I Spent Three Years Trying To Stay Pregnant. Reproductive Immunology Changed Everything.

My very first period came at age twelve, and from day one it was a struggle. I passed out from the pain while altar serving. For the next seventeen years, I white-knuckled my way through menstrual cramps until the age of thirty when my husband and I got married and had our first miscarriage. While we grieved, we weren’t overly anxious or concerned, since some studies suggest up to 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage . Besides, my sister also miscarried her first but went on to have healthy babies. My mom assured me that my body just wasn’t prepared for pregnancy. But as the months went by and negative pregnancy tests followed, I knew I finally had to address that gut feeling I always had: something wasn’t right. We were officially defined as a couple struggling with infertility (since by some definitions, the term ‘infertile’ applies to those who have had unprotected intercourse for six months ). I sought out a Natural Procreative Technology (NaPro) doctor who immediately diagnosed thyroid issues and low progesterone. Boom. I got pregnant again. We saw his heartbeat. But at ten weeks, our little boy joined his sister in heaven. My NaPro doctor put me on the fast track for a laparoscopy, and the following summer, I had three surgeries to remove stage four endometriosis. We breathed a huge sigh of relief. That had to be the answer, and I felt so validated knowing that my gut was right all this time. We became pregnant again a few months later. Twins. That loss hit twice as hard. It was only a few months later that I sat with my NaPro doctor who, with tears in her eyes, shared that we were coming to the end of her expertise. Even though we had diagnosed several issues, something else was clearly at play. That’s when she referred me to a Reproductive Immunologist (or R.I.) nearly seven hundred miles away. By this point, we were coming up on three years of marriage, and I was turning 33. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue a whole new avenue with fertility. The thought was so overwhelming to me. I was ready to adopt. But my doctor gave me one piece of advice: “You wouldn’t want to look back and wonder ‘what if.’” So we booked an appointment, and several months later we flew out of state and began our reproductive immunology journey. New Alternatives to Fertility Care While NaPro has garnered greater recognition in the medical field in recent years for treating undiagnosed infertility, this specialized field of science (like any, really) only offers so much. Often, public healthcare systems require a woman to traumatically endure three miscarriages before digging into any issues. NaPro’s approach is far more proactive and vocal in encouraging women to understand their fertility long before procreation is even on the table. NaPro promotes the use of daily charting of biomarkers like the Creighton Model to identify hormonal deficiencies or physical abnormalities. Pinning down ovulation issues, hormonal imbalances, or wonky cycles can all easily be achieved by basic tracking. While NaPro was developed in the 1970s, it didn’t gain much notoriety until the 2000s, in large part due to the publication of The Medical & Surgical Practice of NaProTechnology by its founder, Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers. In recent years, NaPro has become better known in part due to a broader cultural shift toward natural and holistic approaches to women’s health, as well as growing dissatisfaction with one-size-fits-all fertility treatments like hormonal birth control and IVF . Increased visibility through social media, podcasts, and patient-led advocacy has also played a role, with more women sharing personal stories of charting, hormone health, and alternative fertility care. At the same time, the expansion of FertilityCare practitioners and NaPro-trained physicians has made the approach more accessible. Most women who struggle with recurrent pregnancy loss or infertility feel as if they have very limited options, including IVF, adoption, NaPro (for those who are familiar with it), or giving up the dream of having children altogether. However, there are far more avenues available to us now, and one such field that remains underutilized and under-discussed is reproductive immunology. A Cold But Successful Approach We sat in the cold, Chicago clinic at 7 a.m. A somber-looking couple sat across from us. No one was particularly nice nor cared that we had just traveled hundreds of miles searching for hope. They took over twenty vials of my blood. I had the most extensive ultrasound series ever by some stone-faced woman. A few more tests, and then I was sent on my way. I quickly learned that unlike my NaPro office which felt holistic in the sense that my feelings were just as much cared for as my body, my new R.I. was going to be cold and calculating with numbers. In other words, NaPro felt like it was all heart; R.I. was all head. In there, it wasn’t so much about fulfilling a deep, innate desire to become a mother. Rather, it was about "achieving pregnancy.” It rubbed me the wrong way at first, but I had to admit—if at the end of the day, we had a healthy baby, I could deal with their approach. A few weeks later, the virtual consultation had me in tears as we ripped apart everything that was wrong with me and the few things that were actually fine. I had to remind myself I only had to do what I felt comfortable with, and that it was one step at a time. It’s a beautifully hard thing to have a hundred avenues open up before you at once: taking this prescription at this time, on certain days, and to schedule this biopsy on this date of your cycle, and to get this bloodwork done on this recurrent schedule, and so on. But because it would be our last-ditch effort before pursuing adoption, I wanted to be all in. I finally made those lifestyle changes in regard to exercise, my diet, and managing stress. I began a new in-depth prescription regimen. And within three months, I was pregnant with our fifth baby. And this time, he’s here to stay. What Is Reproductive Immunology To summarize my experience with reproductive immunology, I would say it came down to one mission: managing immune imbalance. Reproductive immunology is a specialized field that is about the same age as NaPro but focuses solely on the immune system and why a woman’s body does or does not reject an embryo, despite it being genetically distinct. What they found is that for some, a woman’s body rejects the embryo because it mistakenly identifies it as a threat. In response, the woman’s body may overreact, target, and kill the embryo as if it were an invasive virus. Reproductive immunology focuses solely on the immune system and why a woman’s body does or does not reject an embryo. This was so hard for me to accept, and for a while it led me to deeply resent my body. But we finally had hope. And as it turned out, it was the missing piece all along. Reproductive immunology offers another path forward for women who have exhausted more familiar options by targeting inflammation, assisting healthy implantation, monitoring specialized cells in the uterus, and balancing the immune response. And the majority of this can be discovered through blood work! So why haven’t more women been informed of this? While certain immune-related causes of miscarriage—like autoimmune clotting disorders—are well understood and widely treated, much of reproductive immunology exists in a gray area. Many of its tests and therapies remain debated in mainstream medicine, with limited or conflicting evidence. And yet, for women who have exhausted every other explanation, such as myself, it offers something they’ve often been denied: a possible answer.