I Knew Something Wasn't Right

Why My Journey with Hormones, Infertility & Pregnancy Loss Changed the Way I Practice

For me, hormone health is more than a service I offer in my practice.

It’s personal.

Long before I became a nurse practitioner helping women and men understand their hormones, I was the patient sitting in the exam room asking questions, searching for answers, and wondering why I felt like no one was truly listening.

My passion for hormone replacement therapy and root-cause medicine was born from years of anxiety, infertility, weight gain, endometriosis, PCOS, pregnancy loss, fertility treatments, surgeries, and one question I found myself asking over and over again: Why is this happening?

I didn’t just want another medication. I wanted someone to help me understand my body.

My Symptoms Started Long Before Infertility

From early adolescence, I experienced heavy cycles with severe cramping, causing me to miss school. At the young age of 12, the answer became, “Let's start birth control to regulate your cycles.”

In 2016, the significant, heavy menstrual bleeding returned, but this time it was worse. I knew something wasn’t right.

The bleeding became severe enough that I ultimately had my first D&C.

I remember hoping that surgery would finally fix whatever was happening. But only a few short weeks later, the bleeding returned. I reached back out to my OB-GYN because I was scared, frustrated, and knew that something still wasn’t right.

The response I received was: “If you’re not bleeding through a maxi-pad an hour, you’re fine.” But I didn’t feel fine. Eventually, I was told that what I was experiencing was essentially “just an extra period.”

I became anemic; I could barely get through the day without becoming dizzy, and my fatigue was cumbersome. The solution became high-dose birth control. At one point, I was taking two birth control pills a day in an attempt to control the bleeding.

And that’s when the anxiety became severe.

I knew I didn’t feel like myself. I reached out to my primary care provider for help, hoping someone would stop and ask what had changed, why I was suddenly experiencing this level of anxiety, and whether there could be something deeper going on.

Instead, I was prescribed hydroxyzine for the anxiety and an iron supplement for my anemia.

Another symptom. Another medication. But still no answer to the question I kept asking: Why?

“We Can Do Surgery When the Pain Is Bad Enough”

By early 2017, I knew I needed another opinion. I switched to a new OB-GYN, hoping a different provider might look more closely at what I had been experiencing. They performed a saline-infused ultrasound.

I was in pain daily. My abdomen was so tender that wearing jeans hurt. Even touching my abdomen was uncomfortable. And after the evaluation, I was told: “Well, we can do surgery when the pain is bad enough.”

I remember thinking:

How much worse does it have to get?

How much pain does a woman have to endure before it is considered significant enough to investigate?

By that summer, I switched OB-GYNs again. This provider ultimately performed my first laparoscopy. And for the first time, there was evidence of what I had been trying to tell people all along. I was diagnosed with stage 2 endometriosis and PCOS. Finally, there were names for at least some of what I had been experiencing.

Then Came the Weight Gain

That same year, my body changed dramatically. In 2017, I gained approximately 50 pounds in six months, despite eating in a calorie deficit and following a high-protein diet.

I was trying. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. And yet, instead of feeling healthier, I felt like I had completely lost control of my own body.

The high-protein diet also contributed to another problem for me: kidney stones.

I was dealing with pain, abnormal bleeding, anxiety, anemia, rapid weight gain, kidney stones, endometriosis, and PCOS. And even with diagnoses in hand, I still didn’t feel like I had been given a real path toward understanding what was happening inside my body.

At the time, I was essentially presented with two options for the endometriosis: Depo-Provera to suppress my cycle and create a menopause-like state, or pregnancy.

There was just one problem. I wasn’t married yet.

I was a young woman trying to understand what these diagnoses meant for my future, my fertility, and my health, and instead of feeling empowered with information and options, I felt like my choices had been reduced to treatments that didn’t fit where I was in life.

My First Pregnancy Ended Before It Ever Really Began

In 2018, I switched OBGYNs… again.  Shortly after, I got married in June, and I became pregnant for the first time in early October. What should have been one of the happiest moments of our lives quickly became one of the most heartbreaking.

The pregnancy was ectopic.

Instead of celebrating a growing baby, I was receiving methotrexate injections to stop the pregnancy from continuing to grow outside of the uterus and, hopefully, preserve my fallopian tubes.

Methotrexate works by interfering with folate-dependent cell growth, stopping the fetus from growing.

But one of the parts of that experience I will never forget had nothing to do with the medication or the appointments. When we found out it was ectopic, it was 3 days before Thanksgiving.

