An FDN Fertility Journey: Cesar’s Perspective
Hi friends!
It’s with great joy that I get to share the story of Dayna and Cesar M, who graciously allowed me to post their fertility journey. This is a three-week saga, with dad Cesar sharing his side of the story first and mom Dayna following with her words next week. In week three, I’ll be writing about the specific steps we took to work on Dayna’s fertility.
As you’ll see from the letter, all glory goes to the Lord, who opens and closes the womb. God is faithful and desires to give good gifts to His children, but His plans are in His own timing, not ours. We can work on setting the stage for optimal health, but ultimately we control nothing. While that thought can be frustrating, it’s also freeing. I got to observe the strong faith of Cesar and Dayna over our long months of work together. They encouraged me in my own faith.
This past week, I had the joy of actually sitting down with Dayna and holding baby Jonathan Jace as he slept peacefully in my arms. His birth was easy and smooth, and Dayna is already recovering quite well. She attributes much of this to the D.R.E.S.S. principles she has been practicing for almost two years.
Our FDN is not magic. It’s a lot of common sense. We help clients remove hidden stressors, optimize hormones and digestion, and nourish their bodies.
Hope for Infertility
This past year, there were five women who came to work with me with the hope of getting pregnant after one or multiple miscarriages. By God’s grace, four out of five of those women were able to conceive and give birth to a healthy baby on the first try.
When I think of the time, money, heartache, pain, and hope that goes into in vitro fertilization and other fertility measures, my mama heart hurts. Beau and I have experienced the heartbreak of miscarriage ourselves, and I remember feeling like that awful pain would never go away.
Yet in vitro work seems to be a bandaid. If a mama is not healthy and a baby is not healthy, it makes sense that God would close the womb in order to protect the woman and the child from current and future health problems. I know many women have invested so much of their life into in vitro, and this is not a knock against them, the doctors, or the process. It’s simply an observation that, given the right circumstances of healing, the body can do its amazing work of conceiving and bearing a healthy baby all on its own.
If you or someone you love is trying to get pregnant and experiencing the heartache of multiple miscarriages, I would encourage you to look into working on the root cause issues that are contributing to infertility. This is something I do regularly in my practice. It’s not cheap, and it’s not easy. But it’s effective and empowering to learn enough Body Literacy in order to take charge of your own fertility.
That’s what Dayna and Cesar did, along with many other families in my practice. I’ll let you hear the rest of the story first from Cesar this week, and then from Dayna next week. I’m so grateful to this amazing couple for taking the time to write out and share their journey.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Cesar’s Story
Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Cesar Menjivar and I am married to my beautiful wife and best friend Dayna. We have five wonderful children and have always hoped that God would continue growing our little family. In July of 2019 it looked like our desire was becoming a reality when we realized we were pregnant, however, things didn’t go as we had hoped. At seven weeks we lost our little Peanut in miscarriage. We were devastated! Up to this point conceptions had been consistent, pregnancies had been relatively uncomplicated, and deliveries were quick for all of our babies. So what happened? What went wrong? We were left with a lot of heartache, a lot of questions but very little answers. As God fearing Christians, we clung to the sovereignty of God and consoled ourselves with the not so comforting words of ‘this happens to women all the time’. To be quite honest, the only thing that really lifted our spirits was the news that we had conceived again.
We were ecstatic! It was hard trying to contain our excitement, but we vowed not to tell anyone until we got past the first trimester. We had just made the announcement to family when tragedy hit us again at 13 weeks. This one hurt worse than the first as our little Mac was further along and we delivered the babe at home. I was absolutely devastated and yet I knew I needed to be strong for my wife. I buried my feelings and became deathly afraid of trying to have any more children. As my wife and I were grieving, we decided that we should talk to a doctor. Perhaps there was something that was out of alignment or missing. Unfortunately we were getting nowhere. Thankfully our doctor agreed to run a female hormone panel and the results were quite shocking! My wife’s hormones were strikingly low. It was amazing that she was even functioning at all let alone trying to house a baby. The goal was apparent. Get Dayna back to good health and start by dialing in her hormones. But we didn’t know where to start. That is when our good friend suggested that Dayna reach out to Jen.
Jennifer listened with genuine care as my wife explained the situation. She reviewed my wife’s test results and came up with a personalized plan for her to follow. She also shared with her the DRESS code; Diet, Rest, Exercise, Stress relief, and Supplements. Dayna thought the only area of her life that was negatively affected by depleted hormones was her ability to carry a child to full term; she quickly realized that it was much deeper than that. The hormone imbalances were keeping my wife from sleeping well, contributing to menstrual cycle complications, and increasing her anxiety. She also lacked energy which negatively affected her ability to disciple our children. Within 3 months we were able to see some good changes in my wife’s health. After 6 months of working with Jen, my wife got retested and found that her hormone levels were higher but still low overall. Jen would remind her that patience would prove its value, however, my wife struggled with the timeline.
My wife mentioned to me that she was thankful for the slight improvements but that she was discouraged that there was not more progress. It was evident that Jenn was very attentive to my wife’s concerns but that my wife had to make a decision. Was she or was she not going to be attentive to Jen’s recommendations? Don’t get me wrong, my wife was implementing some of what was recommended but not all. She was conveniently avoiding the Rest and Stress relief parts of the DRESS code and she was not trusting in the supplement dosage recommendations. When Dayna decided to follow the plan that was outlined for her, and after finding some encouragement in the RESET courses, she really began to take off!
It was amazing watching my wife’s health improve. She prioritized a bed time routine, made sure to take leisure time, and implemented supplement changes that radically helped her energy levels. But this was not easy all the time. This was work. Years of bad habits had made resting a daunting task but she persevered.
Jen helped my wife break down walls that were contributing to her poor health. The DRESS code moved from being a list of duties to a lifestyle change and our whole family was benefitting from it. This was the goal. Get Dayna healthy on the inside so that she could be in the best condition to serve God and her family. Of course, in our hearts we longed to have an opportunity to carry a baby full term again but that would be more of a sweet cherry on a large ice cream sundae. Well, apparently, God wanted to satisfy our sweet tooth. We are proud to announce that Jonathan Jace Menjivar has joined our family and mom is in the best shape of her life!
Jenn would tell my wife that we don’t ever “arrive” on our health journey, but that we are all just trying to continue moving forward. My wife’s hormones are not perfect, but they are a whole lot healthier than what they used to be and my wife is a whole lot happier as well! We are so thankful for the way God has used Jenn to help my wife and so many other women improve their health and service to their families by living a balanced life.
