Welcome to Coffee and Creighton!

I don't like coffee, but I love alliterations, so welcome to my Coffee and Creighton blog post!  I hope you can enjoy a cup of coffee, tea, water or wine and join me on my adventure of natural living, marriage, mothering, and women-hood. For this first post, I'll share with you how this journey began.

I never imagined myself as a FertilityCare Practitioner.  I didn't even know such a job existed until my senior year of college!  In Kindergarten, I dreamed of teaching. Sixteen years later, I fulfilled that dream, teaching Chemistry, Biology and ICP at Bishop Luers High School for nearly 3 years.  Many seemingly insignificant events led to my teaching career, which ultimately led to my FertilityCare career.

My love of science didn't start until middle school when I wanted to join the English Academic SuperBowl team, but my brother's friend happened to be the son of the Science team coach.  He continually bugged me to join his team at basketball games until I eventually caved.  I'm so glad I did.  Learning science didn't stop my love for English, but amplified it. In high school, I took to chemistry as my niche and discovered that the systematic methods of chemistry gelled well with my perfectionistic, rule-loving personality.  When choosing a major, I decided I would rather grade lab reports than book reports, so I entered Huntington University as a Chemistry Education Major.

During high school, I listened to Professor Janet Smith's "Contraception:  Cracking the Myths." As a lover of self-care, from running to eating salads to indulging in cookies (yes, a good mental form of self-care ;) ), I was appalled at the negative effects contraception has on physical health as well as relationship health!   When it came time to choose an informational speech for my college speech class, I chose Natural Family Planning.  I felt pretty good about my speech until I received my professor's feedback.  He thanked me for talking about such an unknown topic, but criticized me for neglecting the various methods of NFP.  I had no idea there were different methods!  Now I'm shocked I gave a speech with so little knowledge!

When preparing for marriage, I learned about different methods of NFP from my friend who tried both Sympto-Thermal and Creighton. Since she found Creighton more straightforward and easier to use, I chose to start with Creighton. I didn't really believe I needed to meet with my instructor as often as recommended since I have a science background and a perfectionistic personality, but I was shocked by how much I didn't know!

After successfully using Creighton to avoid pregnancy for two years, then trying for a few months to achieve pregnancy, I had my annual exam.  My Ob-Gyn is a NaPro Doctor, meaning he is trained to read the Creighton chart to diagnose and treat medical conditions.  He quickly identified low progesterone, noticed that we were trying to achieve pregnancy and went on a litany of tests we could undergo to help achieve pregnancy.  I told him I thought I was pregnant since I was 15 days post-peak and I am usually 13 (post-peak is VERY stable, +/-1.6 days for the average women).  He said, "Wouldn't that be incredible," and moved on with the exam.  We planned on doing a blood draw during my next cycle to determine the amount of progesterone support I needed. By 18 days post-peak I was positive I was pregnant and confirmed it with a pregnancy test.  I called my doctors office,  and they immediately prescribed progesterone pills until my blood results came back.  My blood results indicated that I did indeed progesterone.  I took various doses throughout my pregnancy and had a healthy baby girl at 37.5 weeks.  I am so thankful for the progesterone support that potentially saved my daughter's life that I decided to help identify progesterone deficiency and other health problems in women by becoming a FertilityCare Practitioner.

People often ask me if I miss teaching.  I enjoyed teaching through all the trials and triumphs. I encountered some incredible students and had wonderful co-workers, which made leaving bitter-sweet.  I had a tough time letting go, but am so glad I switched to this career which gives me more flexibility while still allowing me to teach and to meet amazing people!  Without my unexpected love of science, passion for teaching, and mentors in NFP, I never would have pursued a career as a FertilityCare Practitioner!