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I started to share my story a couple weeks ago. I want to share more how I started teaching Creighton as a Registered Nurse. After I started teaching the introduction to NFP, I started reading more about the different methods. I loved that the Creighton model is based in so much research and that it works with doctors to help women through a variety of health concerns, not just planning and avoiding pregnancy. My husband and I started talking about how we would afford training, trying to plan and budget to be able to pay for it. Then one day right before I gave birth to my second child, I got a call from my diocese offering to sponsor my training, and I agreed.
That fall I enrolled in classes, left my six month old and three year old alone with my husband to train in Missouri for over a week. My husband and I had been using Billings, so I had never charted with Creighton or been to a follow up. Luckily some of my cohort did, and I studied so hard. It was like nursing school on steroids. I had a great mentor and teacher during my clinical and learned so much.
One of my favorite things about teaching is when a client is able to have success. I have seen clients recover from endometriosis, experience improvement with PCOS, and even achieve pregnancy after periods of infertility, sometimes lasting for years. Over the last few years I have struggled with infertility myself and lost my baby last August at 14 weeks.
There where days I would blame teaching for losing my baby. When I was pregnant I felt like I was having my miracle baby due to Creighton. God sustains me even in the darkness. As I learn about my own secondary infertility with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, autoimmune issues, three clotting disorders, endometritis, and as I very recently learned, endometriosis stage 2. While the endometriosis will require a second surgery to remove the problematic tissue, I find peace as I turn to the Lord. I also find that NaProTECHNOLOGY medical providers listen. They found my endometritis when I told my doctor that since my D&C I have had so much pain and nausea with menstruation. Other doctors told me that this was normal. The NaPRO team listened and investigated, and it turns out it was an infection of the uterine lining. It could have even been a complication from the D&C.
Even as I write this I am undergoing treatment by a physician trained in NaPro, Dr. Stalling, at Fertility and Midwifery Care Center in Indiana. For the in-person appointments, I am driving close to 2 hours. For those of you shocked at that drive, just know that the care I have received has been above and beyond. Even though I wish I had never lost my baby, I can see that I have had an opportunity to grow in empathy and humility which I would never have been able to otherwise. My husband has even driven me to most of the in-person appointments, giving us some much needed time to talk and process the loss and the new diagnoses.
I find that God has allowed me to help other women and encourage them on their journey. I myself have been encouraged by my clients during this journey and heartache. I have seen miracles that only God could have performed and have learned that I am an instrument of God. He uses me to teach, comfort, and witness to women of different circumstances, I find that God hand picks my clients, and I am so grateful for all the women I teach and and who help me to be a better version of myself. I have found that all too often medicine feels like it has moved towards treating patients like they are just numbers. Creighton allows me an opportunity to provide personalized care to every woman.