Ep. 183: Natural conception after unsuccessful IUIs and years of infertility, with Woven client, Amanda

Amanda and her husband had tried everything but IVF on their road to try to conceive. After failed IUIs and no known diagnosis beyond unexplained infertility, they felt stuck and frustrated. Amanda had had cycle issues for years, but had always used birth control to suppress symptoms. Now, it seemed like they could be contributing to their infertility. A friend reached out with a different option and a new perspective: restorative reproductive healthcare. The rest is history. Hear Amanda's story of natural conception and a healthy pregnancy after infertility and failed assisted reproductive technology treatments!

NOTE: Appropriate for all audiences but does discuss assisted reproductive technology.

GUEST BIO: Amanda, a speech pathologist, has been married to her husband for 4 years and began working with Woven Natural Fertility Care in March 2025 after unsuccessfully working with an assisted reproductive technology clinic.

SHOW LINKS:

Ep. 163: Healthy pregnancy in 3 cycles after being told IVF was her only hope, with Loren

Ep. 155: "How I got pregnant when IUIs didn't work" -- Braelyn's story

Ep. 147: Emotional healing after IVF, with Shiloh IVF Ministry

Ep. 122: IVF Alternatives for friends

Ep. 96: Theological Considerations with IVF

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Transcript

Caitlin Estes (00:00)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. Another lovely client story to share with you all today. And I say it every time, but I really do mean it. Real people, real stories, real transformation. These are just my favorite stories. I just don't think it gets any better than this. So today I'm chatting with Amanda, a client who began working with us at Woven back in March of this year, so 2025. And she wants to share a little bit about her journey through infertility. I'm thrilled to have her here. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Amanda (00:30)
Thanks for

Caitlin Estes (00:32)
I want everyone to hear your story for a lot of reasons. I think so many women are going to hear pieces of their own story within yours, but I want to give you a chance to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Amanda (00:44)
Yeah, my name is Amanda. I am 33. I am a speech pathologist in the hospital setting. I've been married for almost four years now.

Caitlin Estes (00:57)
I'm so glad you're here and I think that we should maybe start back in the early years. Like what was your relationship with your cycles before trying to conceive? Because I know that's what we're going to talk about, but like those early years, what was that like for you?

Amanda (01:12)
Yeah, I, from a very young age, I mean almost as soon as my cycles started, I immediately had really difficult periods. Painful, just really miserable, honestly. And I just thought that was normal. I just dealt with it for years and years. ⁓ Later down the road was started on birth control to help manage symptoms
⁓ which initially helped. Initially I was like, ⁓ wow, I don't have to be in pain all the time. ⁓ So for a while that kind of got me through until it didn't. And I spent a lot of years troubleshooting birth control of, know, this one would stop working. I would have breakthrough bleeding. I would have so much pain. And so they would just put me on a different kind and see how that went. it got to a point where the positive parts of that were no longer as evident and the cons were outweighing them. It came with a lot of anxiety for me, which I had never experienced before. And that was the thing I think that was the breaking point for me of this is affecting my quality of life and not just pain that I can push through, but in anxiety that I'm having to learn how to manage and.

Caitlin Estes (02:13)
Hmm

Amanda (02:35)
There was one in particular where I'm like, the only thing in my life that has changed is this new medication. And so I was like, I'm done with this. ⁓ But it was a scary thing, I think, when I wasn't ready to have children yet. I'm newlywed, yeah. Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (02:41)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, I was gonna ask if that was before or after you got married, so...

Amanda (02:59)
I, the whole time we were engaged, I was troubleshooting with it still. And, and probably in the worst, the worst fit for birth control was in that phase, which was, know, newlywed, true love testament. Yeah. Yeah. But, I just said that it's not worth it to me. I, I need to feel like myself again. And it was wild. How quickly.

Caitlin Estes (03:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's terrifying.

Amanda (03:25)
I felt like a fog lifted and I don't think I realized how much it was affecting me until I was on the other side of it. But yeah, that was kind of my experience with birth control. It wasn't a great experience for me.

