August 17, 2026 • 41 mins
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Are your hormones a biological burden, or are they a beautiful reflection of God’s divine design?
This week, Bekah Yawn, host of the For the Love of Hormones podcast, joins Jaime for a deeply encouraging conversation on redeeming the way we view our fertility, our cycles, and the changing seasons of a woman’s life.
In this episode, Bekah shares her powerful personal testimony of spending 14 years on birth control, suffering through three back-to-back miscarriages, and how God used that heartbreak to lead her toward fertility awareness methods, functional hormone healing, and eventually, her "triple rainbow baby." She unpacks the physical realities of "Post-Birth Control Syndrome"—including its hidden impact on the thyroid and gut—and offers practical advice for women who want to understand their bodies' natural rhythms.
Bekah also tackles the profound spiritual significance of our hormones, explaining how every phase of life uniquely reflects the image of God—from the creative awakening of menarche and the sustaining love of the reproductive years, to the transition into the wisdom-bearing years of perimenopause and menopause.
You’ll walk away with a fresh perspective on the spiritual warfare surrounding female fertility, the beautiful truth that all women possess a God-given maternal capacity regardless of physical motherhood, and how to stop being a "silent partner" in your own healthcare.
Visit bekahyawn.com to connect with Bekah, learn about her Fertility Framework program, and explore her doula services.
While there, be sure to grab her free guide on functional thyroid ranges at bekahyawn.com/thyroidlabs to help you advocate for your health at your next doctor's appointment. And don't forget to check out her podcast, For the Love of Hormones, wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Praying
Christian Women podcast. I'm Jamie Hampton and I'm so excited
to welcome back to the podcast, Becca Y. Becca is
the fertility awareness educator. She's a certified hormone coach. She
is the host of the podcast for the Love of Hormones.
And I'm so happy, just personally and selfishly to have
(00:28):
you on the podcast, Becca, because I know like me,
and they're just countless other women out there that are
just puzzled by hormones. Maybe they are struggling mightily with hormones.
I don't know a single person who's just like I
love my hormones.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And what I love about you is you flip the script.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You get us to see hormones and our femininity and
our different seasons of life through godglasses, to see them
as a blessing and God designed. So thank you for
being here again to talk about hormones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yes, I'm so excited to be here. Our last conversation
was so fun and I know I was like out
of breath. I think that was the last interview I
did before I had my own baby.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How old is your baby now?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He's ten? Months.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So that's so fun. Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Right, Well, we always check in about what's your favorite
prayer closet? And I know you answered back then. Okay,
let me see if I can remember. Did you have
a prayer chair?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Was that I did? Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I thought I remember that because I also do and did.
But what is your favorite prayer closet these days?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Has it changed? Has it stayed the same? You're still
my blue chair?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
My chair? Oh yeah, it's still my blue chair. I
you know, have my time where I sit down there
in the mornings before all the crazy starts and try
to ground myself in the Lord for the day. So
stay still the same, same blue chair.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, for listeners who may not be familiar with your
work or who didn't listen to our last podcast episode,
could you just share a little bit about your own
journey and just kind of how God led you to
get in the realm of fertility and hormones in kind
of a Christian context.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Absolutely, yeah. I mean I've been a believer since I
was I could talk, so since I was three years old.
I think I was praying for Jesus to be in
my heart and just loving him my whole life. And
while I loved Jesus my whole life, I didn't really
understand how he created me. I didn't understand the depths
of what he meant when he said that I am
(02:34):
fearfully and wonderfully made. So I was on birth control
for fourteen years before marriage, during the first several years
of marriage, not understanding what it was doing to my body.
When we went off of that, we were very blessed
to conceive within a few months, kind of blessed, but
definitely blessed. But also I wish I would have known
(02:55):
about what post birth control syndrome was. I wish I
would have known how to get my body more healthy
before conceiving. But I mean, I want to change anything now.
I love my son, who was conceived post birds control.
He's incredible, such a gift. But we had our first
two children, two boys, without me even being able to
(03:17):
tell you what ovulation was and really how they got there.
Aside from me and my husband loving each other, I
really couldn't tell you the specifics of how it happened.
You know, what my eggs were and what ovulation was,
the follicular phase, cervical mucus, like all the things that
were going into it. There was no way I could
have expressed that, but we were blessed with them. And
(03:41):
then we had three d miscarriages in a row. We
had a fifteen week loss and then we had two
chemical pregnancies after that. And it was after the third
loss that my husband and I were just like, we
have got to figure out what is going on, Like
I cannot go through this again. So I say that
(04:02):
we tucked our tails and went to our Catholic friends
and were like, what are you guys doing to somehow
space out your children? We know you're not using birth control?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What are y'all doing? And they talked to.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Us about fertility awareness methods and I thought it was
like the craziest thing. I was like, there's no way
that works, Like what in the world And they were
talking to us about all this stuff and it was
just way over my head. But I started reading and
researching it's just part of my personality. And we started
applying one of the fertility awareness methods. We learned that
through a course, and we started using it to avoid
(04:35):
pregnancy for a season so that we could figure out
what was going on with my body. Why did I
keep losing our babies? You know what was wrong? And
we did find some root issues that were going on,
so learning about fertility awareness and then I got myself
a hormone coach. She's actually the founder of the FIAT Institute,
and that's who I'm certified as a hormone coach through.
