If you’ve ever felt like your body was working against you, or like you were doing everything “right” and still not getting the results you wanted, then Kristen’s story is going to speak straight to your heart.

Kristen is a sign language interpreter from central Minnesota, a dog mom, a wife, and at the time of this interview, a very-soon-to-be mama. In this podcast episode, she shares her testimony: a story that winds through twelve years on hormonal birth control, a Hashimoto’s diagnosis that almost got dismissed, low progesterone, months of trying to conceive, and ultimately… a baby on the way and a faith that grew deeper through all of it.

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Twelve Years on the Pill

Kristen started hormonal birth control at 17, mainly for acne. Not irregular cycles. Not painful periods. Just acne. And for the next 12 years, she took it without fully understanding what it was doing inside her body.

“I didn’t understand that it basically put me in a menopause,” she shared. “I had no idea.”

Looking back, she can see the emotional toll it likely took. But the real wake-up call came when a doctor ran a full thyroid panel (something most doctors won’t do) and her antibodies came back really high. When the doctor finally got back to her, the response was: “You’re not having any symptoms, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Kristen didn’t even respond. She just knew: that wasn’t good enough.

She found a functional medicine practitioner who, at the very first visit, confirmed what Kristen had suspected: yes, this is Hashimoto’s. And all of her other labs were just slightly out of optimal range. She wasn’t crazy or overreacting. She was right!

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Coming Off Birth Control

After about 12 years, Kristen stopped hormonal birth control. Surprisingly, her cycle came back fairly quickly and regularly. But there was a lot of spotting right before her period would start.

She didn’t have an official fertility awareness method yet, but she was tracking everything she could on her own, piecing it together through research. And what she kept finding pointed to low progesterone.

She and her husband gave her body a couple of months to regulate, then officially started trying to conceive in May 2024. Three or four months in, when it still hadn’t happened, she says the weight of it started to feel different.

“When it actually starts taking time,” she said, “it starts to just actually weigh on you a little bit differently.”

That fall, she found the For the Love of Hormones podcast. Kristen heard Bekah on another show talking about hormones, went and binged the whole thing, joined the Facebook group, and not long after, enrolled in Fertility Framework.

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What Changed Inside Fertility Framework

Kristen already had a lot of practical knowledge going in. But she’ll be the first to tell you: the heart work was what was missing.

“I was really starting to get bogged down,” she said. “Month after month of not getting pregnant and knowing that things were not getting better as quick as I wanted them to.”

Her favorite part of the program? The spiritual component. Studying women in the Bible who walked through infertility. Learning from their stories. Asking herself: how can I emulate these women? How do I walk the narrow path? How do I loosen my grip?

She loved learning the Fertility Education & Medical Management (FEMM) method and finally having an evidence-based framework to understand what her hormones were actually doing, not just suspecting. And the practical pieces: cycle syncing, easy-to-implement daily habits, and a gut cleanse and Whole30 that helped reduce inflammation even before she got her positive test.

One moment that really stuck with her came from a group coaching call. A fellow student said something that hit Kristen right in the chest: “It doesn’t matter if I take the supplement or if I don’t… ultimately God has to do it.” The physical matters. But it’s not the whole story.

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The Positive Test That Followed

Kristen and her husband made a decision to take three months off from trying. Their minds needed the break and their hearts needed to rest.

Around that time, Bekah asked Kristen to write out an affirmation, something rooted in Scripture, something about what it would look like to trust God even if the journey took years. Kristen wrote it. She sat with it. She let it change something in her.

Less than a month later, she got her first ever positive pregnancy test.

“It was quite shocking,” she laughed. “My progesterone was so tanked that I never even made it to ‘oh, you might be pregnant.’ I would just start spotting and start a period.”

She also had the support of a NaPro doctor, bioidentical progesterone, thorough labs, and a care team that didn’t mess around. The combination of everything she had been building over the past year, plus that final push, was exactly what her body needed.

“I can look back and see that it was all in God’s timing,” she said quietly.

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Pregnancy, Surrender, and a Baby Coming Home

Kristen’s pregnancy has been, in her words, a blessing. A fairly easy first trimester, some manageable nausea around weeks seven and eight, peppermint oil and ginger candy, early bedtimes, and then that glorious second trimester energy boost. She’s due in March.

She’s planning a home birth with a certified nurse midwife, a doula, and a full support team. She’s also been working through the Intentional Birth childbirth course, writing out birth plans for every scenario (home birth, hospital transfer, induction, C-section) because she knows she can’t control the river, but she can prepare for whatever bends might come.

“I feel much more excited than nervous,” she shared. “I believe that God designed my body perfectly to give birth. And not only do I believe it… my husband believes it, my doula believes it, my midwife team believes it.”

That kind of support? It makes all the difference when you’re walking into something that feels big and unknown!

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Kristen’s Words of Wisdom for You

If you’re in the thick of it right now here’s what Kristen wants you to hear:

“Look into your progesterone, ladies. That is such a big factor for so many women trying to conceive.”

And beyond the practical: find someone to walk with you. Because hormones and fertility are complicated and discouraging and you were not meant to figure it out alone.

“It’s worth every single penny,” she said. “Not only do you walk away with practical knowledge, you walk away with spiritual knowledge you can apply to so many other areas of your life.”

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You’re on a River, Friend

God is way up high above that river. He knows where it’s going, how fast and slow it moves, where the hard parts are, and where the unexpected waterfalls show up. We don’t get to see what’s around the corner, but we can trust that He knows, and that He is with us.

Kristen’s story is proof of that. 

God didn’t waste any of it.

He won’t waste yours either.

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