Ep. 83: Client Story-Katie Caroline (postpartum)
Caitlin:
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. I believe that a part of empowering and educating women is connecting them with other women who are on the same journey. That's why we have episodes devoted to hearing the fertility journey of a woman who is a part of Woven. Whatever your situation or fertility goal, the fertility journey can sometimes feel isolating, but I assure you that there is a whole community out there asking the same questions you are. Today's guest is Katie Caroline. She's been married to her husband Murphy for five years. They have two sons and another child on the way. And I began working with Katie Caroline after the birth of her second son when she was wanting to avoid pregnancy during the sometimes confusing postpartum stage. So Katie Caroline, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
Katie Caroline:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here
Caitlin:
And I am thrilled that you're going to share because I know that this postpartum stage is a big deal for a lot of women. It feels overwhelming, it feels confusing. So I'm excited to talk about that with you. But why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself and your family so we can get to know you a little bit.
Katie Caroline:
Yeah. My husband Murphy and I, we met while we were both in college at Auburn. We actually got married while I was still in school at Auburn. I was completing my senior year, so we were pretty young.
Caitlin:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Katie Caroline:
Yes. Like you said, we've been married a little bit over five years now. We've got two little boys that I stay at home with. They keep me very busy. Hal, who is, yeah, three and a half and Thompson is 21 months and we have another sweet little boy coming in a couple of weeks. So we're on the countdown. We're getting excited and ready to meet him. A little bit more about us as we are really close with our family on both sides, our extended family, and we have a real close knit group of friends too. So community's really important to us. We are really thankful to have such a great group of family and friends that we spend a lot of our time with. We love to be outside. We go to the beach in the lake a lot riding bikes in our neighborhood, just playing in the yard. Pretty much any free time we have, we spend it outside.
Caitlin:
I think that's fantastic. And I would imagine with two young sons and another one coming that they love that outside time too.
Katie Caroline:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Caitlin:
Probably makes a big difference.
Katie Caroline:
It does. You gotta get the energy out.
Caitlin:
Exactly. So I'm curious, what made you initially interested in using the Creighton system? What drew you to that?
Katie Caroline:
Well, as I mentioned before, Murphy and I got married when I was still a student at Auburn. So we did not think it was the right time then to start our family, although we were both really excited about having children and really looking forward to it. We knew that we needed to avoid pregnancy for a little while in the beginning of our marriage. So I got on birth control a couple of months before we got married. Really, I didn't know much about birth control. I just figured it's what you do. If you want to avoid pregnancy, that's really the only option. So I stayed on birth control about a year, and I graduated and we decided it was time to start our family. And I quickly became pregnant with our first little boy, Hal; we were so excited and just thrilled. So fast forward to Hal was born, and I got back on birth control postpartum, but this time was not as smooth.
Katie Caroline:
I did not feel like myself at all. Postpartum is hard anyway, but it was a lot worse being on birth control now that I've had two experiences with postpartum. So I didn't feel myself, I, it even hurt my milk supply after some trial and error. I figured that out too. So anyway, because of those negative side effects with birth control postpartum, I stopped taking it and we weren't really ready for another baby yet. Hal was still really small. And so we did our best with our very limited knowledge of my cycle and fertility to avoid pregnancy a couple more months. And then we found out we were pregnant with our second little boy Thompson. And again, we're just so thrilled and so excited. So during my pregnancy with Thompson, I started to read more about birth control for really the first time because of my negative experience with it postpartum the first time thinking: you know, next time after I have Thompson I wanted to probably do something different or, or think about doing something different. Sure. So I started reading about birth control for the first time, and I quickly realized that even aside from the negative physical side effects that I had with birth control and that other people have with birth control, it really didn't align with my beliefs about children, about the sanctity of life. And Murphy and I both felt a really strong conviction that I would not use it again. So we knew we weren't going to use birth control again, but we still didn't really know what we would do for family planning in the future. So I was looking at other options, different apps and things like that. And just the more I started thinking about this, like I said, I'd never really thought about birth control before until now.
Katie Caroline:
So yeah, the more I started thinking about it and researching it, I started like having questions come up in my mind, like, how is it best for us to family plan? And are we viewing children and our family in light of what God's word says? And are we truly submitting all our ways to him and really letting him be present in that process? Because God gives us a level of participation, of course, but he's sovereign overall and we need to recognize that we felt like, and we really hadn't thought about it much when I was on birth control before. So all these questions were coming up. I was learning more about birth control, and it kind of set up for me to see a post on Instagram from woven talking about the Creighton system. And so I immediately was interested. I started reading all about it online, and I showed it to Murphy and we both felt like it was exactly what we had been looking for. And I can definitely say now, after doing it, it was exactly what we were looking for. And I, I do think that it was the Lord's provision that he just kind of led me up to that point of seeing the post. And it was the perfect timing and we've just been so thankful for the Creighton system. It's been, it's been a wonderful tool that we've been able to use.