(04:56):
So basically all the things that helped me in my
healing journey is what I'm certified to help others and
now because it was so impactful for me. But we
did our healing journey for about six months and then
we felt really good about what my cycle charts were
telling us, how my hormones were looking, how my ovulation
was looking, and we got pregnant again with our we
called our Triple Rainbow baby. It was a beautiful pregnant
(05:18):
scene and a beautiful birth, all natural, two hour home birth.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
In the shower.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was crazy, and so that's kind of what led
me on this journey. We did end up having another
baby as well, and that's a whole other story, but
that's kind of what got me into supporting women in
their hormones, in their fertility and in God's design for it.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I love that and I'm still stuck on what is
I don't think I've ever heard of post birth control syndrome?
Is that what you called it? Yes, I don't think
we talked about this. Maybe we did, but I don't
think we did because I don't This is new to me.
So can you either refresh my groundhog day brain? Or
it was something brand new?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
What is that? And what does that look like? I
didn't even know it existed.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, So when a woman gets off of birth control,
whether she's been on it for like a few weeks
or a couple of years or a decade like me,
we are considered post birth control syndrome. And what this
means is we recognize and understand that being on the
pill or other types of birth control, be vud M plant, whatever,
(06:26):
it does several things to our bodies. It depletes our
bodies of vital nutrients. So it's depleting our bodies of
vitamins and minerals and also our bodies capability and capacity
to be able to absorb vitamins and minerals. So when
someone says, well, I eat so healthy, like, I don't
know why I'm feeling this bad, or I don't know
(06:46):
why my periods are so out of whack or I
don't know why I'm not getting pregnant. That's immediately one
of the questions I think of is, hey, have you
been on birth control in the past, because that it
really kind of messes with our bodies natural capacity for nutrient,
vitamin and mineral absorption. So that's one of the things
that the pill does to us or birth control. The
other thing is it increases a lot of inflammation, so
(07:09):
that can look like, you know, maybe more painful periods.
It can look like getting headaches, being tired, having joint pain,
breast tenderness, those types of things. The birth control it's
also been shown to kind of wreck our thyroid and
wreck our gut health. So anytime someone's been on birth
control and they're wanting to get pregnant, my very first
(07:31):
go to is like, hey, get a full thyroid panel.
Run I have one. If your listeners, go to Becca
Yon dot com slash thyroid labs. It's like an amazing
handout that has here are what thyroid labs to ask
your doctor for, and here are the functional ranges. Because
(07:51):
they're going to be more narrow ranges than what the
conventional medicine hospital ranges are for the thyroid, and they're
going to be more tests because typically if you ask
your doctor to do a thyroid test, they'll check your
TSH and maybe your T four and that's all they're checking.
But that doesn't give us a full picture as to
what your thyroid's actually doing. Now, I'm not claiming that
(08:14):
I or you or your listener can like go and
get this thyroid test and get the results back and
know what to do with it, but you can at
least look at the results and compare them to functional ranges,
and if all of your ranges are within functional ranges,
your golden and if they're not, you need to go
get more help, so from someone who's really specialized in that.
And it's probably unless you have one of the three
(08:36):
percent amazing OBEs who have additional training or family physicians,
they're probably not going to be able to help you
if you're in between the functional and conventional ranges, if
that makes sense. So anyways, that's a whole rabbit hole.
But that's one of the things that bird control really
impacts us on, and our thyroid health is critical for
(08:57):
a healthy pregnancy and for avoiding the miscas that was
one of the issues I was dealing with was what
was my thigh riid in the miscarriages, And I'd been
on the pill for a long time somehow it kind
of it was probably just enough and just okay. For
my first two pregnancies. I was actually put on thyroid
medication in them, and then I think I lost my
(09:18):
medication when we were in between moves and our lives
were so crazy, and I didn't have that educational foundational
knowledge of like, girl, your thyroid health is critical, like
you can't neglect it. And so I wasn't on any
medication when I was pregnant, and that was one of
the issues that contributed to my miscarriages. So the other
(09:39):
thing about post birth control syndrome is it really impacts
our cycles. So oftentimes our cycles can look like maybe
we're not ovulating, or they can look irregular, or they
can even look like it's it's no longer called PCOS,
it's now called PMOS, but it can look like those
irregular type cycles. But it can be caused just from
(09:59):
be post pill. It doesn't mean that we have that
diagnoses necessarily. Where we have that issue we're dealing with,
it's just because of the after effects of the pill
that can last for up to a year. So that's
post bird control syndrome.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You So for those that don't know PCOS, that's polycystic
ovary syndrome.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, and statistic ovarian syndrome. And now it's called PMOS.
It's something about poly something metabolic. Okay, they're changing the
C to the end because they're recognizing that this is
a metabolic function in the body which may.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Cause so much multiple cysts of eggs basically multiple ovulation,
and then cysts that don't rupture and ovulate, they just
kind of fester and cause pain. Is that kind of
what happens.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
That's one of the types. So that can be it,
but you can still have it even if you're not
having like the string of pearls or specific ovarian issues.
Lot of it can be that metabolic stuff that's going on.
