Ep. 229: Unusual Bleeding, Pain, & 5 years of Infertility Resolved with this Approach, with client, Jess

Jess had dealt with debilitating pain and almost constant bleeding since she was 13 years old. Yet when she was ready to conceive, she was told "all looked normal" and her best shot was IUI. Spoiler alert: Things weren't normal. This episode shares Jess' journey to find out the diagnoses behind "unexplained infertility" and restore her reproductive health while she was trying to conceive. It's honest, it's encouraging, it's empowering. If you're wondering about your own reproductive health and where to turn next, this episode is for you.

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

SHOW NOTES:

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Check out these related Woven Well episodes:

Ep. 53: Is the Receptiva test best for Endometriosis diagnosis?, with Dr. Nicholas Kongoasa

Ep. 10: Endometriosis 101

Ep. 139: Preventing scarring, adhesions, and repeat endometriosis surgery, with Dr. Naomi Whittaker

Ep. 210: What to Look for in an Endometriosis Surgeon for a "One and Done" Surgery, with Dr. Patrick Yeung

Ep. 211: Bethany's "One & Done" Endo Surgery for RPL with RESTORE Endometriosis (Client Story)

Transcript

Caitlin Estes (00:24)

Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. You all know that some of my absolute favorite episodes are those where we get to hear from women that I've had the privilege of working with through Woven Natural Fertility Care. Every day I get to see the real transformation that fertility education and dignified women's healthcare can make in the lives of women. And so these episodes hopefully share just a glimpse of that with you too.

Today, I would love to introduce you to Jess, who began working with us at the end of last year to learn the Creighton model system as she and her husband were trying to conceive. Jess, welcome to the show.

Jess (01:03)

Thank you, Caitlin. It's a joy to be here.

 Caitlin Estes (01:05)

Would you like to share a little bit about yourself with our listeners before we jump into the deep stuff?

Jess (01:12)

yeah, so I'm Jess. I've been married to my incredible husband for 15 years now. we have two golden retrievers we love. And they are therapy dogs at our local hospital, like our children's hospital. And we've lived overseas for several years and enjoyed that.

And then we have a, two-year-old son, almost two-year-old son. And he is so precious and so jolly, and we adopted him at birth, which was a whole story in of itself of just showcasing God's love and beauty. And it's so special that we love him, but have struggled for many, many, many years to get pregnant.

Caitlin Estes (01:48)

Yeah that's right so like I mentioned it was the end of last year that we started working together so maybe give us an idea of what your reproductive journey had been like before then.

Jess (01:58)

A mess. It's a mess. I mean, I mean, it can start as early as 13 years old when I got my first period. And I remember my mom bought me a, you know, old school calendar that would go on the wall And I had little heart stickers and every day I bled, and I bled for two, three, sometimes four weeks out of the month. And I would bring it in with me to the gynecologist and of course she would hand me a pack of birth control pills. So I started my journey on hormonal birth control pills from 13 years old. There's a lot of shame around it because I wasn't sleeping around. Yeah I was on and I want anyone to know I was on these pills. They for my whole life pretty much these birth control pills would only be effective at stopping the bleeding for six, eight months maybe, and then I would break their bleed back to my regular schedule, I guess.

So eventually I came off of all of it when we got married and just bled all the time, but it just drive me crazy. You know, that many tampons and pads and...

much bleeding was so I was just beside myself is a lot so it's been a long journey and a lot of doctors haven't offered great resources

Caitlin Estes (02:59)

Mm-hmm. And then when you went to try to conceive, I'm sure that that's going to affect that process as well. 

Jess (03:14)

Yes, and I would do natural cycles and ovulation tests, but I just was bleeding all the time. And then I'm like, am I ovulating during my period somehow? Because I feel like I'd miss ovulation and And it's just, I don't know, it was all over the place.

It just really felt like I wasn't in control of understanding my body or even I felt like my body owned me in a sense. just, yeah, there's a lot of pain involved, a lot of ibuprofen throughout the years. I mean, was just, was gotten to where was pretty debilitating. So we, I think we've been trying for over five years and it's been a long, long hard journey with not a lot of answers. Yeah.

 Caitlin Estes (03:53)

Mm-hmm.

 Yeah speaking of answers what did your doctors say as you were trying to conceive what they recommend?