Caitlin Estes (03:37)
Yeah, and that's the thing is that pain is not a great experience, but also birth control is not always great experience. And so there's got to be an answer there. But for you, when you went off of birth control, what did you do? Like, what did you look into other options for family planning? Like, how did you kind of approach that? Because like you said, you were still not quite ready to conceive at that point. What'd you do there?

Amanda (03:41)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

And I think my mindset was a little bit like, well, if it happens, it happens. It's OK. At that point, think because my cycles had been so terrible, I think I internally maybe anticipated that the fertility journey might be hard. And so part of me, I think, was like, if it happens, great. But I was also starting to do

Caitlin Estes (04:08)
Okay, yeah.

Amanda (04:26)
Temperature I used natural cycles app and I really I thought what I thought was tracking my cycles were really well ⁓ Yeah, and that was not super consistent for me either honestly,

Caitlin Estes (04:39)
I've had a few clients over the last couple years who when we start working together, I'll ask about their history, what they've been using and natural cycles keeps coming up. every time it's either they obviously knew that it wasn't the right fit or they thought it was and then later realized that it was actually off. ⁓ So it's interesting. It's so encouraging to have a natural

Amanda (04:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (05:03)
option that is very popular, but also you want to make sure it is accurate. And we're going to get to that in your story too. ⁓

Amanda (05:05)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yeah, yeah. I think I thought it was accurate, I think, for a while, but the further in I got, I think looking back, it's easy for me to look back now and say, wow, that was really not consistent. It was just not a reliable thing for me.

Caitlin Estes (05:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, because you you were doing natural cycles and like using the Oura ring and those like you were doing multiple kind of FEMTech is the term, you technology related to female reproductive health. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so when you made the shift over to trying to conceive, tell us a little bit about that and what that journey was like.

Amanda (05:39)
Yeah, yeah. I was trying it all. Yeah. Yeah.

It had been, oh man, it had been, I think a little over a year when I finally had the guts to say something to my doctor of, this has been hard. What do I do now? And was pretty much immediately referred to a fertility clinic. And...

Caitlin Estes (06:03)
Yeah.

Amanda (06:13)
That felt hard. think I like assumed that would be the next step, but then when you're in it, it was just like, man, okay, here we go. Buckle up, you know? And we went to the fertility clinic. They, you know, did all the tests. I did the HSG. I did a lot of blood work, ultrasounds, and everything was fine. ⁓ Everything came back normal. And so I got, you know, this lovely

Caitlin Estes (06:21)
Yeah.

Mm.

Amanda (06:41)
unexplained infertility diagnosis, which, you know, feels so defeating and like, you just want an answer. it doesn't feel like an answer in the moment of like, okay, well then what do I do? And ⁓ so with that, they essentially said, okay, next step is IUI. We'll do up to four rounds. And then if that doesn't work,

Caitlin Estes (06:43)
Mm.

Yeah.

Amanda (07:05)
They suspected endometriosis was a part of my journey. I had never had a surgery to confirm it, but that was kind of, their thinking was probably after IUI, if that doesn't work, we would need to have a procedure before we went to IVF. So that was kind of the timeline that I was told. And then I walked out of that appointment and

Caitlin Estes (07:10)
Hmm.

Amanda (07:29)
I didn't go back for six or seven months because I, it was overwhelming and to be told that like so immediately and I don't think I was quite ready to jump into that. ⁓ so I didn't go back for while.

Caitlin Estes (07:31)
Hmm.

Yeah, totally understandably. I mean, you mentioned in the beginning that it took you a while to get up the nerve to even mention to your local doctor that it's been 12 months and we haven't conceived, then to immediately get a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist. And then after those first rounds of testing, be told, okay, we're jumping into IUI. You can do that four times and then we're moving on to IVF.

Amanda (07:46)
Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (08:11)
I mean, that is so much to take in. ⁓ When you're still back at the original question of, I'm curious why we haven't conceived, you know, you never got that answer. That question is still just hanging out there. And I don't blame you. I imagine it would be very difficult to figure out how to move forward when you don't have that kind of resolution. So what'd you do from there?