Like we're insulin resistant and we're not tolerating carbohydrates or sugars,
and so our body is kind of going a little
bit crazy with our blood sugar.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And our insulin.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And so now the new NAN is more reflected, more
reflective and encompassing of the different issues that it can encompass.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, so the polycystic part is a symptom of the
metabolic underlying issue, which causes other things too, So it's
just a little bit more all encompassing, right, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I did not know. I do know. So I was
on birth control.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
We got married and didn't I didn't go off until
probably five years, five six years something like that, and
it was okay, like I didn't have any I didn't
think I had any bad symptoms. I know some people
who just hated the way it made them feel. I
wasn't quite like that. But it's interesting because I cyclically,
(12:07):
I was thinking, what am I eating that's giving me
food poisoning every month. I don't know why it wouldn't
occur to me because I guess I didn't know it
was every month because I wasn't charting my cycle at
the time. I'm just taking the birth control. I was
pretty clockwork with my cycle. But I didn't make that
connection until perimenopause, which is now when I've been getting
(12:27):
cyclical migraines and throwing up because of the migraines. But
I was I was throwing up and getting sick about
once a month for I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It was probably about a year maybe or a little
bit less.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But it wasn't as bad as the migraines, and my
symptoms weren't as bad of a headache as just I
would be at work and I'd have to run to
a bucket and throw up. And at first I thought,
am I pregnant? But I still didn't associate it with that.
But I think it was due to the pill and
my auta WAC hormones that caused that kind of thing.
And I'm sure if I had been aware that being
(13:01):
on the pill did other things to your body, which
of course it does, but I just wasn't thinking about
it because it's just what you do, right. I just
I would not have put two and two together that
that it was disrupting my body so terribly much. I
just kind of took it on faith that this is
what we do when we don't want to have kids
and we're married, right, So very interesting. But I ended
(13:22):
up meeting a Catholic friend who gave me some advice
and got me a book that was kind of charting
your cycle using At that time, it was you know,
in the Stone Ages, so it was like but you know,
using like a basal body thermometer and like hand charting
your at the same time every day what your temperature was.
But there's so many more things you can do now
(13:43):
which are pretty amazing. I actually I thought i'd bring
up to you. I got this. I think it's called
it's called Mirra. It's I'm like, on day seven, have
you heard of this? It's yes, What are your thoughts
on it? It's yeah, horma. It tracks your hormones. I
pian a stick every morning and it has confirmed what
I suspected in terms of what's going on day to
(14:04):
day at the moment, and I'm really hoping I haven't
had a migraine at the same time as I've been
using it. I had one the week before and I
was like, I've got a break down. I need to
know what's going on with my hormones on a daily basis.
I'm sure it's not one hundred percent accurate, but in
terms of the relative amounts and my FSH being pretty
high and just you know, all the rest being pretty low,
(14:25):
it's giving me some insights into what my body's doing.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, the mirror is wonderful mirror and you know, they
both kind of do the same thing. And I think
it's a wonderful tool in addition to use to help
figure out what's going on. I still I'm always a
proponent of tracking your cervical mucus and learning that from
a fertility awareness method because that's the most effective biomarker
(14:51):
we can have. But it's an awesome tool to add
in addition.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, well, and to clarify, I am very very irregular.
I'm late perimenopausal, so I'm you know, I've gone over
one hundred days at one point without having a period.
I have gone thirty days sometimes, but I'm definitely in
the waning phases of all of that, and this would
not be good to use as reliable birth control, just
(15:18):
for anyone listening, you know, don't use something like this
and assume it's going to be like you know exactly. So, yeah,
I just want to put that disclaimer out there and
always see a physician to kind of support some of
these decisions, or a fertility.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Aware physician very important, yeah, because they might just tell
you to stay on bird control, so right, exactly, Yeah right, Yeah, No,
that's a beautiful tool to use to kind of confirm.
Sometimes I'll use a tool like that to confirm what
I think my hormones are doing in addition to my tracking,
and it's really helpful to see. But yeah, it sounds
(15:52):
like your hormones are low and you need a little help.
Everything's kind of whining back down.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It is.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And I mean I actually went on HRT because when
you get your blood work done. Also for people to know,
when you go into the doctor, you get blood work ordered,
you go in and get the blood work done. It's
a snapshot in time. One time I got my blood
work done, my estrogen was like six hundred and something,
another time it was like twenty or you know, in
the same cycle, you're gonna fluctuate wildly. But I have
(16:21):
basically been in the kind of perimenopausal phase of thinking
that I might need extra estrogen. But at the same time,
when I went on it, my estrogen was up and
down so much that it made me sicker at first,
and then she kind of tapered it down to the
point where Anyway, long story short, I went off of
it to kind of reassess if I need it, but
(16:43):
I will be probably looking into it just to try
and give it a boost. But anyway, we'll talk later.
Sounds good, Yeah, I might be soliciting your services. But anyway,
let's bring this back around to kind of a biblical mindset.
So how I don't know, I don't even where to start.
(17:03):
I would say, what does it mean to you that
women reflect the image of God through all different seasons
of life? That's kind of what you wanted to come
back on to talk about, is this different seasons of life,
how we as women reflect the image of God.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Absolutely, well, you know, in the very beginning in Genesis
it says God created man in his own image, male
and female. He created them and the image of God
he created them. And so when we look at our
sweet husbands or brothers in Christ, like, oh yeah, they
totally reflect the image of God in the male way. Right,
(17:45):
So we get to see elements and you know, when
I think of I'll give it to you this way.
So there was a picture one time when I was
sitting in a coffee shop that I just sat and
I just looked at it and.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I thought, Ah, this is what it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Means for God to reflect himself in creation. It was
this beautiful picture of it was in the mountains of
this waterfall and the waterfall with the way that the
photographer captured it. I have a little bit of photography background,
so like it was like a slow type shot, so
the water just looked like it was glistening and streaming,
like this smooth, fluid, beautiful breadth of water just flowing down,
(18:26):
and then all around it were these like let's hear,
how would I describe it? It's so hard, It's a
picture's worth a thousand words, right, so bear with me.