Caitlin:
Hmm. I'm so glad to hear that. And I am just so grateful that you had that space to think about birth control for the first time. So you said, you know, you were never really given any other options. You sort of assume birth control. Was it you could take hormonal contraception or you could get pregnant. You thought those were your only options. I think a lot of women feel exactly like you did that, that's it. They don't know about anything else. But you all really took the time to start looking into that, digging a little bit further and asking those hard questions. And it sounds like you found a lot more than you originally planned or thought you would discover as you were looking into it. Yes. One of the things that really stood out to me was the fact that you said that as you started investigating it, you really started discovering so much more information and had to also think about for yourselves, how do we view children?
Caitlin:
How do we view children within our marriage, within the world? What is our perspective on this? And does that perspective come from God and what God's given us? Or is it coming from somewhere else? Right. Because it doesn't matter what the other place is. Is it somewhere else or is it from God? That to me is a powerful question just to ask. And the fact that you all were open to that and you were intentionally asking that, seeking God and trying to find the answer to that I think is powerful and beautiful. And I'm so glad that you had that opportunity for the first time. You know, you mentioned when you're on birth control, you don't have to think about these things. But thinking about these things, thinking about God's presence and participation in our fertility is a gift.
Katie Caroline:
Absolutely.
Caitlin:
Any opportunity to see God's presence in our lives is only going to be a good thing. It's not a hassle. It's a blessing, and so I, I love that you shared that. I love that that was your experience. And I think there are going to be a lot of other ladies out there who find themselves at some point along that journey who are listening, whether they're still taking birth control, whether they're off of it, and asking some of those questions for the first time, or really diving into where is it that we're getting our answers from? Is it from God? Is it from somewhere else? So anyway, thank you for sharing all that and just being really open about it.
Katie Caroline:
Yeah, absolutely.
Caitlin:
So obviously when you started Creighton, you were using it postpartum specifically. That is a very unique time in a woman's life. And so I think a lot of people feel intimidated about using a natural system postpartum. But I'd love to hear from you, what was it like using Creighton during that postpartum stage?
Katie Caroline:
Yeah. So I, like you said, I started out using Creighton postpartum, so I was learning the system and learning how to chart all before my cycle came back. Which I think was a great time to learn because I had time, I had time to notice patterns in my cycle. And like you said, learn how to chart and all that was happening before my first cycle even took place. I mean, I was learning so much and already loving it right off the bat. I, I mean, like, I had never known even close. I really didn't know much at all about a woman's body and my cycle. So I was loving that. I was able to already see patterns before I even had my period again. And also it was so cool because I could see when I was ovulating again before my first period, which was just really neat. And also, of course, helpful when you're using it for family planning.
Caitlin:
Absolutely.
Katie Caroline:
Yeah. And with me having an experience using birth control postpartum and using Creighton postpartum, it was night and day different. I felt so much better because Creighton wasn't messing with my body's natural process at all. It was just giving me knowledge. So I knew about the changes my body was going through. I could see the patterns, I could see the lead up to when my cycle came back. It was all just, it was a great learning experience. And like I said, I felt better because my hormones were not being messed with like they were with birth control. Yeah. And also just the knowledge it gave Murphy and I about my cycle, allowed us to talk to each other, like we were kind of saying before and be prayerful each month about what is God calling our family to do this month. And we were quickly able to see how accurate and reliable the Creighton system was.
Katie Caroline:
And it was just a whole new wealth of knowledge that we did not have before, and because I was breastfeeding Thompson, my second little boy, and my cycle didn't come back until sometime around one year postpartum when I weaned him. So after about two or three cycles of avoiding pregnancy, we decided it was time to grow our family. We were excited about that. And then we were able to look at my chart and use it for that, use it to achieve pregnancy. And we found out that we were pregnant with our third little boy, which is the baby that we're getting ready to meet really soon now. And so we're just so thrilled and just so thankful that Creighton has been this wonderful tool that we can use as we grow spiritually and discern what God's planned for our family. And I'm definitely looking forward to using Creighton after this baby too in the postpartum season because I have a confidence in the system and I just have a peace about it that I did not have using birth control. And that is just huge. It really is to me. And so I've, I'm just so thankful
Caitlin:
That's right. That peace that comes with it is priceless. It's a totally different experience. And like you said, it's a different approach to even how we think about our body, how we use our body, what we think about our relationship with it. It's so much more open and like accepting and loving of ourselves. You know, what the good that God has done in creating our bodies and what it does every month and every cycle. I talk a lot about, we want you to be able to use this system throughout all your reproductive stages of life. So if you're avoiding pregnancy, if you're wanting to conceive a pregnancy, if you're postpartum, if you are coming off of hormonal contraception, if you are premenopausal, you know, like whatever stage of life we want to give you these tools to use Creighton, and then you can use them throughout.