Amanda (08:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

We, from there, we decided to give IUI a shot. So we did three rounds, unsuccessful. And after the third round, they said they would do up to four. And after the third, I was very much done. I, I, didn't feel right to me. my body does not respond well to all of the hormones, ⁓ the medication that they give you and.

Caitlin Estes (08:58)
Hmm.

Amanda (09:02)
all of that, just, it wasn't for me. And I did not feel right about it somehow. It just didn't feel like a good fit. And I just kind of said, okay, I need to be done here. ⁓ And we never went back. And I, so I left there thinking, okay, no, what do I do now? And I remembered that I had a sweet friend who had been telling me about...

Caitlin Estes (09:15)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right.

Amanda (09:29)
the Creighton model for probably at least two years. And I think I do, looking back, I'm like, why didn't I listen? But I think sometimes when you're in it, the thought of adding one more thing can feel overwhelming. At least from my experience of, you already feel overwhelmed, I think, with all of the information coming in.

Caitlin Estes (09:32)
You

Hmm.

Amanda (09:56)
that one more thing on your plate to learn ⁓ feels hard. But man, all I had to do was just send the first email. And then from there, was like, instead of what I expected being hard, was like this door of like new hope opened up to me, which was really powerful. Because I think the longer you walk through this,

Caitlin Estes (10:01)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Amanda (10:17)
the easier it is to feel discouraged, the easier it is to feel alone and isolated and to lose sight of your hope. And that's where I was. I was feeling so discouraged. And I don't know, I just remember you saying like your mission was to bridge the gap between faith and fertility. And in that moment, that was so meaningful to me. ⁓ I'm like, okay, that.

Caitlin Estes (10:40)
Hmm.

Amanda (10:42)
Yeah, I'm in. And I remember telling my friends, like I just, you know, they're checking in and I'm like, I feel this new hope in a season that has felt really hard. And so, and boy, learning Creighton, I'm like, I totally nerded out. Like it was, it was like fun to me, honestly. It was like, it was a new spin on fertility that felt exciting and ⁓

I mean, it's amazing. It's you're learning things about your own body that I'm 33 years old and no one had ever taught me. And just like the details of how we were designed to function is powerful. And I just like, I felt so empowered by that and motivated and like just excited, regardless of the outcome. I just felt so.

Caitlin Estes (11:07)
Hmm.

Yes.

Hmm.

Amanda (11:35)
much hope. I know I keep saying the word hope, but that is that was like the reoccurring theme of those months for me.

Caitlin Estes (11:40)
Well, and I'm struck by the juxtaposition between the two. You know, your first experience all along the way, it's like there's no answer, no hope, no path forward other than this one thing. And then switching over to Creighton and working with Woven and like, it sounds like it was very participatory. You know, you were an active.

Amanda (12:04)
you

Caitlin Estes (12:06)
part of your journey, you were learning things, you were being empowered, you were, a part of the process. And like you said, regardless of the outcome, this is something that you deserve that kind of relationship, healed relationship with your body. I think it's so easy for women to have this disconnection between quote unquote us and our fertility, you know, like as if they're two different things.

Amanda (12:32)
Right.

Caitlin Estes (12:34)
but

it's us, it's us, it's how we're designed. And this, I think, is an opportunity for reconnecting those. And that is a very healing process that I think hope has to spring forth. When we really come home to how God created us and how we're designed to function, I think hope is born from that. So it makes sense to me. Yeah. So you started.

Amanda (12:57)
Absolutely.

Caitlin Estes (13:00)
working with us and learning about your body, reproductive biomarkers, all those sorts of things and what happened from there.

Amanda (13:08)
We, so, you we do the whole first cycle, you know, where we're not trying to conceive. I'm just like learning how, what my body does. And then, you know, that first cycle that I'm actually charting and like using that information from my chart to try to conceive. I of course fell on a time where we're traveling like crazy. My sister-in-law is getting married. We're going on a trip, a little girl's trip, you know, so.

I remember telling you, we're meeting and I'm like, ⁓ this month is pretty much a wash, you know, like these like one or two days at the very beginning of my fertile window. But like the whole rest of the time I wasn't with my husband. I like, we were not in the same place. So in my brain, I'm like, that's, it's, it's a wash. It's not possible. And I just remember you being like, well, it's still possible. You know, like those were fertile days and

Caitlin Estes (13:49)
Yeah.