But like really strong, hard crisp rocks and boulders that
had like lots of like dibbots, and I don't know,
they're rustic and they're they're big, and they're heavy and
(18:47):
they're strong, and they're like holding up this beautiful, like weightless,
free flowing fluid water. And I just look at this picture,
and of course there's like trees and all of this,
and I'm like, ah, this is God like reflecting himself
in this masculine and feminine design. And we see it
(19:09):
not just I think in you know, in boys and girls,
in men and women. We also can see it in
his creation. In his creation, we see like strong, hefty,
like rock solid, incredible things in creation, and then we
see like absolute, pristine, soft fluid beauty, you know, like
(19:31):
the soft, delicate flower. I'm not saying all women are
like delicate flowers, right, but we certainly, you know, promote
some kind of essence like that. And then there's essences
of men as well that are different. We are just different,
and so I want to I just want to acknowledge
our men because they're wonderful and they're incredible, and anytime
we talk about some of the feminine stuff, I don't
(19:52):
want them to feel like, well, well I'm not cool, Like, no,
you are so cool, you know, in the way that
you reflect God. And then I someone to talk about
how we as women and girls reflect the image of
God in such a much different way than men. So
when we think about women and how God created us,
I think in each of our different seasons and stages
(20:14):
of life, we are reflecting God in a different way,
which is really cool because it's so different from men.
Men from the time they become fertile when they're teenagers
and their sperm is you know, and testosterone are rock
and and rolling. They're fertile till they die, and it's
just pretty straightforward. They get a daily cycle of testosterone
and cortisol, and it's high in the morning and it
(20:36):
goes lower throughout the day, and it can be boosted
by certain events like being around other guys, watching in
an action movie, seeing a gun, you know, like that's
the guy. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward, you know, pretty awesome.
But then we have the woman who is so complicated
and different and complex, and not only does she rhythmically
(20:58):
cycle through hormones on more like a monthly basis, she
also rhythmically cycles through her hormonal patterns throughout her throughout
her life. From the time that she reaches menarchy, which
is when she has her first period, her hormones are
doing a lot of interesting things, and then you know,
(21:21):
she kind of transitions from having these irregular cycles to
eventually becoming more regular over you know, maybe a year
or two or maybe three. It takes three or four
years for them to get regular, and then she reaches
this stage of being in her reproductive years. So the
reproductive years are pretty straightforward. You typically would have regular
cycles somewhat predictable, but there's still if you don't understand
(21:45):
what's going on within that cycle, it can be confusing.
And then her fertility clock starts winding down, and she
starts entering into perimenopause, where she's still fertile, but the
fertility is slowing down. And then she enters into menopause,
where the fertility cycle is quiet and silence. But now
she's in these wisdom bearing years. And so when we
(22:07):
think about the image of God in each of these pays,
is menarchy, the reproductive years, perimenopause, and menopause. In menarchy,
I see the image of God of this awakening of fertility.
And when we think of God, he is the creator
of life. He's the creator of all life. And when
(22:28):
a girl goes from being a girl to starting to
turn and transform into a woman who can, who is
physically capable of having life created in her, it's this
beautiful start to reflecting God in his creator capacity. So
(22:48):
it's a really cool and exciting time. And I want
that language to be received by mothers and their young
teenage daughters of not fear and terror. But oh, this
is so cool because she is awakening into a woman,
a fertile woman who is reflecting God in this creative capacity.
(23:10):
And then in our reproductive years, there's lots of beauty.
Maybe we're choosing to be reproductive, or maybe we're not,
maybe we're not married yet, But no matter what, I
could talk a lot about the hormones in these phases
and how they reflect God's image, but I want to
focus a little bit on the fertility aspect of it.
When a woman does physically conceive, she is literally like
(23:32):
a walking, breathing image of how God has created all
of us, of how God is creator. She is a
testimony to that. And when she delivers and goes into
labor for this child, she is reflecting God in another
way for how God. You know, I think a lot
there's a lot of Old Testament imagery, and there's still
(23:53):
also a lot of in the New Testament. But when
we think of God and his pursuit of the Israelites
and his love for the Israelites, I think it's in
Isaiah forty six he says, I have carried you. So
I think of a mother carrying her child like I
have carried you. You know, when you think of a
mom carrying her child and pregnancy, you're like, Wow, that
(24:13):
woman has so much love, she has so much capacity
and strength to be doing what she's doing, and she's
reflecting how God does that for us. He carries us.
He has so much love and capacity and strength for us.
And then in Isaiah forty six says, I have carried you,
I will bear you, I will deliver you. And so
(24:34):
you know, as a woman goes through labor pains, these
are the pains that God experienced when the Israelites turned
away from him. Of like, this woman still loves her baby.
She has an unconditional love for this baby. But it's
going through pain and suffering and sorrow and this experience.
And that's a whole other conversation as well, for like
why we experience it in that way. But that is
(24:55):
what God experienced for us in pursuing us. He experienced
a lot of sorrow and suffering and us turning away
from him, and the Israelites turning away from him and
worshiping other gods after all that he had done for them.
