My Journey with PCOS, Part 2: What IS NFP?

Woah! First, let me say that I’ve been overwhelmed by the support of friends, family, and random strangers, and so touched by the women who have reached out to me since part 1 of this blog post to say thank you for sharing, or ask questions because they are in the same boat. That’s really been my whole purpose for sharing all of this, to reach people who might be helped by all the things I’ve learned through this process, and start the conversation about PCOS and Creighton/NFP.

That being said, DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a doctor, or medical professional of any kind. I am a business major who works for the Catholic Church. I one day hope to teach Creighton/NFP myself, but that’s a long way off from now, so all I can tell you here is what I’ve learned and experienced myself. If you’re looking for medical journals, scientific research, etc. then I’d recommend you start looking at some of the helpful links at the end of this post and do a little more research yourself.

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(Continued from part 1: http://alwaysletyourlightshine.blogspot.com/2016/04/national-infertility-awareness-week-my.html)

Now that I had my PCOS Diagnosis in hand, and had found some hope and answers to questions I had had for a long time, I dove headfirst into learning about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, what to do about it, and how I could take my Creighton charting more seriously. Although it was scary to see on paper the truth about how crazy my cycles and body were, I knew that I needed every bit of information I could get to help my new doctors help me.

I’m just starting to realize how important charting my cycles has been for me in dealing with my PCOS. I am a “do-er,” a work-horse, someone who organizes her office when she’s had a stressful day in order to relax and feel accomplished. When I started charting, I took at least part of my health into my own hands. I wasn’t just waiting on blood tests to come back, wondering what we would talk about at my next doctor’s appointment, hoping things wouldn’t get better, and praying they wouldn’t get worse. Something as simple as writing the code and putting a sticker on my chart at the end of the day was empowering. I could see when I was having a good week, and was prepared for the bad ones. And for that one minute at the end of the day, I was in control. Charting mattered – being proactive mattered – because my doctors needed that information to help me get better. And I began to feel a little bit less like a helpless victim of PCOS, and more like a fighter.

I know that many of you reading this have no idea what Creighton, charting, or NFP are, so let me back up for a second and explain (reminder – I am not a medical professional, see the links at the bottom of this post for more medical-professional-related links).

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is just like what it sounds – methods of naturally tracking a woman’s fertility, and using that information to achieve or avoid pregnancy. It is not considered birth control – because women are naturally fertile and infertile at different times of the month, and a couple is able to use that information to space out their children, know when they are most likely to achieve pregnancy, or avoid pregnancy altogether if needed for tough financial times, medical issues, or many other reasons.

There are many different methods of NFP that use different information to chart a women’s fertility; each method has its pros and cons depending on your lifestyle. Do your research and find what could be best for you! For example, the Marquette Model would be good for a woman or normal fertility who is always on the go and has a different schedule every day, because the method focuses mainly on urine testing for certain hormone levels every day. One of the variations of the Sympto-Thermal method would be better for a woman of normal fertility who gets up around the same time every day, and can remember to take her body temperature before getting out of bed. Many methods use a combination of different body trackers (hormone levels, body temperature, cervical position, cervical mucus, etc.)  to determine where a woman is at in her cycle, when she will ovulate, and when she should have sex to achieve or avoid pregnancy. Most methods are best learned by taking a class or finding a teacher – and the Internet is a great place to find one. I’ve also found a lot of help through this Facebook group, if you’re looking for a specific area/teacher/method: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NFPCatholicStyle/ .

Any woman who is struggling with things ranging from infertility to PCOS to endometriosis to long or short cycles to bad PMS would probably be best using the Creighton method of NFP. Creighton has a uniform coding system that tracks changes in cervical mucus, and because each Creighton user codes the same way, doctors who know the system can diagnose issues like hormone imbalances, anovulatory cycles, infections, and (drumroll…) PCOS. This medical/diagnostic branch of the Creighton method is called NaPro Technology (Natural Procreative Technology), and focuses on healing the root cause of women’s health issues to allow women the highest chance of eventually achieving pregnancy.

For Creighton, when following textbook rules for trying to conceive (TTC) or trying to avoid (TTA), NFP methods have just as high, if not higher rates, of TTA (96.8% use-effectiveness, check that out here: http://www.fertilitycare.org/system-effectiveness/) than the pill, condoms, etc., and higher TTC rates than IVF (check that info out here: http://www.naprotechnology.com/infertility.htm).  

