This Memorial Day

Sorry so long, but bear with me. My health has really gone downhill. . .especially within the last 5-6 years. I have been diagnosed with migraines, restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, Sjogrens, insomnia, hypothyroidism, depression, anxiety, tachycardia, kidney stones, chronic fatigue, Raynaud's, insulin resistance, biliary dyskinesia, leaky mitral valve. . .to name a few. Drs have just thrown more meds at me and then I don't know what is a symptom and what is a med side effect. I have been searching for an underlying issue for years that has possibly caused or contributed to all of these. The problem is that one specialist doesn't care about your other issues. . .even if they could be related.

I started seeing a new primary care doctor last year and she is phenomenal! She ran some tests and found that my progesterone is extremely low and probably has been for many, many years. This can cause migraines, insomnia, inflammation and problems with your thyroid and gallbladder. It can even lead to autoimmune issues. When estrogen is unbalanced with progesterone, you develop estrogen dominance which can cause weight gain, fatigue, restless legs, etc. My body also does a poor job of clearing estrogen and testosterone causing them to build up and become toxic. With chronic stress, your body starts making cortisol in place of progesterone. I recently started on bioidentical progesterone and I feel like a new person. It has been a miracle for me and within weeks I lost almost 8 lbs. I'm optimistic that I will continue to feel better as time goes on.

So, why am I telling you this?? Two reasons. . . 1) This info might help someone else and end years of your struggling with multiple health issues. 2) This info has answered a question that I have asked for 12+ years . . . Why did I give birth at 23 weeks? With my first pregnancy, we did fertility treatments and each cycle they always started you on progesterone and if you didn't get pregnant, you would stop it. If you did, you would continue the progesterone. It is needed to help maintain a pregnancy. When I was around 18 weeks pregnant with twins, my OBGYN told me to stop the progesterone. I questioned it and asked if I needed to make sure my levels were okay first. He said something about how progesterone is no longer produced in the ovaries and production is taken over by the placenta. So I stopped it. A few weeks later, I began to bleed and. . .well, you know the rest. They always believed the cause of my premature labor was most likely an incompetent cervix, although they said with that, most people miscarry by 16 weeks. How did I go to 23 weeks. . . with twins? Well, lack of progesterone causes the cervix to shorten and the pregnancy cannot be maintained. If I had stayed on the progesterone. . . . . .Olivia most likely wouldn't have to deal with the effects of her early birth and I would still have my son. That is a tough one to swallow.

I suspicioned that progesterone may have been a problem when I surprisingly got pregnant in 2011. I wasn't on progesterone because I didn't do fertility treatments and I miscarried at 8 weeks. So, the next year when I found out I was again pregnant (with Abigail) I called my dr and demanded to be started on progesterone that day. I later switched to progesterone shots for the rest of the pregnancy and made it to 35 weeks. Knowing what I know now. . . I am pretty certain that progesterone made all the difference and it NEVER should have been stopped mid pregnancy. I know I couldn't have been expected to know that, but I strongly feel my doctor should have. I knew that progesterone was a problem in my pregnancies, but I didn't realize that I had most likely been chronically deficient for years.

This Memorial Day, I remember my son, Logan. It is hard to think that something as simple as taking progesterone could have prolonged my pregnancy and saved his life. But, as Olivia reminded me. . . It is truly not what caused them to come early. It was simply a part of God's plan. I don't really have to understand or know why. I just have to trust that everything goes along with God's perfect timing. And I trust His plan for my life and not my own. I am also reminded how blessed I am to have Olivia and Abigail. Thank you to my friends and family for reading my entirely too long post and for all the love and support you have shown me through the years.