And you know, a woman actually giving birth, that is
what God has done for us. He has given us
new life in Jesus Christ. And I mean, man, I
(25:19):
also I'm a birth do love and I'm like, there
is nothing like a new life coming into the world
to represent the power and majesty of God and Jesus
Christ then a baby being born. It is the most awesome,
incredible thing and it totally makes me think of like, whoa,
(25:39):
this is what Jesus does for us. You know, we
were buried in our sins, we were dead in our sins,
and then He delivered us and he gave us our
first breath and he gave us new life. And so
as a woman does this in this physical world, we
get to see that spiritual aspect of God. You know,
(26:00):
I could keep talking about breastfeeding in postpartum and how
that reflects God's image of how he nourishes us and
he sees us and he hears us, and he takes
care of us, and he hears our every whimper, our
every cryer, every need. And the mother who is nursing
her child and taking care of her child is reflecting
God in that way.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And it's so cool.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
There's a lot of tenderness in God. There's a lot
of tenderness that I think we just don't think about.
But if you've been a mother, or if you've watched
a mother with her child, or you've been with your child,
and the tenderness and the sweetness and the oh, like,
I love you so much That's how God feels for us.
And it's kind of crazy to think about, but it's
very very special and tender and sacred. And the woman
(26:45):
is reflecting that and representing that now as she moves
on into and I do want to hit a note
of what if I have not been able to have children,
or what if I won't be able to have children,
what if I don't have children? We reflect the Lord, Like, yes,
being pregnant and having children physically is one representation of,
you know, bearing the image of God. But every single
(27:08):
one of us as woman, whether we have children or not,
we have maternal capacities to serve everyone that the Lord
has put within our reach, our friends, our mothers, our sisters,
you know, volunteering in high school ministry, middle school ministry,
you know, you know, for kids in foster care or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Like.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
We have maternal capacity and that is so reflected in
our hormones. And so one does not need to experience
pregnancy and birth and having their own child to feel
like she's fulfilling God's image. She should be doing that
since before you have children, I remember, you know, I
was in my college years and I remember just being
(27:48):
burdened and crying of like I don't know if I'm
going to be able to have kids, and feeling how
sad that was. But looking back and on that time,
I was serving so hardcore in such a maternal motherly way,
like they always call me Mama Beck even when I
was in high school, because I was just always like
I don't know, taking care of everyone and making sure
everyone was you know, that fighting taken care of and
(28:09):
you know, just we have this instinct, we have nurturing
maternal instincts, and that should be implemented one hundred percent
of the time, whether we have kids or not. It
doesn't have to be our own physical kids. I would
a million percent stand by that God wants us to
take care of the orphans, and there are plenty out there,
whether they are physically orphaned or they're spiritually orphaned, or
(28:31):
they're needing that maternal care that God has given in
all of us. So I just wanted to hit on
that because we're because God's not leaving any of us out.
We are reflecting His image in all of these different ways.
As we move into perimenopause, it's a really cool season.
I know there's lots of like, oh my gosh, this sucks,
like what is happening, But let's talk about the beauty
(28:53):
in it. Because if we're looking at our fertility as
this clock like for men are key, it's like the
clock just started kind of ticking and it was just
kind of getting used to things. And then in the
reproductive years it's going, it's rocking, it's rolling, and then
in perimenopause we start imagining this clock starts to TikTok
more slowly. So we are still in these fertility bearing,
(29:18):
maternal nurturing years, and we have more years that we
have lived, we have more wisdom, we have more experience.
So it's like we have one of our feet is
in the fertility reproductive bearing years because we are still
fertile at times and just not as frequently, and we
have another foot in our wisdom bearing years. And so
(29:41):
we kind of get to play this both and role
of I am both mother, you know, whether that's to
physical or spiritual children, and I am acting in that way,
and I'm becoming even more of a spiritual mother in
the wisdom that God has given me from my years
and years of experience of being a wife or a
mother or a spiritual mind and then as we move
(30:02):
into menopause, then it's like we are fully living in
our wisdom, bearing and giving years.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Our reproductive crazy.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And beauty stops. Everything is quiet, just like it was
before menarchy. Everything was quiet then, and it's quiet now,
so that now we can serve, and now we can
look outward and just give all of this incredible wisdom
to our community, to our families around us. So that
I hope that answers your question. That's kind of my
(30:33):
little spiel that I really wanted to be able to
share at some point on this podcast because I was
just hoping that people would get a lot of encouragement,
a lot of spiritual encouragement from how God made them.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, No, that's so much, and that's so good. Beca.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I love this idea of reframing each of these phases
into looking at it from God's perspective. And I was
reading I think it's so I think there's a series.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I might get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's like the menopause brain and the pregnancy Brain. Have
you heard of those books? I think there's one called
the menopause Brain. But somewhere I have read a book
and it talks about the way our brain is actually
transformed through these hormonal changes that we go through and
(31:35):
how it equips us and so like in one of
the books that I read, it said something the effect
of we joke about, oh, I've got.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Pregnancy brain, and we use it in a negative way.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But it went through all of the ways it prepares
us to be an effective nurturing mother, from a survival perspective,
from an emotional and nurturing perspective. And then again as
you go into menopause, you have this other transformation of
different areas of your brain being benefited and pruned, and
(32:05):
it's a good thing and it prepares us for what's next,
which is, you know, maybe being a grandparent, maybe being
you know, I think it brought in this idea of
storytelling and wisdom imparting through what we have and the
parts of our brains that are fortified are the parts
(32:26):
of our brains that allow us to connect with people
in that way in imparting wisdom. And I'm paraphrasing and
probably getting it way wrong, but that's kind of the
gist and it falls in line with that exactly what
you're saying of let's view this.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Not as oh, well, I'm done for now, I'm.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Just you know, God has designed us with this timeline
that allows us to like have all these different roles
as women, and they're all equally beautiful. So I wanted
to ask you just to take a second and address
the woman who has been betrayed by her hormones or
(33:05):
perceives that she's been betrayed by her hormones, whether it's infertility,
whether it's extremely difficult PMS, or whether it's you know,
maybe she went into menopause very early, any of those things.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Where it's like, did God really do this? Like what
would you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Say to that person questioning absolutely and harboring a lot
of anger and resentment toward her own body and maybe
even toward God for creating women this way.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, So I think we need to first of all,
remember and recognize the beauty of the original design and
the original intent of that design. And then we need
to recognize the second fold of looking at all of
this arc of beauty and then being like, up, and
we are in a fallen and broken world, and there
(33:56):
is going to be different types of challenges and suffering
and sorrow within each of these different parts of this arc. Right,
So we could talk about the difficulties and the challenges
that are in each of these different phases, and ultimately
(34:17):
we have to recognize that there is spiritual warfare and
specific enmity from Satan towards the woman. And we see
that in our fertility, we really do. And Satan he's
not stupid, he's very like straightforward, he's not crafty, but
(34:38):
he recognizes this woman is the one who will bring
in Jesus Christ, and who has brought in Jesus Christ.
