From Confusion to Calling- My Journey to Essence NU

From Confusion to Calling

Education about my cycle? Minimal at best.

I knew my mom kept a temperature chart in her nightstand. I knew it had something to do with “

natural family planning.” I had absolutely no idea what that meant.

I was a late bloomer. My first period came around 14 or 15 — I think it was Christmas break of my freshman year. I mostly remember being relieved I didn’t have to navigate it at school.

In those early years, I don’t remember major issues. I also don’t remember tracking anything. My cycle just… happened.

Until college.

One afternoon, walking across a gravel parking lot after class, a wave of pain hit me so hard I thought I might pass out. Cramping. Nausea. The kind of pain that makes you fold in half and question your life choices.

I remember thinking, This is not normal.

I also remember thinking, I need to get on the pill.

Because that’s what you did.

That was the solution I had heard about. That was what providers offered. And that was what I started.

No one explained how it worked. No one explained what it suppressed. No one explained potential long-term effects.

It was simply presented as the fix.

I stayed on the pill for years.

Marriage, Miscarriage, and Questions

I stopped birth control in 2008 before getting married. During marriage prep, I began charting my cycle — mostly because it felt like the “right” thing to do. If I’m honest, I wasn’t choosing Natural Family Planning because I understood it or valued it. I was checking a box.

I was married in January 2009.

In February, I had my first miscarriage.

I had charted a few cycles and vaguely remembered an instructor mentioning I might have a short luteal phase. At the time, that felt like another language. I didn’t fully understand temperature shifts. Cervical mucus felt subjective and confusing.

Then came a second miscarriage. Then a third.

All within our first year of marriage.

I had dreamed of being a mom my entire life. I had imagined the wedding. The babies. The timeline.

Instead, I had grief. Questions. And baby announcements arriving in the mail.

After three miscarriages, you’re finally referred to a fertility specialist. Even now, as a nurse, it amazes me that three losses are required before deeper investigation begins.

Testing was done. Labs were drawn. Anatomy was checked.

Everything was “normal.”

But something wasn’t.

I researched obsessively. There were no restorative reproductive providers in my area — and still aren’t. The primary option presented was IVF. I knew that wasn’t the path I wanted, but I desperately wanted answers.

In March 2010, I had an exploratory laparoscopy. Everything looked healthy.

Two months later, I saw a heartbeat.

I was started on progesterone early in pregnancy. And that pregnancy continued.

After so much loss, that heartbeat felt like resurrection.

Babies, Chaos, and Control

Our baby girl was born after a delivery complicated by postpartum hemorrhage — another moment where life felt fragile.

Then, when she was six months old, I was pregnant again.

Thirteen months later, we had our son.

Six months after that — pregnant again.

I remember staring at the test thinking, Wait. What?

I asked my husband how this even happened.

He very calmly asked if I really needed an explanation.

We laugh about it now.

But at the time? We were knee-deep in diapers, exhaustion, and penny-pinching. I had prayed for fertility. And suddenly, fertility was abundant.

And here’s where I say something many women feel but don’t always voice:

I struggled with Natural Family Planning.

Deeply.

I didn’t understand why the time in my cycle when connection felt most natural would sometimes be the time abstinence was required. I wrestled with resentment. With guilt from past choices. With control. With trust.

It would take years for me to move from resistance… to respect

At 36, when my oldest was 7, we found out we were pregnant again. I had ovulated earlier than expected and ignored the signs.

At 38, after a “low reading” on a monitor and a later positive ovulation test, I missed my period.

Another baby.

At what some lovingly call “geriatric maternal age,” we welcomed our youngest son.

I continued charting. I grew more confident. I trusted my body more.

Until everything changed.

Perimenopause: The Part No One Warned Me About

In 2021, after receiving the COVID vaccine, my cycle disappeared for nearly 90 days. When it returned, it was irregular.

Then came symptoms I had never experienced:

Depressive thoughts. Anxiety. Irritability. Rage that felt foreign to me. Joint pain. Insomnia. Heavy Bleeding and Irregular cycle lengths.

I had been charting my cycle for nearly 20 years.

Twenty.

And I still had no idea I was in perimenopause.

How does that even happen?

As a nurse, I asked for labs. Thyroid was always “normal.” Hormones were “normal.” I was told we don’t treat with hormone therapy until you’ve gone a full year without a period.

But I knew something was wrong.

Eventually, labs showed very low estrogen and testosterone. Still, the message was: “We typically wait.”

After months of worsening symptoms, I advocated for estradiol and progesterone.

I noticed a difference within 24 hours.

I was barely 41 when I started hormone therapy.

I was fully menopausal by 42.

Finding a provider who would listen was one of the hardest parts.

Not because they didn’t care.

But because women’s hormonal transitions are still misunderstood, under-discussed, and often minimized.

And that’s when something shifted in me.

The Calling

I had been charting my cycle for decades. I had navigated miscarriage, fertility, postpartum, natural family planning struggles, perimenopause chaos, and early menopause.

And still — I felt blindsided.

If I, a registered nurse, felt this confused… what about other women?

I felt a persistent nudge. A calling that would not go away.

I heard about the FIAT Institute hormone coach certification during my own perimenopausal storm. It felt like clarity breaking through chaos.

In 2025, I completed my certification. In January, I became a certified FEMM instructor.

I stopped asking, “Why did I go through this?”

And started asking, “How can this be used?”

Looking back now, every hard season — the miscarriages, the babies back-to-back, the ragey perimenopause days I barely recognized myself — it was all preparing me.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

From teenage confusion… To miscarriage grief… To fertility abundance… To hormonal depletion… To advocacy…

Every season was preparation.

Today, as a Registered Nurse, hormone coach, and FEMM instructor, I help women understand what I wish I had known at 16… at 26… at 36… and at 41.

You are not crazy.

You are not dramatic.

And your body is not broken. 

Your cycle is intelligent. Your hormones are not random chaos. And your story is not over.

For I know the plans I have for you… Jeremiah 29:11.

And I would be honored to walk alongside you.

Nichole