Erica Evans

A doula and childbirth educator who also has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and I have partnered together to create an anonymous survey to gather information about what folks like us with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, hypermobility, or connective tissue disorders experience related to reproductive health, fertility, pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period.

We are planning to use the information gathered in this survey to create an educational resource for birth workers, health teams, fertility awareness educators, and others in the EDS community.

If you have EDS, HSD, hypermobility, or another connective tissue disorder, please consider filling this out—even if you’ve never been pregnant or given birth, as it is also about reproductive health and menstrual cycles. Depending on your answers you will be branched to appropriate sections of the survey.

Link to the survey: https://forms.gle/QPvPRTsZuzcDtVsj7

[Image Description: Light terra cotta color background with the words EDS Hypermobility Reproductive Health, Fertility, Pregnancy, and Birth Survey at the top in black. Below that an illustration of a larger than life smartphone screen with two people on either side of it, one seated with long hair looking at their phone and one standing with short hair pointing. The smartphone screen has stars, and thumbs-up on it. It appears the people are giving feedback. At the bottom in each corner are teal colored plants. is in the middle in black.]

💧 Little by little with each tiny, watery drip icicles form, sometimes longer than your window! Building new habits is sometimes like icicles. We do these tiny little steps that sometimes in the moment can feel so simple or insignificant. Can we possibly even be making progress with such a small step? Then before we know it we're in the groove and have been doing the thing for some time! 

Simple steps in the direction of your goal will get you there. It doesn't have to be complicated or even a huge leap—in fact, research shows it's better when it's not! Keeping your next step doable with just a little bit of stretch is more likely to get you where you want to go. It might not be overnight, but before you know it you'll be a four and a half foot long icicle too! 😉 🥶