And this woman is the one who will allow the
kingdom to continue to grow unless I tear it down.
And so of course he's attacking our fertility. Of course
he's making us wanting to like hate our b bodies
(35:01):
and be so frustrated and fed up and go through
really hard stuff, go through heart stuff, to going through
trauma and trying to break this relationship that was supposed
to be good and is supposed to be good that
we have with our bodies and our fertility in God himself.
And of course he's wanting to disrupt that. So the
first thing that I, you know, want to share is like,
(35:23):
let's just call this what it is. This isn't about
you being angry with God. This is about we are
in a broken, fallen, sinful world and this is a
spiritual battle. This is spiritual warfare. So our hearts have
to be aligned first with God and recognizing what this is.
And once our hearts are aligned first, then it becomes
easier to see clearly what should our next steps be.
(35:46):
We're not supposed to be silent partners and not do
anything and be doormats and just be like, oh, well,
this is just my cross to bear. My fertility is
just going to suck. Like, No, we should be active partners.
We are a royal priesthood a whole, and we got
things we got to do, and we want to be
able to be active participants of this royal priesthood. And
(36:08):
we can't just sit by the wayside and let Satan
have a heyday with our hormones, with our fertility, with
our periods, with our pregnancies, with our birth, with our postpartum.
Now we have to fight back. We have to call
this for what it is and we have to fight back.
We can't do this alone. We cannot do this alone.
Like my mantra is, it takes sometimes it takes a
(36:28):
village to get a baby, to get pregnant and we
have all heard like sometimes it takes a village to
support the pregnancy, takes the village to raise a child,
It takes a village. We have to have good community,
We have to have good support, We have to have
Christ centered practitioners and coaches to support us fully in mind, body,
(36:51):
and spirit. We can't just be focusing on the physical
and expecting that and just like not connecting the dots
that the physical is connected to the spiritual. They are connected,
and so we want to be surrounding ourselves with people
who get that and support that and are praying and
fighting for us.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
In that way.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Oh that is so good, and it's a perfect segue
into can you just tell us a little bit about
what you do and where our listeners can find You
can find your podcast online absolutely media.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, so virtually globally, I serve women in their fertility
and supporting them and learning about how did God sign you,
what are your cycles? What is it telling you, and
how do we support them naturally within God's design and
doing a lot of advocacy work within that. So I
do that within my program called Fertility Framework. You learn
(37:41):
one of the fertility awareness methods you learn the incredible
hormone coaching skills and tools, and you learn how do
I do this with God at the center, as we
like do a Bible study throughout this program, so we
are balancing the spiritual, physical, and emotional elements. And if
you're local in the Front Range of Colorado, I'm also doula,
So I love it when I get to serve people
(38:02):
and it's the most rewarding thing that I've been able
to help a few people get pregnant and be at
their berths locally, and that's that's incredible as well.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
My podcast is.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Called for the Love of Hormones, where we dive deep
into this every week, and my website is Becca yan
dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, some of us get to experience childbirth a handful
of times, even maybe if that, and it must be
pretty incredible to be able to experience it so many times,
and especially with someone that you've walked spiritually, emotionally, physically
through the process of even conceiving all the way.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
To that endpoint. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Well, thank you, Becca, I'm so excited to get your
information out to our listeners. This has been so good
and how can we pray for you I'm going to
close us in prayer.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
How can we pray for you today?
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Thank you just continued encouragement for the work that I'm in.
It's been several years and so just continued encourage that
would be great.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
All righty, well, thank you so much for being here.
And you know, who knows, we might maybe we'll have
you on again in another year. Thank you, Jamie for sure. Right,
let's pray God. We just thank you so much for Becca.
