Published!

I'm excited to share my first published magazine article! Thanks to all my dear family and friends for your encouragement throughout the process, and especially to my greatest inspiration when it comes to writing and life in general--my beautiful mother!

The following piece appears on pages 7-8 of the Fall 2011 Issue of Radiant Magazine:

FINDING TRUE HEALING

by Megan Hjelmstad

Radiant Magazine,
Fall 2011 Issue
(credit) 

“Well, honey, you’re the Captain of your own ship! Good luck!” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like this from an OB-GYN, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. I left the appointment with loads of pills but no explanation, and true to the Army way, it seemed I had only two options: control or failure. I walked back to my dorm, frustrated that I’d left with more questions than when I’d arrived, and wondered what to do next.

I’d had painful menstrual cycles since high school; at first I thought I had a low pain tolerance or bad luck. But the pain got consistently worse over the years and I had to take more medication to survive each cycle. As I neared high school graduation I knew something had to be done. I was scheduled to begin basic cadet training at West Point in a few weeks, and I knew I couldn’t let this hold me back. Yet each consecutive OB-GYN I visited only seemed interested in treating my symptoms with various forms of hormonal birth control and pain meds; none seemed the least bit concerned with finding the root cause of my problems. Thus the pain and confusion continued to plague me as I settled into my military life at college.

Luckily, as I got more involved with the Catholic student group on campus, I heard presentations on Natural Family Planning, or NFP—a process of either avoiding or achieving pregnancy using woman’s daily natural signs of fertility and infertility. It caught my interest since my fiancé and I had begun to plan for our marriage together. During these sessions I also learned about the abortifacient properties of hormonal birth control. This means it's still possible to conceive a child while on birth control, but the mother usually miscarries her child because the artificial birth control hormones don’t allow the baby to implant and grow. We didn’t want to intentionally do anything in our marriage that would cause us to lose a child if we could help it, so I began to look for an NFP instructor.

I found as I learned how to read my body’s natural signs that NFP was far more than just a way to track fertility for family planning. My body’s signs not only told me when I was fertile or infertile; they also revealed that my issues were not normal, and my condition even had a name: endometriosis. My instructor also provided many natural treatments to improve my condition.

"Finding True Healing" Article (credit) 

Although NFP has not “cured” my endometriosis, we’ve learned so much from it, especially to be open to God’s design for our family. It was tough to know that my supervisors weren't happy when I had two children within my first two years in the Army, but little did we know how quickly the doctors would warn us that my condition would probably prevent us from having more. Soon after this prognosis, we lost two children whom we desperately wanted when I suffered a miscarriage, followed by an ectopic pregnancy. But from this loss we’ve learned what a precious gift each soul is, and that we need to trust God’s timing for our children rather than worry what others will think.

Through NFP we’ve also gained a beautiful bond of trust in our marriage, natural relief for my condition, and the miracle child I now carry despite the doctors’ predictions! God never promises smooth sailing, but since we’ve surrendered control and allowed God to be the “Captain” of our ship, we have truly gained more than we can imagine.

Resources for Fertility Awareness and Natural Family Planning can also be found online at Radiant's Extra Features.