I LOVE this description on the Creighton website:

This is the first women's health science to network family planning with reproductive health monitoring and maintenance. It is a fertility-care based medical approach rather than a fertility-control approach to family planning and gynecological health. NaProTECHNOLOGY uses the Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System biomarkers to monitor easily and objectively the occurrence of various hormonal events during the menstrual cycle. NaProtracking provides valid information that can be interpreted by a woman and by physicians who are specifically trained in this system. Unlike common suppressive or destructive approaches, NaProTECHNOLOGY works cooperatively with the procreative and gynecologic systems. When these systems function abnormally, NaProTECHNOLOGY identifies the problems and cooperates with the menstrual and fertility cycles that correct the condition, maintain the human ecology, and sustain the procreative potential. Women now have an opportunity to know and understand the causes of the symptoms from which they suffer. (http://www.naprotechnology.com/)

When you first start learning the Creighton Method, a Creighton FertilityCare Practitioner (FCP), or Creighton teacher, will have an intro session with you about the basics of women’s health and cycles, and teach you how to start tracking your cervical mucus and chart it with the Creighton coding system. You’ll see the coding picture dictionary to give you some examples, and learn way more about cervical mucus (CM)than you want to, and eventually find it so fascinating you’ll want to start your own blog about it (just kidding… kind of). You will learn how to chart your CM, get corresponding color-coded stickers, and if you’re the average woman without any complications, it will probably look something like this:

Multiple that one line (month) by six, and you’ll have your first chart. Red is for period/bleeding days, green are for dry days, baby stickers are for the presence of CM, and if you’re super special, you get to use yellow ones (but that’s for Creighton professionals to decide, and is more complicated to get into than we have time for right here).

If your chart doesn’t look something like that, then your FCP might refer you do a doctor that can help, depending on how “off” your chart looks. For reference, here is a picture of my first ever Creighton chart (complete with some notes from Dr. Anne to correct my coding) – if you remember from part 1, this is the chart that made that nurse go “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

If you don’t have a “normal” chart, don’t panic – it might just mean you need some extra vitamins, or your stressful month at work has impacted your cycle. PLEASE ask an FCP or NaPro doctor before panicking.

That being said, what do you do if you are interested in learning to chart your cycles with Creighton? 

1. Find an FCP/Creighton teacher near you. http://www.fertilitycare.org/ is an AWESOME website that can get you connected with doctors and teachers all over the country. If you can’t find one near you, then try calling one of the doctor’s offices close by and ask them if they know anyone in your area who can be your teacher. You can also join and post here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crmsnapro.usergroup/, I’ve seen some women post that they are able to teach long distance via Skype, etc.

*NOTE: many FCP’s are regular women who have a passion for women’s health and NFP. Some are nurses, doctors, etc. but generally speaking, you will need to pay them a small fee (maybe a little bit more than your average co-pay amount) for your classes/meetings and charts/supplies. This money goes towards off-setting the cost for their training, and time. After learning the method and feeling comfortable with it (you’ll need to buy the handbook and have a few extra meetings when you first start), I pay about $125 per YEAR for 2-3 FCP meetings, charts, and stickers. Some FCP’s charge on a sliding scale depending on your income, or offer scholarships if needed, just ask them what their rate is. 

2. Learn the Creighton charting method. It will take a few weeks or months to feel comfortable with it, and your FCP will be a great resource for questions, and you’ll probably meet with her every few weeks at the beginning, and every few months as you move forward. When you meet, you’ll talk about lifestyle changes that could be effecting your cycle, if you are TTC/TTA/just charting to observe your health, etc. and what you can do to improve anything, if needed. 

3. Feel empowered! Even if you encounter an issue with your health, you now have the ability to bring that information to a Creighton-friendly doctor, and do something about it. If needed, they can do bloodwork, ultrasounds, and some other tests to help you, and talk about your options moving forward.

*NOTE: If you do have a fertility issue and need to see a Creighton/NaPro doctor, they will ask you to chart for at least 3 months with an FCP so that you have some information to help them diagnose you at your first visit. I guarantee you, it is worth the time to invest for the answers and help they can give you!