Thank you for the experiences that you've just allowed her
to use to teach and help and give hope to
(39:24):
other women. We just thank you so much for the
fact that she puts Christ at the.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Center of what she's doing.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And just pray that you would continue to bless her ministries,
bless her body, mind and spirit to just have the
energy and the just ability to wear all the hats
to be a mom, a wife, to do ministry and
work and all of the other things.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
That she has in her life.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
We just pray that you would provide for her in
every single way, and that you would just continue to
guide her and direct her and sustain her in what
she's doing, that she would just be under the complete
protection of your absolute best that she would just have
that knowledge and confidence and feeling of riding the wave
(40:14):
of what you have for her, that absolute best that
she would be in a complete alignment with your purposes
for her. And we just pray for anyone listening who
has experienced pain or trauma in regards to fertility or
their hormones. And we just pray for healing, for support,
(40:39):
for love, for restoration.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
In Jesus name, and we just pray that you.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Would just allow this podcast to get out to anyone
who needs to hear it. Just bring Becca to anyone
who could benefit from her services, and just break down
any barriers between these women who need help and getting
to her.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
In Jesus' name, Amen man, we'd like.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
To take just a quick second to thank the team
at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find
dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've
got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more.
That's lifeaudio dot com.
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Praying
Christian Women podcast. I'm Jamie Hampton and I'm so excited
to welcome back to the podcast, Becca Y. Becca is
the fertility awareness educator. She's a certified hormone coach. She
is the host of the podcast for the Love of Hormones.
And I'm so happy, just personally and selfishly to have
(00:28):
you on the podcast, Becca, because I know like me,
and they're just countless other women out there that are
just puzzled by hormones. Maybe they are struggling mightily with hormones.
I don't know a single person who's just like I
love my hormones.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And what I love about you is you flip the script.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You get us to see hormones and our femininity and
our different seasons of life through godglasses, to see them
as a blessing and God designed. So thank you for
being here again to talk about hormones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yes, I'm so excited to be here. Our last conversation
was so fun and I know I was like out
of breath. I think that was the last interview I
did before I had my own baby.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How old is your baby now?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He's ten? Months.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So that's so fun. Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Right, Well, we always check in about what's your favorite
prayer closet? And I know you answered back then. Okay,
let me see if I can remember. Did you have
a prayer chair?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Was that I did? Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I thought I remember that because I also do and did.
But what is your favorite prayer closet these days?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Has it changed? Has it stayed the same? You're still
my blue chair?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
My chair? Oh yeah, it's still my blue chair. I
you know, have my time where I sit down there
in the mornings before all the crazy starts and try
to ground myself in the Lord for the day. So
stay still the same, same blue chair.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, for listeners who may not be familiar with your
work or who didn't listen to our last podcast episode,
could you just share a little bit about your own
journey and just kind of how God led you to
get in the realm of fertility and hormones in kind
of a Christian context.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Absolutely, yeah. I mean I've been a believer since I
was I could talk, so since I was three years old.
I think I was praying for Jesus to be in
my heart and just loving him my whole life. And
while I loved Jesus my whole life, I didn't really
understand how he created me. I didn't understand the depths
of what he meant when he said that I am
(02:34):
fearfully and wonderfully made. So I was on birth control
for fourteen years before marriage, during the first several years
of marriage, not understanding what it was doing to my body.
When we went off of that, we were very blessed
to conceive within a few months, kind of blessed, but
definitely blessed. But also I wish I would have known
(02:55):
about what post birth control syndrome was. I wish I
would have known how to get my body more healthy
before conceiving. But I mean, I want to change anything now.
I love my son, who was conceived post birds control.
He's incredible, such a gift. But we had our first
two children, two boys, without me even being able to
(03:17):
tell you what ovulation was and really how they got there.
Aside from me and my husband loving each other, I
really couldn't tell you the specifics of how it happened.
You know, what my eggs were and what ovulation was,
the follicular phase, cervical mucus, like all the things that
were going into it. There was no way I could
have expressed that, but we were blessed with them. And
(03:41):
then we had three d miscarriages in a row. We
had a fifteen week loss and then we had two
chemical pregnancies after that. And it was after the third
loss that my husband and I were just like, we
have got to figure out what is going on, Like
I cannot go through this again. So I say that
(04:02):
we tucked our tails and went to our Catholic friends
and were like, what are you guys doing to somehow
space out your children? We know you're not using birth control?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What are y'all doing? And they talked to.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Us about fertility awareness methods and I thought it was
like the craziest thing. I was like, there's no way
that works, Like what in the world And they were
talking to us about all this stuff and it was
just way over my head. But I started reading and
researching it's just part of my personality. And we started
applying one of the fertility awareness methods. We learned that
through a course, and we started using it to avoid
(04:35):
pregnancy for a season so that we could figure out
what was going on with my body. Why did I
keep losing our babies? You know what was wrong? And
we did find some root issues that were going on,
so learning about fertility awareness and then I got myself
a hormone coach. She's actually the founder of the FIAT Institute,
and that's who I'm certified as a hormone coach through.
(04:56):
So basically all the things that helped me in my
healing journey is what I'm certified to help others and
now because it was so impactful for me. But we
did our healing journey for about six months and then
we felt really good about what my cycle charts were
telling us, how my hormones were looking, how my ovulation
was looking, and we got pregnant again with our we
called our Triple Rainbow baby. It was a beautiful pregnant
(05:18):
scene and a beautiful birth, all natural, two hour home birth.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
In the shower.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was crazy, and so that's kind of what led
me on this journey. We did end up having another
baby as well, and that's a whole other story, but
that's kind of what got me into supporting women in
their hormones, in their fertility and in God's design for it.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I love that and I'm still stuck on what is
I don't think I've ever heard of post birth control syndrome?
Is that what you called it? Yes, I don't think
we talked about this. Maybe we did, but I don't
think we did because I don't This is new to me.
