The one sentence that changed everything

Liz’s Twenty-Year Journey with PCOS & Endometriosis

Liz* spent over twenty years believing that debilitating menstrual pain was just something women had to live with. Her mother believed it, her grandmother believed it, and her younger sister grew up believing it, too. It was passed down in the family like a fact of life, never questioned because no one had given them a reason to question it.

“A woman’s cycle is not supposed to be debilitatingly painful.”

Liz didn’t hear anything different until she and her husband sat through a Pre-Cana class before their wedding. That’s when she heard the one sentence that stopped everything. During the presentation on family planning, they learned about the Creighton Model. And the presenter said one thing that stuck with her: “A woman’s cycle is not supposed to be debilitatingly painful.”

Liz didn’t act on that sentence right away. It wasn’t until they started trying to conceive in 2023, and months passed with no pregnancy, that she thought back to that class and started looking for real answers instead of the ones she had always been given.

The search led Liz to a FertilityCare Practitioner, Katie. After months of charting and a referral for NaProTechnology care, she received a diagnosis of endometriosis and PCOS, a diagnosis unrecognized for two decades. Surgery, treatment, and finally a pregnancy followed. Their son Matthew was born in April 2026.

Liz wants to give back, and we need your help.

Liz wants to pay it forward. She wants to become a FertilityCare Practitioner. She doesn’t want this system to be something a woman only stumbles into after twenty years of pain. She wants to be the person who tells her, much earlier, that pain isn’t something she has to accept and that her body is giving her real information worth paying attention to.

Liz knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. Charting turned her observations into information the doctor could use to find and treat the underlying problem. Liz chose professional training in the Creighton Model specifically because it’s the system that finally worked. Women deserve more than just managing symptoms with birth control and hoping for the best.

Liz wants young girls and women to know: your period is not supposed to be debilitating. If it is, let’s figure out what’s going on.

St. Gianna Center will host its 18th Education Program starting in November 2026. Liz has applied to join this class of women who will spend the next 13 months learning about
FertilityCare and how to teach women the art of charting their cycles. Tuition is $4500, plus $1000 for teaching materials.

Will you help St Gianna Center provide a scholarship to Liz? Every dollar helps.

Make your donation today.

* name has been changed for the privacy.