October 25, 2014

How I Found Creighton & NaPro

I know I've talked about my journey with PCOS and infertility, and my current treatments with my NaPro doctor, but I don't think I've told the story about how I found Creighton, and NaPro.  Its a bit of a long story, and spans more than 5 years, so bear with me.

The story starts back in around 2006, my sophomore year in college.  I had only recently (within the last year or so) been diagnosed with PCOS, though I had figured something was wrong for years.  At that time, I found a naturopathic chiropractor to treat with. She mentioned to me on a few occasions that she worked with a lady that taught nfp, and helped people with medical problems like mine.  The problem with that was that the lady was the wife of one of my professors.  I was mortified at the idea of talking to my professor's wife about my cycles, so I didn't pursue that further, and quickly forgot about that.

As the years went by in college, I heard more about NFP from friends that were planning to get married.  It was interesting, but I had always heard that because of my PCOS, I couldn't use NFP (huge misconception that many people have), so I filed that information away as things to share with other people that I didn't need to look into myself.

In 2009, I was graduating from college.  As I went to a very small, conservative, Catholic college, we usually had catholic speakers at graduations.  For my graduation, our speaker was a catholic doctor who had something to do with helping couples with infertility, Dr. Thomas Hilgers (just the founder of the Pope Paul the VI institute and creator of the Creighton Model).  He gave a great speech about the culture of life that was very inspiring.  But at that time I wasn't thinking about my possible fertility (little did I know that I would meet the Hubs only a few months after that) so again, I didn't really think about that or look into it anymore.

A couple years after that, me and the now Hubs were engaged and went to the engaged encounter retreat required my our parish.  At the retreat, a doctor and her husband gave a talk about NFP, and how she helped people with fertility issues.  This time I was aware that my PCOS could potentially be a problem for us.  However, I was busy with school and I didn't really want to start seeing a doctor right before moving back to my home state, so I quickly put that idea out of my mind.

We moved back to my home state and got married, and as the weeks and months went by, I started to worry.  A friend told me about a catholic ob/gyn she had gone to, and gave me the doctor's card. We weren't quite ready yet to seek medical treatment, so again, I filed away the information for another day.

As months turned into years, I was more and more worried.  I started researching and googling and stumbled across the fertilitycare website which listed  few doctors in my area.  I thought I recognized one of the doctor's names as one my friend had recommended, though by then I had lost the card, so I leaned towards that doctor.  Funny thing is, although that doctor turned out to be the perfect doctor for me, when I talked to my friend about it, she had never heard of that doctor before. Of course the doctor introduced me to Creighton and NaPro.

I realize after writing all of this out, it seems like a whole bunch of random occurrences, ending with my googling and finding my doctor, a pretty anticlimactic story, but for me its something more.  For me its so clear that God was guiding me every step of the way, and continued to guide me when I ignored the not so subtle signs I was given.  So although I'm in a place where there is so much uncertainty, I do know for certain that God has led me to this doctor, and that is something I can be at peace about.

What the outcome will be, I have no idea.  It could be I end up pregnant (best case scenario), but I know that also might not happen.  It could be just God steering me away from doctors that would have tried to pressure me into illicit treatments, or giving me the opportunity to exhaust the moral options before coming to the conclusion that biological children won't happen for us.  I don't know, and probably won't for a while, but I do know that whatever it is will be part of God's plan, and that makes me (at least a little) less anxious about it all.


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