I remember after eating my breakfast of cereal and a big glass of milk, keeling over in abdominal pain and then having to run to the
bathroom to relieve myself. It seemed like I never felt relief. You know
I counted how many bowel movements I’d have in a day and it turned
out to be 38 movements, which included getting up eight times a night.
I was exhausted all the time, obviously from lack of sleep but also no
nutrients getting into my system.
In the beginning, I also didn’t get any support from my family. I was
called a liar by a specific family member, who then told everyone that
he never said that. And my family followed suit treating me as if
I was just being a drama queen. I was depressed and I was alone in my journey to wellness.
It took many years before I decided to stop beating
myself up and start working on my own health instead of feeling so sorry for myself. At age 24 my specialist and doctor had me on eight different
medications. One for the Crohn’s and the others were for all the side effects that were brought on by the previous medication. It was then that I said “no more”, the medications were worse than the illness.
When I was 32 years old I chose to start looking towards people who actually loved me. It was then, in 2002, my gastroenterologist stated that my Crohn’s had disappeared. I still suffered with cramps, many loose stools, and the myriad of discomfort that is Crohn’s disease, but
I had no label to put on it anymore.
I decided to quit smoking, start exercising. I started jogging to replace my cigarette habit, and people were stupefied that I would
choose something that’s so hard on the lungs. But I felt it was the same pain so why not. My life was improving slowly but surely and at 35-years
old I finally met someone who loved me for me, anxiety and all.
We got married late, when I was already 37 years old. I had always wanted to have children and I couldn’t see my life without having the big Christmases with too many kids opening gifts and fighting over who got what. I dreamed of being able to parent my children with empathy and self empowerment.
We tried for three years, like clockwork. Each month while I was
ovulating we’d do the deed. As expected, sex became monotonous, but the pressure of trying to have a child and one never coming for us was more than devastating. Our relationship was suffering, our intimacy was suffering and I was getting older and older.
We found ourselves at the fertility clinic right after I turned 40, and we were told numerous reasons why we weren’t conceiving. Aside now from
being old as a female, Crohn’s disease is a major contributing factor for
infertility. I always knew that I may not have children, but I still couldn’t
see my life without them.
It was right after I turned 42 years that we were finally able to do our first in-vitro fertilization (better known as IVF). Needless to say, it did
not work. We found out that we had produced only three embryos and
t hey were of extremely poor quality. Only one of them looked as if it
might have a chance, but I was already 42 and reproductive health just
doesn’t get better. I just did not want to give up.
We decided to try again. That was when I started reading every
book I could on increasing fertility. If I really wanted to have a family I had no choice but to jump full in. All the books I read had one common thread. It was nutrition. I got rid of the bad chemicals not meant for my body, added whole foods, stayed away from refined foods, then tried superfoods to enhance hormones, and more — I did it all.
I signed up at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and I studied hard as we continued with our next IVF treatment.
Still at 42 years old, after six full months of changing our dietary habits, some exercises, clean water sources, living stress-free, we did it again. The doctors were stupefied by our results. At 42 years of age, we went from three poor quality embryos to 10 medium and high quality embryos, and they all lived overnight. Most of the doctors didn’t believe in holistic health, just the luck of the draw, and they all asked what was I doing? No female at the age of 42 ever improved her quality of embryos. They were dumbstruck and still so very happy for us. We transferred back four embryos and were surprised two weeks later when the pregnancy test came back positive. Our lives had changed.
Unfortunately however, the baby didn’t live past 10 weeks. We found out at 12.5 weeks that there was no heartbeat. It was a long haul for us to repair our desperate feelings of loss.
We did try again and it took another year. I was 43 at that time and we were healthier than ever, following the same dietary regime. We added a few more nutrients for me, and we ended up producing five beautiful embryos, all high quality; so high in fact, the doctors took them to the stage called blastocyst, leaving them outside of the body to see which ones were the best to put back. We were told, “it is unheard of to take a 43-year-old woman’s embryos to the blastocyst stage.” But the quality was so remarkable that they could. We had defied the odds of hormonal health. But alas, we never got pregnant again.
We have learned to live happily “child-free” and I am currently continuing my nutrition by practicing and sharing my story of how nutrition can help with hormones, gut health, and weight management.
Today I can control my gut health without the use of medication and any symptoms of Crohn’s disease only rears its ugly head when I choose unhealthy foods. I am using my knowledge of which foods work for me and which don’t and am on the right supplementation regime for me. I became an C.H.N.C. Holistic Nutritional Consultant in 2015 and can’t see my life without good nutrition.
Now I help women overcome hormonal issues that cause weight gain by using a whole foods program. It is a joy to encourage others in recognizing their own health and potential to be whatever they want, while moving toward their own goal of optimum wellness. It’s been proven to me that nutrition is the staple of health and I am educating people on how important it is for them. It’s funny how it was the threat of infertility that drove me to see my vision of serving others and not even my own illness. I feel truly blessed.
Michelle's Books...