We were carrying this enormous, private grief that almost no one around us knew about. And while we were still trying to process the fact that we were losing our first pregnancy, we were surrounded by family.

People who loved us.

People who had no idea what was happening.

And, as often happens when you're a young couple, the questions came:

“When are you going to have a baby?”

“When are you going to get pregnant?”

They didn't know. They couldn't have known. But I remember sitting there with this invisible heartbreak, trying to smile and act normal while knowing that the pregnancy we had prayed for was ending.

That experience taught me something I have carried with me ever since: You never truly know what someone else is walking through.

Infertility and pregnancy loss can be incredibly lonely because so much of the grief happens quietly. There may not be anything on the outside that shows how much someone is hurting. You can be sitting around a Thanksgiving table surrounded by the people you love and still feel completely alone.

That first pregnancy changed me. Pregnancy was something I wanted so badly, yet my first experience with it became something frightening, painful, and heartbreaking. And unfortunately, that was only the beginning of our fertility journey.

“Let’s Just Go Straight to IVF.”

In 2019, I saw my first fertility specialist. I remember going into that appointment thinking:

Finally. Someone is going to figure this out.

Instead, they recommended moving quickly toward IVF.

IVF is an incredible option and has helped countless families. But for me, at that point in my journey, I wasn’t ready to jump straight to IVF without understanding more about why I couldn't stay pregnant or conceive consistently on my own.

So I returned to my OB-GYN. Over the year, I went through round after round of fertility medications, including Clomid and Femara. Approximately a dozen cycles.

Month after month, I would hope. Month after month, I would wait. Month after month, another negative test.

Anyone who has experienced infertility knows that it isn’t simply a medical diagnosis.

It becomes your calendar.

Your schedule.

Your medications.

Your appointments.

Your relationship.

Your finances.

Your mental health.

Your hope.

And your heartbreak.

A Pregnancy… and Another Loss

Then, in 2020, I became pregnant spontaneously. For a brief moment, I thought maybe our story was finally changing.

But at 10 weeks, I miscarried.

I went through two unsuccessful rounds of Cytotec at home, trying to allow my body to complete the miscarriage without surgery. Neither worked. Ultimately, I needed another D&C.

Some experiences in life are hard to explain unless you have lived them yourself. Pregnancy loss is one of them. You aren't only grieving the pregnancy.

You're grieving the baby you already imagined.

The due date.

The nursery.

The holidays.

The life you thought was beginning.

And when that grief is layered on top of years of infertility, medications, procedures, and being told to “just relax” or “just adopt,” it becomes incredibly heavy.

More Surgeries. More Treatments. Still No Baby.

In 2021, I sought help from a second fertility specialist and underwent two more laparoscopic surgeries.

This time, the findings were even more significant: Stage 4 endometriosis with a chocolate cyst on my left ovary and severe adhesions and scar tissue covering my pelvic floor, tubes, uterus, ovaries, and bladder.

Ultimately, half of my left ovary had to be removed.

By 2022, we were still trying. I completed six additional rounds of Clomid and Femara combined with IUIs.

Eventually, my body began responding too aggressively to stimulation, producing too many mature follicles for treatment to safely proceed.

After years of medications, surgeries, ultrasounds, bloodwork, procedures, pregnancy loss, and disappointment, I felt exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

The Question I Kept Asking

Throughout those years, one thing kept bothering me. Progesterone.

I knew my progesterone levels were always significantly lower than they should be during treatments.

And I asked about it. Again. And again. And again.

“Why can’t I just take progesterone?”

The answer I repeatedly received was essentially: “That’s not how it works.”

But I couldn't let the question go. I had spent years trying to understand my own body. I had endured surgeries. Fertility medications. IUIs. An ectopic pregnancy. A miscarriage. Loss of part of an ovary. Countless blood draws. Countless ultrasounds. And month after month of disappointment.

After six years of trying to conceive, we tried something remarkably simple compared with everything I had already been through.

A natural cycle with progesterone support.

And that was the cycle I conceived my son, Jack.

After everything we had been through, I was finally pregnant with the baby I had spent years praying for.

I will never claim that progesterone is the answer for every woman struggling with infertility.

It isn't.

Fertility is complex. Hormones are complex. There can be many reasons someone struggles to conceive or maintain a pregnancy, and every person deserves an individualized evaluation. But I will always remember how it felt to spend years asking questions about my own body and feeling like those questions were dismissed.

And I will always wonder what my journey might have looked like if someone had slowed down sooner and said:

“I hear you. Let’s look deeper.”

There Is a Particular Exhaustion That Comes From Not Being Heard

When I look back at my journey, the surgeries and fertility treatments were difficult. The losses were devastating.

