My Fertility Story – The Years Before Children
Our view on one of the many hikes we took when we lived in Flagstaff, AZ for school, before children.
As of right now, I have fewer menstrual cycles ahead of me than have already passed, which is wild! And though I have four children now, there was a time when my fertility wasn’t certain and I questioned whether I would ever have a baby. I couldn’t have plotted the path before getting married and though it was filled with many challenges, I’m thankful for the way God allowed it to happen.
I pray this glimpse into my fertility offers you perspective that sometimes babies don’t come right away, even when you want them.
May it be blessed.
Early Marriage and Hormonal Birth Control
I can’t say I’d ever considered my fertility until it came to trying to have a baby. Apart from proudly proclaiming to my other sisters, at 12, “I’m a big kid now!” with my first period. I had sporadic periods throughout high school, which were just an annoying fact of life.
When I met my husband in college I did what many women do and I started hormonal birth control (BC). Up until that point, I’d never been on BC nor been sexually active, so this was a whole new world. I knew absolutely nothing about the ill effects of hormonal BC and since I was in nursing school, my husband (then fiance) and I thought it was best to avoid pregnancy in our early marriage.
BC and delayed children are a topic for another day, but if you’d like me to explore that topic, leave a comment below and I’ll make sure to cover it in this fertility series. But I digress.
I started with the Nuvaring, about six months before I got married to make sure it was working and to work out any kinks. And boy were there kinks! I did not sleep for three weeks!! Well, I must have slept some but I was MISERABLE. The only thing that had changed in my life was the Nuvaring and I had textbook insomnia. When I brought this up with my nurse practitioner (NP) she blew me off and said, “That is not a documented side effect of the Nuvaring. Finish out the month and then we can try another one.”
So, little ol’ me, who didn’t know how to stand up for myself kept the ring in and waited till I was “supposed” to take it and get a fake bleed. And don’t you know, I slept the night I took the ring out! I knew that the foreign object in my body wasn’t working with my physiology and was doing more harm than good.
Just put that into one of the many steps that have led me on a more natural pathway. But I was still convinced I needed to be on BC. God bless my mom, but she only knew about the rhythm method and had no clue that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is just as effective, if not more effective, than BC and told me it probably wasn’t a good idea to try that unless I was ready to have a baby.
After the Nuvaring, I tried the mini-pill, but that messed with my mental health and I had breakthrough bleeding (bleeding outside of the designated “period” week). I think I was on the mini-pill for a few months before trying two or three other options. Finally, I told my husband I couldn’t do this anymore and maybe we should just be open to God’s will for my fertility.
I stopped all birth control after only being married for about 9 months and I still had a year of nursing school left to go. I felt crazy! But I felt called to forgo hormonal BC and trust God with childbearing and my husband agreed. Little did I know that this was a monumental step in my life's journey, one that forever changed the trajectory of my passion and purpose.
When Babies Don’t Come
Like many women, I expected my period to come back right away and to be pregnant by the end of the year. I had no idea that BC depletes nutrients, masks underlying health conditions, and creates pseudo-menopause in a woman’s body. And though some women may ovulate and resume healthy cycles post-BC, I was not one of those women. I returned to the sporadic and irregular periods I had as a teenager.
So after 3 months of being off the pill and still not resuming my period, I went back to my NP. She gave me a casual diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) because I had two to three qualifiers for the syndrome.
Overgrowth of dark facial hair
“High” levels of testosterone
But she never ordered an ultrasound for me to confirm I had cystic ovaries because she said just having 2 symptoms is enough for a diagnosis. Now, 9 years later, I have my theories on the over diagnosis of PCOS and I believe she was just being lazy and not helping me find the root cause of my irregular periods and hormone imbalances.
Regardless, it made me research and ask why this was happening. It also made me research how to support my body and learn more about my hormones and menstrual cycle.
It wasn’t long before I discovered I wasn’t ovulating. Even if I was getting a random period, here and there, I had no cervical mucus and my libido was nowhere near where I thought it should be. But again, I was in nursing school, stressed, tired, and running on fumes. My husband was also working 50+ hours a week and I was probably stressing him out with my “baby fever”.
All of it was a perfect storm for “unexplained infertility”.
For the next year, I researched what herbs to take for fertility, positions to stay in post-intercourse (IFYKYK), what foods to eat to improve fertility, what clothes to wear, the best times to have intercourse, and so on. I also tried a couple different pharmaceutical drugs to help with PCOS symptoms — which didn’t work because I didn’t actually have PCOS — and I even switched gynecologists to try to help me figure out what was going on.
It was miserable, stressful, and took the joy out of the baby-making process.
By this point, I had started discussing fertility drugs with my new GYN and considered it as a viable option because we had been trying for over a year to get pregnant. But close to the end of the year, I stumbled across information about the herb Chaste Berry, sometimes referred to as Vitex. It said it helps women naturally ovulate and resume a normal menstrual cycle.
At that point, I had tried so many different herbs that I thought one more couldn’t hurt. After about a month of taking Vitex, I ovulated! I couldn’t believe it. But I was watching my body so closely and learning everything about it that I knew I had my first recorded ovulation, possibly ever.
Another view during a hike… hiking was our biggest passion during those years.
Finally Menstruating, But Still No Baby
About two weeks after my first ovulation, I did indeed get a period. I was over the moon! My body was working again and I was so thankful. But nursing school was coming to a close, my best friend had just announced her pregnancy, and I still wasn’t pregnant.
Part of me was very aware that I had just started ovulating and I was coming off of a very stressful season but my aching heart desperately wanted a baby.
By the middle of that year, I had graduated college, moved across the country, and started my new job as a nurse. But still, no baby. We poured our hearts out to the Iveron Hawaiian Icon of the Mother of God. We were anointed with Holy oil from the Icon of St. Anna at St. Tikhons monastery, and we prayed.
And finally, in July of that year, after 18 months of actively praying (trying) for a baby, we conceived. And though that pregnancy and my next ended in miscarriage, which you can read about here, I have gone on to have 4 incredible pregnancies and very healthy babies.
Before we buried our first miscarried baby.
Before my D&C with my second miscarried baby.
Reflections About My Fertility Journey
It seems impossible to believe that we struggled so much to conceive a baby. In total, we waited for 2.5 years before our first daughter was born healthy and strong. And though that is very short for some families, it was filled with many trials and blessings. The Cathryn of that time was very different than the Cathryn of today, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that God used all of that suffering for my benefit.
That was the first time in my life that I started to consider the awesome nature of a woman’s physiology. Before nursing school, I thought I was going into pediatric oncology! I had ZERO interest in women’s health and now it’s one of my greatest joys to research and educate about God’s beautiful physiological design.
If you find yourself in a similar situation and you’re not sure why God is allowing you to struggle in your fertility journey, I feel your pain. But more importantly, God sees and knows your pain. He isn’t using this against you but to mold you for a life better than you could ever imagine.
And though my time of infertility was short and I have gone on to have biological children, I want to emphasize that my heart and prayers are with the couples who are unable to have biological children. My prayers are with you and I will have articles on the subject of infertility in the future.
Be gentle to yourself and do your very best to be present in the moment. Enjoy your husband. Find laughter and peace in this time without children. Pour your heart and soul into your spiritual life and trust that our Lord is merciful and compassionate.
If you found this article helpful, please leave me a comment below and share it with anyone in your life who may need a positive fertility story to read.
