8/3/2017 0 Comments What NAPRO Means to MeI am sharing my story in hopes that someone who is feeling lost, hopeless or broken by infertility reads it and decides to seek healing with NAPRO. I want others to experience the joy and the love that is in my life because of this miraculous (though terribly common sensical) science.. Like many women, I dreamt of motherhood from a young age. I played ‘mommy’ with my stuffed animals (and baby brothers) and I started babysitting as soon as I was old enough (all to practice, you see). It took me awhile to ‘get there.’ I met my now husband through CatholicMatch (holla) in 2011 and when we married in 2013, we decided to ‘avoid pregnancy’ using natural family planning for our first year of marriage as we adjusted to sharing a home and I adjusted to my new ‘hometown’ and job. We didn’t anticipate any difficulty getting pregnant when the time came. Although I hadn’t formally been charting my cycles for very long, I knew I had very regular ones and was able to predict when the next cycle would begin. Additionally, I had always seen ‘fertile signs’ during each cycle and a temperature shift, indicating that ovulation had occurred. My own mother had had five children without any support or intervention, for goodness sakes! It was in my genes. After a year of postponement, we were good to go and we were sure it was going to happen soon! We were so excited. And then, as each new cycle started without a ‘big fat positive’, my doubt began to grow. Wasn’t my body made for motherhood? What was wrong with me? Fortunately for me, as a Catholic, I had heard of Natural Procreative Technology (or NAPRO). NAPRO is a ‘well kept Catholic secret,’ as it works hand in hand with Natural Family Planning which is the Catholic Church’s approved way of planning, spacing, and avoiding pregnancy. NAPRO care focuses on identifying and correcting atypicalities within a woman’s cycle so that she and her husband can conceive naturally with as little intervention as possible. After six months of disappointment, we decided to seek out a NAPRO doctor to see what was keeping us from conceiving. Although I wasn’t charting my cycles with the Creighton method at that time (the method that NAPRO doctors most frequently work with), Dr. Zackrisson graciously took a peek at my old charts and quickly identified two areas of concern I hadn’t noticed. I had brown bleeding at the beginning and end of my periods. My luteal phases (the time from ovulation to the beginning of the next cycle) weren’t stable and varied from 8-14 days in length. Knowing these two things we went ahead and proceeded with a hormone panel and an ultrasound on key days of the very next cycle. The ultrasound revealed that I had cysts on my ovaries but that I had ovulated on my own that cycle. The bloodwork showed that my hormones were all out of whack and that hormones that should be low were elevated and ones that were supposed to be elevated were low. At 29 years of age, after years of cycles I thought were normal and believing that I would become a mother without any difficulties, I found out I had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS meant that I was likely having some anovulatory cycles. My low progesterone levels meant that even if I had ovulated (and even if we had conceived), I wasn’t able to sustain any pregnancy without support. Progesterone is the ‘pro-gestation’ hormone and is key to a healthy full term pregnancy. Dr. Zackrisson took the time to listen to my concerns and respected my desire to start with the least amount of assistance as possible. By the next cycle (so about two months since my first consultation) we were taking steps (and using some supplements and bioidentical hormones!!) to correct my cycle. And within 6 months of my initial infertility consultation, we conceived our son, Mark, who was born March 18, 2016.. Through NAPRO treatment, we were able to make our dreams of parenthood come true. When the time comes to try for another, I am confident that if needed, we will receive the same compassionate, comprehensive, and personalized care we did the first time.
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This post originally appeared on ilovelaborpains.wordpress.com in April of 2016. We share it here with Elizabeth's permission. Elizabeth is a momma to 5 babies, one of whom is a saint. She is an avid crafter of all things involving yarn. She is also co-founder of The Joyful Leap. Here is her story...
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