Caitlin:
You are a beautiful example of that because already you've used this during postpartum, you've used it to avoid pregnancy, and now you're using, or now you used it to conceive a pregnancy. And then you're preparing to use it postpartum again. So you're a great example of that and how it can be beneficial in lots of different seasons of life after you learn it once. So, I'm glad about that, and I think personally, there are a lot of benefits to using Creighton. I could, I could do a whole episode about all the different benefits, but I love to hear from clients themselves what they feel like the greatest benefits of using Creighton have been for them. So what are some of those benefits that you've had with Creighton?
Katie Caroline:
The knowledge it has given me about my body and how it works has been a huge benefit. I can look at my chart and I can see what's going on with my hormones and notice so many patterns I would've absolutely not noticed before. So especially during postpartum. I mean, my body's going through so many hormonal shifts and I can see the patterns and I can see what's going on. So that's been a huge benefit. Just understanding my body for overall health. But even more than that probably, or definitely even more than that, it requires Murphy and I to be in constant communication with one another as well as being prayerful and inviting God into that. Because like I say, inviting God into that. But like I said before, he's sovereign overall. He gives us a little bit of, of participation, but we, he's sovereign overall.
Katie Caroline:
So just recognizing that and unlike birth control, which was preventing pregnancy in an unnatural way and not requiring much thought on our end at all, Creighton isn't preventing my body from doing anything that it's naturally designed to do. Anything that God's designed my body to do is going to do. Creighton's just giving me the knowledge about what's going on, about the process. And we are able to use that knowledge, Murphy and I, in our decision making, and in our case, we want to use that knowledge to glorify God and be obedient to him. And so Creighton is a tool that we can use to do that, and that's been just the biggest benefit of it for us for sure.
Caitlin:
Wow. That is like moving me to hear you say that in that way, because that is my prayer for every couple that uses this system, that it would be an invitation to them to glorify God in a new way and to have that new level of relationship with God that they would trust even this precious, vulnerable, incredibly important area of their lives to God who is good. And so for you to say all that, it, it really moves me. So I, I appreciate you sharing that, and I'm so grateful that that has been your experience. I think there are going to be women who listen to this and think, oh, we'd have to talk about it all the time. It would be this thing hanging over us. And I would love to just hear from you for a second. Is that your experience or what is that constant communication like for you all?
Katie Caroline:
It's definitely been a great experience. It's been only added to our marriage. Definitely not taken away. It's not something that's dreaded. It's very natural. That's the beauty of it. And that's, like Creighton, the way the system is set up is just to keep you in constant communication. You're both looking at the chart, you're both participating in it. And to me, it's just a beautiful picture of what God did design marriage to be like. When you get married, you are, you become one. And so for, to be in this process with me has, like I said, only added to our marriage. We are able to be honest with one another and, and it makes it to where it's part of our routine. Like it's just intertwined into our life. Like to, to do this system and to talk about it and to stay in communication. It
Caitlin:
Sounds like you are sharing this responsibility instead of it being one person or the other. So yes, thank you for just being on today, being willing to share your story and your experience. I appreciate it so much.
Katie Caroline:
Absolutely. Thank you so much again for having me on.
Caitlin:
I have enjoyed it. I really have. Now, listeners, our woven community is made up of some pretty incredible people. We ask honest questions about our fertility and our faith, just like Katie Caroline, and Murphy. We believe that our bodies were made with beauty and with purpose, that we were intimately designed and loved by our creator. And that fertility plays a really meaningful role in our lives. And we believe that this matters for all of us, regardless of our marital status or pregnancy intentions. It matters for everyone. So I would love for you to be a part of that community. Our website wovenfertility.com has tons of free resources and a way to sign up for our newsletter. That's a great way to hear from me and woven once a month. But if you're feeling ready to get started and use Creighton for your family planning, like Katie Caroline has, then I want to invite you to our next introductory session. This is the perfect way to learn more and get started with the Creighton system. You can decide from there. Do you want to do it? Okay. So it's great to just attend, listen, see, learn more about it, and you can decide from there. So you can register at wovenfertility.com/joinus, or click on the link in the show notes. As always, thanks so much for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.