I don’t know what I would have done, or what my body would be doing, if I hadn’t found NFP, Creighton, and the women and doctors that I’ve been able to work with over the past few years. These medical professionals have offered genuine healing, and a solution beyond just putting me on the birth control pill, and words can’t describe how thankful I am for that.

There is so much more to the story... Up next? What my chart looks like now (sneak peak: much better than the first one!), where Creighton has taken me since the first few months, and things that worked/haven’t worked for me along the way (so far). And so much more…

(to be continued...)  

Helpful links:

http://www.naprotechnology.com/ (The official website for NaPro Technology)

http://www.amazon.com/NaPro-Technology-Revolution-Unleashing-Womans/dp/0825306264 (The “definitive textbook on NaPro Technology, by Dr. Hilgers, who developed the Creighton Model FertilityCare System with his coworkers).

https://www.facebook.com/josephstanfordmd/?fref=ts&ref=br_tf&hc_location=ufi (Dr. Stanford, I’ve been told, is from Utah and one of the best doctors in the field. His Facebook page has lots of helpful links and interesting articles)

National Infertility Awareness Week: My Journey with PCOS (Part 1)

Happy Feast Day of St. Gianna Molla (patron of mothers and unborn children), and National Infertility Awareness Week! I usually only keep this story for in-person sharing or witness talks, but I've been sharing it more than usual lately, so something told me it was time to write it all down... 

I have PCOS. There – I said it. For all the Internet (or the 5 people who might actually read this) to know.

More specifically, I have anovulatory insulin-resistant Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. And this is [the beginning of] my story.

Before I get to the short version, you need to know a few things about me, if you don’t already. I work as a Catholic Campus Minister in Catholic Church, and my ministry and my crazy college students are a HUGE part of my life. I love the word “project,” can easily slip into workaholic mode, have a big heart (that sometimes gets in the way of things), and I can lead a huge room full of people when I’m teaching, singing at church, etc., but I hate being the center of attention when the topic of conversation is me. I can be a stubborn pain in the butt, and may or may not have a tendency to be sarcastic. My sister and I grew up playing every sport you can enroll your elementary school child in, we spent high school playing varsity and club sports year round, and our Pilates-teacher-mother and basketball-coach-dad emphasized that being active was just how our family was.

What is PCOS? In super basic terms, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is an endocrine disorder that affects 5-10% of women, and about half of those women are undiagnosed. A woman with PCOS has it all her life, but it tends to be more of a problem between the ages of 16-45, when our ovaries are most active. PCOS causes cysts to grow on ovaries, which can sometimes burst (Yes, OUCH!!), and disrupt many other parts of a woman’s body – cysts secrete extra hormones, and can throw off your menstrual cycles, insulin production, body temperature, metabolism, cause heart problems, effect your overall fertility, and so much more. There is currently no cure for PCOS – it can only be managed my sometimes drastic lifestyle changes – and many things can make PCOS worse (like stress, not eating right, not sleeping enough, etc.). Not only is PCOS widely undiagnosed, many doctors either don’t know much about it, or feel like the only way to “fix” PCOS is to go on the birth control pill.

So, in my elementary and middle school years, life was relatively normal. The teenage years hit, and my body changed a little, but nothing out of the ordinary. I was active, at the gym nearly every day for one sport or another, training to play volleyball in college (thank you, torn rotator cuff, for killing that dream, but that’s another story for another day). I went off to college six hours from home, and things were still relatively normal. I probably missed a period here and there, but not frequently enough to make me think anything of it. I put on a few pounds here and there, but was still working out, and it had always been easy for me to build muscle mass (another PCOS symptom), so it didn’t really catch my attention. And then junior year hit – you know, that supposed pivotal point in your life where you’re supposed to know exactly what you’re doing with the rest of your life, because in a year or so you have to start applying for jobs, grad school, etc. and pretend you know how to adult (my students use that as a verb now).

In the midst of all that, I was struggling, and I don’t think I realized the pile of chaos that was about to turn into a tornado. Classes were great, but I was starting to have a change of heart about working in the corporate marketing world, and I didn’t know yet where that need to do something more than make money was going to take me. The 28392839 clubs and activities I was in were fine, and the 583 leadership roles I had signed myself up for were running smoothly – especially on the days where I actually went to bed before 4 a.m. after squeezing in some homework. Socially, my girlfriends were great, but my choice in men wasn’t. I became so busy, that a lot of things took a backseat – my spiritual life, talking to my family, and my health, to name a few.