You

Amanda (14:03)
But in the midst of working with you, I had been connected with Dr. K in Atlanta and worked with them to try to set up what I thought would be the next step of seeing if endometriosis was a big part of my story. And so I called them. I had gone through all of the steps. The final step was to schedule the surgery.

and I called them on a Friday to schedule and they were closed because it was Good Friday, which I didn't think about. And I'm feeling frustrated. I'm like, I'm ready to schedule this and move forward. And every roadblock just felt discouraging still. I'm like, I just am ready to move forward with this. And but I was not able to schedule that day, thankfully, because on Sunday, two days later,

Easter Sunday, I woke up and I had my first ever positive pregnancy test, which I am still like, cannot like believe it still. It's just like amazing. And one, just literally the first month of charting, the very first one, which was just so exciting. It's still so exciting. So.

Caitlin Estes (15:00)
You

Yes, and I, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I remember you saying that even though it was in the window of fertility, like we had identified it, you said, well, this is not when I would normally be together to try to conceive. Like all those years that you'd been trying to conceive, you thought it was the window of fertility and you were doing all the things, the Oura ring and the natural cycles, but

Amanda (15:23)
Right.

Yeah.

Great. Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (15:41)
learning your particular body through your particular reproductive biomarkers is always going to be more accurate. In my opinion. mean, I know that technology everybody puts all their faith and trust in technology. I don't think it gets any better than knowing yourself. Yeah.

Amanda (15:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

⁓ Yeah, was definitely earlier, ⁓ a few days earlier than I would have ever thought previous to Creighton. yeah. So, it's great.

Caitlin Estes (16:10)
Yeah. And by the way, 20 to 40 % of clients who come in to who are struggling to conceive 20 to 40 % will conceive even before they have napro or restorative medical treatment. Like just being able to identify that window of fertility for them is a, mean, it makes a big difference. So

Amanda (16:36)
Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (16:37)
Yeah, you're

Amanda (16:37)
Yeah.

Caitlin Estes (16:38)
one of those and it's a beautiful story and I'm still so happy about it. And so I feel like you talked about how God being a part of this process was so important to you, like the connection of fertility and faith. ⁓ Where was God throughout this whole process with you?

Amanda (16:40)
Yeah, yeah, it's exciting.

Mm-hmm.

Oh man, everywhere. Looking back, think it's so much easier looking back to see like his fingerprints on every detail that I think sometimes again when you're in the trenches, it's hard to always recognize. you know, it's a much longer story. But I think my favorite part is that my husband the week of leading up to Easter, he woke up in the middle of night and heard a voice and all he said, Amanda, all I heard was lay hands on Amanda and pray for her. And of course, you know, he's like, whoa, what was that? You know, and went back to sleep and then it happened again and it continued to happen until he woke me up.

Amanda (17:49)
And, and said, Hey, I know this, this might sound crazy, but I, this is what I feel like I need to do. And I'm like, do it, please. Please. And so he just got up and he said, all I know to do is put a hand on your back and a hand on your stomach and pray. And I don't even know what I'm praying for. And, he said a very simple prayer of healing. and then he had me pray.

Caitlin Estes (17:56)
Mmm.

Amanda (18:13)
as well and then we went to bed and it was the sweetest moment that I will never forget as long as I live and and I love the the sweetness of the Lord to bring to bring him into that too you know to say like hey this story is both of yours and and I've been writing it the whole time it was really really sweet and powerful so

Caitlin Estes (18:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Yes.

Really, yes, that's what I was thinking. Very powerful. Well, thank you so much, Amanda, for coming on, for sharing a little bit of your story and encouraging others. know it did.

Amanda (18:49)
Absolutely. It's a pleasure to be here.

Caitlin Estes (18:51)
Listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I love my clients. I love getting to be a part of these stories and Woven Natural Fertility Care, we always want to provide you with as many resources as we possibly can. If you want to go to the show notes, you'll find a link there where you can get started for yourself. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.