 Jess (04:04)

trying to conceive, I, yeah, hopped on a ride on over to fertility clinic in town. And so I did start that three years ago, maybe doing all the workups with them. And I just feel like there wasn't a desire to get answers as to why it wasn't. We jumped quickly into like check all the boxes to make sure there's nothing major happening, no genetic problems. And then we went right into IUI. the plan was there's always speculated endometriosis. Every doctor's kind of like, well, maybe it's endometriosis, but you never know unless you have surgery, but surgery was never offered. It was just kind of like a “but you don't want that option. Or they're gonna give you a hysterectomy or it'll come back anyway, so surgery's not worth it.” So it's always just kind of like probably this and then dismissed. So when I went to this fertility clinic, they're like, well, it might be endometriosis. You probably might need surgery, but let's do like three rounds of IUI. And if that doesn't take, we'll recommend you to an endometriosis surgeon and then we'll do three more rounds of IUI. We had made it clear from the beginning we weren't interested in going through to IVF. And so...

 This was just kind of like our options and then we'd probably pursue adoption again. So we, yeah, I did two rounds of IUI and it was rough because they, you know, gave you all the drugs and the trigger shots and everything. And then the first two cycles, I, it didn't work, but I also had a massive cyst that formed on my ovary afterwards.

 I only have one ovary. And so I would be on pelvic rest the month after the IUI cycle because we didn't want to risk rupturing this one ovary I had left. So that was hard. And so after two cycles of that and the fear of like, are they listening? they know what they're doing? You know, are we titrating or adjusting the medications at all? Is this too much stimulation to my one ovary?

 And the risk of the rupture, was like, I just don't feel like this is what my body needs. I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating. I think implantation's probably my bigger problem since I just bleed all the time. So yeah, my husband and had a lot of questions. We weren't getting answers at our clinic and that is when I kind of landed on your doorstep and was like, help me. I just, I'm a mess.

 Caitlin Estes (06:03)

I'm so glad you did. I'm so glad you did. And I feel like things started happening fairly quickly once we began working together.

 Jess (06:07)

Yeah, so much happened. It was very eye-opening for me we saw a lot of red, and you also encouraged me to document days I had pain. And if you would have asked me before, I started charting all of this, which I had charted. I had logged period symptoms and stuff throughout the years, but I never was very nuanced about the details of it. And so here I started logging pain, was it right side, left side, all over pain. And if you would have asked me before, charting, how often were you in pain, I would have said probably maybe like seven days out of the month. And that's probably the days where I'd chugged ibuprofen But after charting, was over 75 % of the days in the month I was in pain. And that for me was really eye-opening and sad because I had just realized how much I had gaslit myself into not listening to my body, into dismissing the pain, pushing through it, still trying to go through my everyday activities, still running, which I love to run, and I'd run through the pain. There were so many times I was on the side of the road, doubled over in pain, and just, it's part of being a woman, right? Like, we just all experienced this. So charting was the first time I was like, holy cow, there are so many Ps on this chart, and there's so much red. And I think I realized I need help. And there was, I mean, we found out, I have peak days, we found out that I do ovulate

 Caitlin Estes (07:20)

Yes.

 Jess (07:35)

And I did find out, you know, I start bleeding almost right after that. but the big takeaway for me was like, this is not, I can't keep going like this. I need answers.

 Caitlin Estes (07:43)

Yeah, there's something really powerful about having a formalized system. Like it's things that you've known for a long time, you've sensed, you knew something was off, but having a system that's actually used by medical professionals, so they can look at that same chart and go, this is what's going on. This is what we need to look into immediately. And that's what happened for you too. So did you see them? but three cycles into or was it earlier than that?

 Jess (08:11)

Three cycles in, yeah. And I think even doing the charting and talking with you and learning about this is like somewhat, like you guys actually look at the menstrual cycle and its health as a health indicator. Whereas the whole new world I had been exposed to with reproductive medicine and fertility just really looked, I don't actually know what they look at, reflecting back. It didn't seem like much, because you just, a positive pregnancy test is basically what they look at. No positive pregnancy test in all these years equals unexplained infertility, which is what I got labeled. And I I look back now and I'm like, there are two parallel worlds here. There's the world I entered into initially, where it's protocols, processes, and let's get the end result, doesn't care why, how, or what we get there, we're just gonna get there.

