When Jani White was 6 years old, her baby sister – her mother’s 4th child – died in childbirth. The impact that this had on her family’s life, and on her own, was immense. Jani lost her mother to abiding post-natal depression and her father to alcoholism and to an all-excluding obsession with work.
This is why Jani has dedicated her working life to treating people’s whole wellbeing, whilst putting pregnancy and fertility issues centre stage. Bringing happiness to so many couples who thought that they would never be able to conceive. But it’s taken hard work and vision to get where she is today.
When you talk to Jani, you feel her fizzing with drive and enthusiasm. She loves her life, she loves her two sons, she loves her work. The atmosphere in the room seems to lift with life’s possibilities. Oh yes and she loves using ripe language. And she loves talking about sex…
The conversation flows (mostly from her) but when I ask, ‘had she felt different as a child?’ Jani, for the first time since we met, is uncharacteristically silent. ‘Yes,’ she says finally, ‘you could say that.’
As she was growing up, she felt that her parents successfully crushed her enthusiasms again and again. She became quite an inhibited teenager – while all the time, inside, she knew that she had so much to give. Needed to do something with her life, something that would make a difference to other people.
Then, aged 22, a sudden, debilitating illness brought her promising horse-riding career (dressage) to an abrupt end. She didn’t know what to do. She had intended to be a champion. Mercifully, instead, she found not only her health but also her calling – through Chinese medicine and acupuncture.
She had a choice though. She could have slipped down under the repression of family circumstances and lack of parental support and illness or she could have seized the day. And boy has she done that.
She is now a leading expert in her field, with her own prestigious clinic in the heart of London’s Mayfair, (and personally responsible for hundreds of conceptions and healthy pregnancies). It’s a long way from small beginnings in Vancouver, Canada… but no surprise when you meet her. She is unstoppable.
Jani White believes and trusts in herself.
Of course, because she is a strong woman, some people have tried to make life difficult for her. ‘I am a risk-taker and a trailblazer in my work,’ she explains in a way which is more brave than boastful. ‘People will take pot-shots at that kind of person.’ She smiles a mischievous smile. ‘But seriously,’ she adds, ‘I let other’s negative reactions roll away from me; I have learned to focus on what is important – I concentrate on my work and how it is going to enrich people.’ And if you talk to any of the patients that she has helped, there is no mistaking that she has absolutely done that, day in, day out.
‘And at the end of the day its about, Good food. Good friends. Good wine. And fresh flowers on the table’
Seems about right to me, as long as there’s a dog or two snoring under that table.
Thank you Jani, you were responsible for bringing one of my godchildren into this wild world of ours.