But another part of the experience affected me deeply: Feeling unheard.

I knew when the bleeding wasn't normal for me.

I knew when the pain wasn't normal for me.

I knew when my anxiety suddenly became severe.

I knew when gaining 50 pounds in six months despite everything I was doing didn't make sense.

I knew when I wanted someone to look more closely at my hormones.

And over and over, I heard some variation of:

“It’s normal.”

“You’re fine."

“Just relax.”

“We can do something when it gets worse.”

Or I was given another medication intended to control a symptom without anyone stopping to ask what might be contributing to that symptom in the first place.

There is something incredibly frustrating about knowing your own body is telling you something and feeling as though you have to convince someone else to believe you. And there is something mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting about living with symptoms while also having to repeatedly advocate for yourself.

This Is Why Hormone Health Became Personal to Me

My experience changed the way I look at symptoms like anxiety, depression, decreased libido, weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, changes in menstrual cycles, and fertility struggles.

It doesn't mean hormones are responsible for every one of these symptoms. They aren't.

Anxiety and depression, for example, can have many possible causes and deserve comprehensive evaluation and appropriate mental health care when needed. But hormones can be one piece of a much larger puzzle.

And my own journey taught me how important it is to actually look at the whole picture. Sometimes the answer isn't simply another prescription. Sometimes we need to ask better questions.

What is happening hormonally?

How is thyroid function?

What does the patient's menstrual cycle look like?

What is happening metabolically?

What are their nutrient levels?

What medications are they taking?

How are they sleeping?

What is their stress level?

What reproductive conditions or underlying health issues could be contributing?

What changed before these symptoms began?

What has already been tried?

What is this patient trying to tell me?

This Is Why I Practice Differently

My own experience changed the kind of provider I wanted to become.

Today, when a woman sits across from me and tells me: “I don't feel like myself anymore.”

I understand how powerful those words can be.

When someone tells me they're exhausted even though they're sleeping…

That their libido has disappeared…

That they're anxious and don't understand why…

That their mood has changed…

That they're gaining weight despite trying everything…

That their periods have become unbearable…

That they're struggling with fertility…

I don't want my first response to be: “That's just part of getting older.”

I don't want to automatically put a Band-Aid over the symptom and send them home.

I want to investigate. I want to listen. I want to educate. And I want my patients to understand their own bodies.

Root-Cause Care Isn't About Blaming Everything on Hormones

I think this distinction is incredibly important. Hormone replacement therapy isn't a miracle cure, and hormones aren't responsible for every case of anxiety, depression, weight gain, infertility, fatigue, or decreased libido.

Good medicine means evaluating the whole person. Sometimes hormone replacement therapy may be appropriate. Sometimes it isn't.

Sometimes laboratory findings or someone's history lead us in an entirely different direction.

But patients deserve more than having their symptoms dismissed simply because those symptoms are common.

Common does not always mean optimal.

And experiencing something frequently does not mean a person shouldn't be allowed to ask why it's happening.

From Patient to Provider

When I think back on the woman I was in 2016—the woman bleeding heavily, undergoing a D&C, only to begin bleeding again weeks later and be told she was “fine”, I wish I could sit beside her today.

I think about the woman whose abdomen hurt so badly that wearing jeans was painful, only to hear: “We can do surgery when the pain is bad enough.”

I think about the woman sitting at Thanksgiving dinner while losing her first pregnancy, quietly answering questions about when she planned to have a baby.

I think about the woman who endured years of negative pregnancy tests, fertility medications, surgeries, an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage, IUIs, and loss of part of an ovary.

And I think about how many times that woman simply wanted someone to listen.

If I could sit beside her now, I would tell her:

Keep asking questions.

Keep advocating for yourself.

You know when something has changed in your body.

You are allowed to want answers.

And one day, all of this pain is going to shape the way you care for someone else.

Because that's exactly what happened.

My experience with hormones, endometriosis, PCOS, infertility, pregnancy loss, and eventually becoming a mother fundamentally changed the way I view healthcare.

It is why I'm so passionate about hormone health. It is why I believe women and men deserve to understand their labs, their symptoms, their treatment options, and their own bodies. It is why I care so deeply about looking for underlying contributors rather than automatically reaching for a Band-Aid treatment. And it is why, when someone sits down in my office and tells me, “Something just doesn't feel right,”

I listen.

Because I remember exactly what it felt like when I was the one saying it.

And I remember how badly I wanted someone to hear me.

— Morgan Broyles, FNP-C