 I didn't end up getting an end result there. But, and then there's this other parallel world that's like, let's look at this from a holistic health perspective and let's look at what your body is doing and let's take a deep breath, let's analyze what we see and it's very data driven, but it's also very person driven and it was a beautiful, I felt like I just walked into this big garden of people who cared about me and my body and my goals and like sat down and I can take my chart to any of the professionals in the restorative reproductive world and they know what they're looking at and they care. If I take this chart to my former fertility clinic, they'd be like, well, you're ovulating, that's great, there's a period, all right, we're good, let's keep going. And it's like, but did you catch that I bleed two days after I ovulate? How on earth is anything supposed to implant in that kind of condition? yeah, it's just, I'm sad that I didn't get exposed to it sooner and I want every woman to know.

You can be empowered by your body to make decisions that are for your good and people care about that. There are healthcare professionals who care.

 Caitlin Estes (09:54)

Yes, absolutely beautifully said. I 100 % agree with everything that you've just said. And so you got some answers. You weren't told unexplained infertility. You actually got some answers. Do you mind sharing what a few of those were?

 Jess (10:13)

Yeah. So through this, you recommended a couple of awesome surgeons looked into him. The one that was kind of closest to me was Dr. Kongoasa in Atlanta out of the reproductive health medicine and gynecology clinic. And I cannot speak highly enough about that clinic. Dr. Kongoasa was amazing, compassionate. I did a phone consultation with him and he listened to my entire story and there was no gaslighting, there was no like, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of, it was very compassionate and very empathetic. And based on what I described in my history and what I've been experiencing, he thought I was a good candidate for endometriosis excision surgery. I was still skeptical because of all the years I've heard all of that advice about endosurgeries. And so I listened to his podcast episode with you and I did a deep dive into who is this man and what are his results and everything backed up that he wasn't just a really compassionate guy, but he did really great work too. So my surgery was scheduled for February 6th, which happened pretty quickly. And part of that too, is I experienced a miscarriage in January, which was shocking in a lot of ways because in our 15 years of marriage, I've never had a positive pregnancy test. And so that was my first positive pregnancy test. And also very heartbreaking though too, to lose the baby.

 Caitlin Estes (11:32)

Yes.

 Jess (11:33)

And Dr. Kongoasa and his team were very empathetic and compassionate and they had an opening and got me in and stuff. it was just, it was great timing. And so did the surgery. I was apprehensive still too, because, you know, I'd always had speculated endo. And one of my bigger fears is what if they don't find endo? Like what happens if I come out of surgery and they're like, actually you don't have it. And it's like, I feel like this whole world would crash down around me. just, that was the answer to everything it seemed like. And so I had this fear of like the what if. And so swallowed my pride and still said, you still owe it to yourself to get an answer. So had the surgery and woke up, which that's the weirdest surgery because you're like, it's exploratory. You don't know what you're going to wake up to. So I woke up, but they ended up needing to take out my appendix. Now I had been to the emergency room twice in the past for severe right lower abdominal pain thinking it was appendicitis and CT scan showed that it looked fine and so I was told to follow up with primary and you know over the years it resulted in like oh we don't have a right ovary and there were questions but what is this pain that I'm still experiencing on the right side? Well Dr. Kongoasa found out that my right fallopian tube (I don't have a right ovary, possibly since birth, we don't know what happened), but my right fallopian tube had wrapped itself around my appendix and they'd plastered themselves to the side of my pelvic wall and my appendix was stressed beyond belief and releasing sludge, which was backflowing into my fallopian tube, into my uterus. My uterus was filled with polyps and basically said nothing could grow in that uterus except polyps. It was so just riddled with infection. So I started antibiotics to get rid of everything that was happening there. So they took out the fallopian tube, they took out the appendix, removed scar tissue and adhesions from all over my pelvis and bladder and bowels, cleaned it all up and did some PRP, like some platelet-rich plasma to my left ovary there and stitched me up and it's like, hey, you know, from a surgical perspective, you look good now. You were a mess, but you look good now. And he was hopeful.

 Caitlin Estes (13:44)

Hmm. And just think, how many years were you told unexplained infertility? We don't know why it's not happening. Everything looks good. Like there was so much going on, so much going on. And really your body was giving you all the signs and symptoms from years past that something was not right, but everyone was telling you to ignore it.

 Jess (13:56)

Yeah.

