Links-all * links are affiliate links

In my stories I recently asked what my followers & friends wanted to hear me share next, and the last I checked the votes were wanting to hear more about the hormone tool we used and second was a pregnancy updated. So I decided to combine the two and share an update and info about the tool we used!
We are currently in week 24 with baby girl! Praise the Lord. We also, have had a wild ride. This is our 4th pregnancy, and we have lost 4 babies in 5 years after trying for about 3 before that. The mixture of both gratitude, grief and fear have been daily emotions to pray through. We are not experts in any of this, and yet have grown in so much compassion. We are just starting out, and yet, we’ve been at this a while. What a mixture of truths.
Early on in this pregnancy I felt like the Lord put this verse on my heart,
“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:27 (NIV). And it is the verse I constantly go back to.
Parenting and pregnancy, the whole fertility journey, are such a test of our faith. Of caring so deeply, loving so much, and yet trusting God to be the One in control.
Trying lots of things….
This late summer, we had been consulting at the Fertility Clinic near us again, when we found out we were pregnant this time. I had gone pretty strict gluten free, changed up my exercise strategy and was trying to focus on protein in my diet, in attempts to help naturally heal/get rid of PCOS. We stopped taking fertility medication, as we were pursing a therapy called Mercier Therapy which requires no mediated ovarian stimulation. And yet I wasn’t ovulating. We were bummed.
Over dinner on a date night, we talked through our grief, and also “our timeline.” These new changes had not been going on long so I didn’t want to make assumptions about whether they were helpful yet or not, but I truly thought certain things might have been more visible than they were. We had just had multiple interactions where Thad was the only kiddo without a sibling running around, and the feeling of being “left behind” again in this new season was creeping into my heart.
We talked about how this was hard, yet we were trying to trust God in it.
And would you believe it, two days after this conversation we ovulated! How do I know this?Well lots of ways including tracking CM, BBT, and I started using a new hormone monitoring tool at home, called Mira*, and saw some major shifts happening. We were excited about this and hopeful about the timing around it.

We had a meeting at the fertility clinic in those next two weeks, made a type of “plan” or next steps we could take, and said we were waiting to see if maybe we were currently pregnant. I’m sure the sweet doctor thought we were crazy, but as we tracked along my hormones, things seemed hopeful. And after taking a test too early that told us no, we found out actually YES we were pregnant. AND I had ovulated for one of the first times in my life naturally since hitting puberty.
Now I hesitated to share this before because I get personally annoyed with anyone who says, “I got pregnant our first try using….” It can be SO discouraging when you feel like you have “tried it ALL” and still haven’t gotten pregnant. I know the weight of that all too well and don’t want that for any woman. And I will not give credit to any product or device for a baby-any pregnancy is a gift directly from God, and He gets all the praise and glory. (James 1:17, ESV).
All that being said, I do think that God provides us with resources. Sometimes those are people, books, medications, procedures, wise people in the health professions, supplements, tools such as Mira* or others I have mentioned back in my other post here.
What the Mira* monitor does, is allow you to track certain hormones from a urine sample at home. You collect a sample and use a special testing stick to have your machine read your levels and sync the to the app. I find it absolutely fascinating!! From my understanding and experience, it’s the only at home tool like this on the market that tells you actual numbers and not just if a certain hormone is high or low.
Though the test sticks are not reusable, and the system isn’t as cost effective as the above tools, in comparison to other services and procedures in the realm of fertility, it is quite reasonable. It’s a small computer like device that tests urine with special lighting to give you actual readings of different hormones in your cycle. What I like about this tool is that it gives you numbers for what your hormone levels are. So, for example when testing your Lh levels for nearing ovulation, rather than a test telling you it’s high or low, you get to see what the actual numbers are and gather information for yourself.
Similarly, you can see if your progesterone levels (Pdg) are rising. I used the info, in combination with my BBT to confirm ovulation and estimate our due date. Knowing when I ovulated and my EDD was crucial for us in scheduling our ultrasounds and advocating for myself, because I didn’t ovulate until day 35 of my cycle!! Let’s just say everyone but me was quite confused at scheduling, but ultrasounds were right on track, and baby girl has been measuring right where she should be-praise the Lord!
I was a huge proponent of asking for blood work for myself and wanting to know different levels of all sorts of hormones. So many hormones are working during a cycle, and other hormones can give you incite into all sorts of systems and how they work together. Getting to see real time what your hormones are doing, without going into a lab and giving blood, was so empowering to me using Mira*. I think not knowing what questions to ask your doctor, or feeling like they aren’t listening to you, or possibly unwilling to test for different things is so frustrating. Getting to test things for ourselves and then having the option to share that with our doctor, and use that info to help guide us into making the right choices for our family in our journey has been so encouraging.
Mira* can test for a variety of hormones, and they even have a BBT thermometer now that syncs to the app! We tested Lh, PdG and E3, and I believe I bought the FSH strips in case of using them for future cycles. I encourage you to research what each hormone does in a cycle, to help you decide which hormones you might want to track and what questions to ask based on the readings you get. Though the fertility center has been a blessing to us, they have helped educate us very little. Having other tools has been so so helpful and I thank God for them.
For more info on tools we’ve used, you can visit my post on Tracking here. And one of my favorite books on fertility that I often talk about and reference myself, is called Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Tone Weschler*. She does a phenomenal job talking about the importance of tracking and understanding your own cycle.
I hope that by sharing our story, it can some how encourage or help you in yours. Praying blessings over you in Jesus’ name as you navigate your journey <3. Thanks for following ours, your prayers are so appreciated.
Links- (all * links are affiliate links)
Commentaires