Everything was such a blur, and I was too busy being an overachiever, that it wasn’t until somewhere mid-senior year that I started to take notice of some changes my body had been going through while I was elbow-deep in to-do lists and coffee cups. My clothes were starting to fit weird, I was tired ALL the time, frequently moody, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had needed to buy a new box of tampons. I chalked it up to stress and lack of sleep and gym time, and pushed through til graduation.

That summer, before starting my full-time MBA program (with 2 part time jobs and some volunteering on the side, because normal people do all of that at the same time), I finally took the time to go see the OBGYN. I explained that I had been gaining weight, generally not feeling well, and had only been having 2-3 periods a year, and I thought something was wrong. They did an ultrasound, didn’t find anything, and told me I didn’t need to go through any more tests if I wasn’t sleeping around, and suggested I go on the pill “if it really bothers you that you’re missing periods.” She wasn’t the first doctor who had tried to put me on the pill, but it had never sat right with me. I politely declined (again), but thought it was weird that there was clearly something wrong with my body, but no one was listening, much less the doctors I had hoped would fix me. I will always remember how frustrated and unheard I felt after that appointment. Always.

Fast forward through 3 semesters of graduate school to complete my MBA, and a year of working in campus ministry at a nearby college. At this point I was so torn about what kind of job I wanted to do, or where I wanted to live, that I applied to tons of different positions – marketing, event planning, non-profit public relations, youth and campus ministry, and more. In July of 2012, I got hired by the Archdiocese of Newark to work at Kean University, and little did I know that this job would introduce me to something that would change my health, and my life.

Kean’s Campus Ministry program was in a “rebuilding” phase and very small, so sometimes we would join other nearby universities for their events. One night, I took a few girls to Montclair State University for a women’s night, where they were bringing in a guest speaker to talk about pro-life issues and Natural Family Planning. I had gotten a brief introduction to NFP in college thanks to some cool Catholic women, and hadn’t thought much of it since getting married or having babies wasn’t in my immediate plans – but I was pretty excited to hear this talk.

That night I met the first woman who would truly help me on my journey and give me some hope about my health, Dr. Anne Tobak (now Sheridan). The more Anne spoke about the female body and how God designed it, the more I saw that there really was something not quite right with my health, and I wasn’t going crazy. She talked about how the Creighton model of Natural Family Planning has a medical branch called NaPro Technology, which uses NFP charting and information to diagnose and find natural solutions to things like infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, and more. So many things that night rang true with me, and I knew I had been given an opportunity that I didn’t know I was looking for – much less what to call it or how to find it.

I sneakily took a business card off the info table, not wanting to approach Anne in front of my students. I procrastinated on reaching out to her for 9 months (did I mention I’m really good at making myself busy?), until one week in June 2013. I had taken a week off work to go back to Erie and work a week-long church camp with some good friends from college and the Catholic community there. It was one of my favorite weeks of the year, and was full of late nights, junk food, large coffees, and running around until you fell asleep with a pen in your hand writing notes to the students.

The one time of the day we stopped moving at lightning speed was for Mass and Adoration each night after dinner. Usually this was my favorite part of the day, and a great time to connect with God. But this week something was off. The first few days, I felt jittery and light-headed, but I chalked it up to too much coffee and a headache from allergies, and ignored it. By Wednesday, my body was screaming at me that there was something wrong, and the next thing I knew, I was on the hallway floor with my head in my friend Kayla’s lap, trying to stop shaking. I’ll never forget the look on one of my students’ faces that night, when he came out into the hall to check on me for the 7^th time in 10 minutes, worried that I was going to get worse. I refused to go to the hospital, but nearly fainted at least three times that week.

When I got home from camp (thankfully without any incidents on my 6-hour solo drive back to my new apartment), I realized that I should have gotten my period by now… but once again, it was off. I wasn’t sure if what had happened at camp was related to that, but I knew I needed to talk to someone about it, ASAP, to figure out what the heck my body was doing. I searched through my drafts until I found the e-mail I had been meaning to send to Anne explaining my symptoms, and finally pressed send. She replied quickly, and said that from what I had told her about my cycles and health, it sounded like I had PCOS, and that Creighton/NaPro Technology would be able to help. I couldn’t believe that this random woman had an idea of what might be wrong with me, when doctor after doctor hadn’t seemed to have the slightest idea.