 Caitlin Estes (14:12)

when you finally were given the encouragement to say, no, this matters, how you feel matters, it's valid, and actually it's providing us helpful information to get to the bottom of it, then you were able to experience this profound healing, which we often think is impossible, but it is.

 Jess (14:33)

Yeah. And just the validation too of waking up and like, my gosh, I did have pain there. my gosh. My pelvis was struggling and I've been running on it. I've been pushing it. I've been mad at it and it needed help. And I just ignored it for all these years. And yeah, it was humbling. I wish I would have done this sooner. God's timing is perfect, but, just felt yeah, humbled and empowered.

 Caitlin Estes (14:59)

Absolutely. You feeling better, your improved quality of life is always the goal. That's how we want women to feel. What's what we want them to gain from this is a healed relationship with their body, honestly, and a healed body as much as possible. Now a secondary goal, but just as important is to be able to conceive if that's the Lord's will for you and if that's your intention as a couple.

 Where do things stand there?

 Jess (15:27)

Well, we went ahead and tried the next round we were able to like after healing from surgery and we're surprised to actually get pregnant right away. And so I'm now almost 12 weeks pregnant, almost out of the first trimester. it's been a wild year so far because we experienced the miscarriage in January, had surgery quickly after and then to get pregnant, there was a lot, there was a lot of apprehension at first and a lot of like, okay, where are we at? How is this gonna go? And I'm just so grateful because like RHM like the clinic in Atlanta, reached out to them and was like, hey, I have a positive pregnancy test. I wanna be excited.

 Obviously there's fear and apprehension and they just met me right there with grace and compassion and immediately ordered labs and they didn't just, you know, ordered the HCG lab and they ordered a progesterone, they ordered estradiol and they had intervention plans because historically my progesterone has been low. Not something my fertility clinic really picked up on and did, which is still very surprising to me. And so they have been awesome to supplement progesterone and test my labs every single week up to this point to make sure that we held this pregnancy. And one of the things they're really valued was this baby inside of me. It wasn't a chemical process. wasn't, if you lose it, it's because of, you know, genetic things happened. It was this child were fighting for it. And so there were so many message conversations. There were so many symptom checks. They, you know,

I wasn't sleeping the first few weeks I found out I was pregnant and they took that very seriously and didn't just dismiss it as a pregnancy symptom. And I just, the tender compassion and support that they'd offered was, I've never seen that before. And I just felt so held by them.

 Caitlin Estes (17:09)

And congratulations, we are all so excited and celebrating with you

 And there's been so much to your story that you shared. We could probably talk for an hour about all the little details and I hate that the listeners aren't getting to hear about some of those other things, but I am thinking about the listeners and wondering what advice or encouragement would you have for other women who may be in the same situation or similar situation to you even six months ago, what would you say to them?

 Jess (17:38)

You are worth it. You are so worth the investment in your health too. Take the time, the resources, the initiative to get answers. And so much of what we experience in this world is a lot of question marks and we'll never know kind of, or the unexplained infertility world loves to get thrown around. I just, think it's terrible. I think we as women deserve better. And like, I hate that I did that to myself. And gaslit myself for so many years and just, you know, push through, you got this, be strong. I wish, I wish I would have listened to my body sooner and I wish I would have been more tender and compassionate to it and advocated more for it and so my encouragement would be advocate for yourself you're worth it you're so worth it and your body will thank you

 Caitlin Estes (18:25)

Absolutely. so much for being on the show and for sharing your story, Jess. We appreciate it.

 Jess (18:30)

Thank you for making space to empower other women to be able to advocate for their health.

 Caitlin Estes (18:34)

Listeners, I'm so glad to get to hear stories like this with you all. The reason we are so passionate about our work is that we see the massive impact that empowering information and dignified women's healthcare can have in the lives of women. We believe that every woman deserves to understand the beautiful intentional design of her body because God designed it for our good and for his glory. And once you understand that,

 It transforms everything, your approach to healthcare, family planning, fertility treatments, and your own relationship with your body. We talk about this and so much more in the new book, Woven Well, A Christian Woman's Guide to Reproductive Health, Fertility, and Wholeness, which actually came out just in the last few weeks.

 And that means that if you order it right now, you actually get it in your hands within what a day, depending on where you order it from. And I'm going to be leading several events over the next few months. So be sure to check the show notes to see if I'll be in an area near you or invite me to be in an area near you. They can do that too. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.