity. It was warm and damp in this space. I almost immediately realized I didn’t mentally prepare. I said, “I’m going to step out for a moment and I’ll come right back.” I went out onto the front porch and I knew I needed to remove my own biases and expectations. I literally wanted to take them off of my shoulders. The only thing I was wearing that I could remove was my socks and shoes. So standing on her porch, I removed my socks and shoes, putting any of my own thoughts into them and left them there. I went back in and the space felt different. It felt holy. The sun completely set and I went to work. I knew there was no way I was going to ask this 40+ week pregnant woman to lie on her belly, so I asked her to get on her hands and knees. I adjusted her using mostly the Webster technique I was trained in. As I was working I realized her muscles felt so tight in the back! I asked her doula if she would we willing to do some additional work to help the muscles relax (and hopefully baby descend). I left, and got a phone call 45 minutes later that the baby had arrived in 2 pushes.

This was the first time I ever did a house call for a laboring mom. If I could exclusively do that for the rest of my life, I would. I still do, when the opportunity presents itself. I have added to my own ritual; I always wear something to remove at the door, I pray for the baby as I’m driving, during the adjustment I always talk to the baby as well as the person in labor, I encourage the birth partner, and if the doula is there, I’ve become more bold about making recommendations.

Those moments, in those hallowed spaces, are the pinnacle of my life. Miracles hang suspended in long exhales. And I get to briefly be a fly on the wall.

Samantha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I own Cotyledon Health, a chiropractic office and a natural family planning service. I teach Marquette method NFP, and my husband and I operate the chiropractic clinic. He excels with infants, cranial work, neurodivergence, pregnancy, postpartum,and sports injury. I work in conception, pregnancy, and postpartum populations.

We both became chiropractors after my husband injured his knee, and multiple people told him his mountain biking life was over and surgery was his only option. My boss at the time was a chiropractor and was the first person to look at him, see the fear that prognosis gave him, and offered him hope. Under her care, he completed a half marathon, mountain bikes hundreds of miles, and completed a 12 hour adventure race.

We learned early on that families heal better when they are healing together. We offer a membership style practice for individuals and families. Our goal of care in pregnancy is that pregnancy and labor go so efficiently you can’t wait to do it again. Our goal of family care in our practice is that families are healthy and connected enough to bond and grow through movement and the outdoors.

When we dreamed of this life over 10 years ago, we wanted to live a balanced life: to feel like we were helping our community grow well, and living our best lives in our own family. I dreamed of people showing up in 15 passenger vans, trading eggs and chickens in our office. We’ve achieved all of that and more. We are here to make world class chiropractic care accessible right in your back yard.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

There is a fine line between being compassionate, and jumping into trauma with someone. Many people don’t seek chiropractic care when things are going well. It is important to meet people where they are but one cannot make the story about themselves. One of the best things a mentor ever told me was, “To be the hero pays well, but to change the world you have to be a guide, and let every patient be their own hero.” I think that especially applies to birthwork. I never want to be the hero of a story. I would prefer to be an after thought, but an empowered birth where parents are their own advocates and step into that role with boldness, is the absolute best.

Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?

I think this is the funniest part of starting a business. We were so clueless! We graduated and went to the SBA office. We asked for a loan and were as kindly as possible told there was no way we would qualify for a loan.

That really stung! But, it forced us to ask ourselves some pivotal questions:

1. How are we going to get started?
Ultimately we started with house calls! We had 2 host houses that each hosted 2-6 families. We started there and within 3 months we got a small office. Even now, 3 years later we still do one house call a week!

2. There are thousands of people in town who are in similar situations to us. How can we make care accessible to them?
We knew the membership was the only way to make it work. We wanted to make things easy and straightforward; no limits, no minimums, just a first visit fee and a monthly membership. We knew we wanted to be able to sleep at night knowing we’d given our best and made things as easy for busy families as possible.

3. The only way out is hustle.
This is largely true no matter how you look at it, but our bigger concern was sustainability and longevity. We saw our mentors burning out. They had spouses in other fields! They could step back or completely change with little consequences. Both of us were not only in the same field but in the same office! We we needed to hustle, but we also needed to not lose ourselves or site of why we were doing all of this.

Contact Info:

• Website: Cotyledonhealth.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cotyledon_chiropractic?igsh=b3h0ODR4a2FscjB0&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cotyledonchiropractic?mibextid=sCpJLy

Image Credits
Savannah Ziemer Shylah Lynn