Anne and I met a week or so later in a small conference room at the local library, where I had my first official NFP lesson and started to learn to chart my cycles. Different methods of Natural Family Planning look at different changes in a women’s body to determine when she is fertile/infertile each day of the month (some use body temperature, others use urine tests; the Creighton Model tracks changes in cervical mucus). There is a standardized coding process for what kind of mucus (or lack thereof) you have each day, and from that information, a NaPro Technology doctor can diagnose things like ovarian cysts, failure to ovulate, infections, tendency to miscarry, and more. It’s so cool! And it’s definitely NOT the “rhythm method” we hear about our grandparents using.

We already knew that I would most likely have to see a specialized NaPro doctor, and luckily there were a small handful of them within an hour or two drive. Before meeting with a NaPro doctor, you need to chart for at least 3 months so they have some concrete information to help diagnose things with – so my learning curve and waiting game began. After I felt comfortable learning the charting system, and Anne and I went over some of the signs on my chart that pointed towards PCOS, I made an appointment with Dr. Jean Golden-Tevald. PCOS can only be truly diagnosed by having an ultrasound and doing bloodwork, and I needed to know if it was official.

The 4 months between my first meeting with Anne and seeing Dr. Jean gave me plenty of time to Google PCOS many times. I had read a lot about it by then – the symptoms I didn’t have (or at least hadn’t developed yet). The ones I definitely did have. What a cyst does when it ruptures (which is just as NOT FUN as it sounds). The increased risk of things like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The increased rate of miscarriage. Infertility. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t sure if I would be relieved to finally have an answer to all of my questions, or broken-hearted that this would finally be it. Or both.

Dr. Jean and her staff were great. I walked into the waiting room on October 1 (the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, one of my favorite saints) and saw a tapestry with our Lady of Guadalupe behind the secretary’s desk, some pro-life awards from the local bishop hanging on the wall, and I knew that if nothing else, I’d be in good hands here. I met Dr. Jean, and was immediately comfortable – she told me everything like it was, but in the most pastoral and caring way possible. What?! Another person who actually was going to listen when I told them something was wrong with my body?

We talked about PCOS, some all-natural vitamins that could help with the never-ending mood swings and slew of other symptoms, and she led me back into the ultrasound room. Another woman was there in training, and she asked to see my Creighton chart before we got started. I wasn’t expecting the “WOAH… I’ve never seen anything like this before!” that slipped out of her mouth before she regained her composure and explained how the ultrasound setup worked. A few minutes later, I was covered in ultrasound goo, and hearing the words I had been expecting all day – “Well, there they are… your ovaries are definitely covered in cysts.”

I don’t remember much else of the rest of the visit besides scheduling a follow up in a few months after I had some more charting under my belt and the results of my full bloodwork panel came back. I had a 45-minute drive back to work (because normal people go back to work after getting bad news from their doctor, right?), and it didn’t take long for the tears to come as I started to process what today meant. I mean, I wasn’t dying. But a small part of me felt like I was – the part of me that had a huge smile when my friends joked that it wasn’t a question of IF I was going to be a soccer mom one day, but what color the minivan would be and which sport we’d be driving the kids to. I wanted (and still want) nothing more than to be a mother… and this diagnosis carried with it the potential to kill those dreams, at least in the traditional, biological sense of motherhood.

It took a little time, but the more I thought about the last few months, the more my over-achieving, stubborn, pain in the butt, “you told me it couldn’t be done so now I’m going to make it happen” side broke through the outdated statistics I had read about online. In the middle of this crappy situation was an incredible hope that God had given me, along with some answers. Yes, finding out that PCOS is a thing, I have it, and will struggle with it for the rest of my life, SUCKS. But the people that helped me discover that have been incredible through this whole process, and I saw so much truth in what they were teaching me about NFP, NaPro, and finding a natural solution to a tough situation.  I’ve found hope in these women, these doctors, these NFP teachers, and learning the truth about my body has given me the courage to say two words I need to hear all the time on this road to dealing with PCOS:

Challenge accepted.

(to be continued...)