Regina's Fertility & Health Journey

As a 10-year-old, I got my first period and I spent a whole day in bed every single month because of so much pain. This included all the "tricks;" hot water bottle, hot cup of tea, and a pile of blankets. It also meant puking. There were times that my mom would give me B-complex and I actually might have a good day.

As a young girl, and teenager, I dreamed of having a dozen children. Then came the great disappointment when year after year, there were none. People didn't understand how it felt to not fit in. I was told I should be happy for the other people who are having babies. That I needed to be excited about spending time with children.

The biggest problem to all of this was there was never any teaching on how to relate to children; relate to my husband; and what to do to help build my marriage in a time like this. No one talked about these things; you were just supposed to know. You know... because this was my marriage; this was my business. I dealt with a lot of depression and a lot of pain. Specifically, a lot of leg and muscle pain. I spent a lot of time at the chiropractor. I tried lots of different vitamins from the time I was a young girl. Nothing seem to help. 

In the meantime, I wasn't doing well with the emotional stresses of my childhood; they kind of grew into bigger stuff as I got married. This was affecting my body. I had a hard time being able to walk. It was hard to push a sweeper around unless it was a very lightweight one. I had a hard time recuperating from trips, even a weekend trip would take me at least a week to recover. I got to the point where I had to plan on getting as much work done in 3 hours as I could so that I could get back to bed. And yet... I didn't have any children.

The turnaround came one day when I was almost 30 miles from home and by myself. I stopped at the health food store and I commented, "I hope I can get home safe." I had almost been running off the side of the road due to my reflexes being slow. The lady said, "Let me give you something to eat." She gave me some nuts, and just placing them on my tongue, I broke into a sweat. She said that this was a sign that my blood sugar was low. She gave me a little book on high and low blood sugar. It had a little diet plan in there; foods you could eat, and foods you should not eat when you have this problem. It turned out to be a low carb diet. I learned what foods I could eat without having pain. I discovered desperation is beneficial.

Doug and I were married for 2 years when someone gave me a book on the art of natural family planning.  I had no idea how my body worked. I had no idea that I could even know. This was an unspeakable subject in my home growing up. As I write this just now, there is a deep grief of the loss of knowledge that I had to learn all by myself from a book, and I'm so grateful that lady that was willing to share. I charted my cycles for the next 7 years and learned so much. I talked to some people who taught this program, yet weren't able
to share a remedy. They only knew the medical aspect of how this worked. I never really saw any change.

The year 2000 was a huge change in my life. In May, I was able to find some spiritual help. I was able to identify that bitterness and unforgiveness was a huge factor in my life. I learned about forgiveness and in August I learned about how to take care of my health all at the same time really. Then in November, I started working with a nutritionist who was able to help me find a supplement that gave me energy and it seemed to help my pain. My health began to change very quickly. I stopped charting my cycles from May to November; but in the middle of November, things turned around so differently in my periods that I knew I had to start charting again. I had to know what was changing. I told my Doug, "The way this is going we're going to have a baby." 3 months later, we were pregnant.

We were married for 9 years and 7 months when our first baby was born. She was a beautiful girl; Esther Marlene -- 9 lb and 8 oz. It seemed the whole world rejoiced with us. It wasn't long when the word started to get out, because the company of the product I was using, wrote our story in a newsletter. Of course it  showed happy faces, and women started calling me wanting  to know what I did.  They wanted to know what could they do to have baby.  So began a new journey.

The nutritionist I was working with was also working with women. One day she said, "Diet worked for you, but it doesn't work the same for others." I didn't really know a lot about nutrition. She was teaching me a lot. I did know charting. I knew how to see what was happening in their balance of progesterone and estrogen. We began to use nutrition and charting together. We were able by nutrition to manipulate the body and to change it to where the hormones created balance.

When Esther was two years and one week old, Miriam Eileen was born. 18 months later, we moved to Georgia. Diane Marie, our third baby, was born 6 weeks later. Being a new and busy mom with little ones and living under the stress of living in a new community with an overwhelmed husband, my health went down again.

Diane was 4 months old, when one of the ladies from church took me to a medical doctor in Brunswick. He sat and listened to my story for a whole hour. He told me that I knew about nutrition; I knew about charting, but why wasn't I doing it? I told him that my husband was afraid people would have a problem with us eating that way. With everything I told him, he was pretty sure that my thyroid was the problem. He did a few tests and then he recommended some nutrition that would target and feed the thyroid gland organ. He said a lot of doctors take blood test, but he said that a blood test only reveals the hormones that the organ puts out. A basal temperature, which we used with the charting, is the truest way to find out how the thyroid as an organ is working. He said, "Your temperature should be 98.6 on day three and four of your cycle."

I was working with a lot of women at this point. Probably close to 100 women and I had never seen anyone's temperature on day three and four at 98.6; never! But now, we had another tool that we can look at, so over the next couple years we worked with at least another hundred women.
I now also had a doctor's perspective. It felt motivating to hear him say that I knew what I was talking about. I'm just glad God puts the pieces together sometimes when nobody else can help us.

In February, I will be 54 years old, but friends I am in better health than I have ever been spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. I thank God for good health. I thank Him for three beautiful daughters who bring me a lot of satisfaction; maybe even more satisfaction than it would have than if I had a whole dozen.

Friends, I hope this little story gives you hope. If there is any way that I can help you, I'm here for you.
I love you, and I will pray for you. My girls are 16, 18 and 20; but I NEVER want to forget what it felt like to walk that stage of my journey. 

xoxo-Regina