So can you either refresh my groundhog day brain? Or
it was something brand new?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
What is that? And what does that look like? I
didn't even know it existed.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, So when a woman gets off of birth control,
whether she's been on it for like a few weeks
or a couple of years or a decade like me,
we are considered post birth control syndrome. And what this
means is we recognize and understand that being on the
pill or other types of birth control, be vud M plant, whatever,
(06:26):
it does several things to our bodies. It depletes our
bodies of vital nutrients. So it's depleting our bodies of
vitamins and minerals and also our bodies capability and capacity
to be able to absorb vitamins and minerals. So when
someone says, well, I eat so healthy, like, I don't
know why I'm feeling this bad, or I don't know
(06:46):
why my periods are so out of whack or I
don't know why I'm not getting pregnant. That's immediately one
of the questions I think of is, hey, have you
been on birth control in the past, because that it
really kind of messes with our bodies natural capacity for nutrient,
vitamin and mineral absorption. So that's one of the things
that the pill does to us or birth control. The
other thing is it increases a lot of inflammation, so
(07:09):
that can look like, you know, maybe more painful periods.
It can look like getting headaches, being tired, having joint pain,
breast tenderness, those types of things. The birth control it's
also been shown to kind of wreck our thyroid and
wreck our gut health. So anytime someone's been on birth
control and they're wanting to get pregnant, my very first
(07:31):
go to is like, hey, get a full thyroid panel.
Run I have one. If your listeners, go to Becca
Yon dot com slash thyroid labs. It's like an amazing
handout that has here are what thyroid labs to ask
your doctor for, and here are the functional ranges. Because
(07:51):
they're going to be more narrow ranges than what the
conventional medicine hospital ranges are for the thyroid, and they're
going to be more tests because typically if you ask
your doctor to do a thyroid test, they'll check your
TSH and maybe your T four and that's all they're checking.
But that doesn't give us a full picture as to
what your thyroid's actually doing. Now, I'm not claiming that
(08:14):
I or you or your listener can like go and
get this thyroid test and get the results back and
know what to do with it, but you can at
least look at the results and compare them to functional ranges,
and if all of your ranges are within functional ranges,
your golden and if they're not, you need to go
get more help, so from someone who's really specialized in that.
And it's probably unless you have one of the three
(08:36):
percent amazing OBEs who have additional training or family physicians,
they're probably not going to be able to help you
if you're in between the functional and conventional ranges, if
that makes sense. So anyways, that's a whole rabbit hole.
But that's one of the things that bird control really
impacts us on, and our thyroid health is critical for
(08:57):
a healthy pregnancy and for avoiding the miscas that was
one of the issues I was dealing with was what
was my thigh riid in the miscarriages, And I'd been
on the pill for a long time somehow it kind
of it was probably just enough and just okay. For
my first two pregnancies. I was actually put on thyroid
medication in them, and then I think I lost my
(09:18):
medication when we were in between moves and our lives
were so crazy, and I didn't have that educational foundational
knowledge of like, girl, your thyroid health is critical, like
you can't neglect it. And so I wasn't on any
medication when I was pregnant, and that was one of
the issues that contributed to my miscarriages. So the other
(09:39):
thing about post birth control syndrome is it really impacts
our cycles. So oftentimes our cycles can look like maybe
we're not ovulating, or they can look irregular, or they
can even look like it's it's no longer called PCOS,
it's now called PMOS, but it can look like those
irregular type cycles. But it can be caused just from
(09:59):
be post pill. It doesn't mean that we have that
diagnoses necessarily. Where we have that issue we're dealing with,
it's just because of the after effects of the pill
that can last for up to a year. So that's
post bird control syndrome.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You So for those that don't know PCOS, that's polycystic
ovary syndrome.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, and statistic ovarian syndrome. And now it's called PMOS.
It's something about poly something metabolic. Okay, they're changing the
C to the end because they're recognizing that this is
a metabolic function in the body which may.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Cause so much multiple cysts of eggs basically multiple ovulation,
and then cysts that don't rupture and ovulate, they just
kind of fester and cause pain. Is that kind of
what happens.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
That's one of the types. So that can be it,
but you can still have it even if you're not
having like the string of pearls or specific ovarian issues.
Lot of it can be that metabolic stuff that's going on.
Like we're insulin resistant and we're not tolerating carbohydrates or sugars,
and so our body is kind of going a little
bit crazy with our blood sugar.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And our insulin.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And so now the new NAN is more reflected, more
reflective and encompassing of the different issues that it can encompass.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, so the polycystic part is a symptom of the
metabolic underlying issue, which causes other things too, So it's
just a little bit more all encompassing, right, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I did not know. I do know. So I was
on birth control.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
We got married and didn't I didn't go off until
probably five years, five six years something like that, and
it was okay, like I didn't have any I didn't
think I had any bad symptoms. I know some people
who just hated the way it made them feel. I
wasn't quite like that. But it's interesting because I cyclically,
(12:07):
I was thinking, what am I eating that's giving me
food poisoning every month. I don't know why it wouldn't
occur to me because I guess I didn't know it
was every month because I wasn't charting my cycle at
the time. I'm just taking the birth control. I was
pretty clockwork with my cycle. But I didn't make that
connection until perimenopause, which is now when I've been getting
(12:27):
cyclical migraines and throwing up because of the migraines. But
I was I was throwing up and getting sick about
once a month for I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It was probably about a year maybe or a little
bit less.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But it wasn't as bad as the migraines, and my
symptoms weren't as bad of a headache as just I
would be at work and I'd have to run to
a bucket and throw up. And at first I thought,
am I pregnant? But I still didn't associate it with that.
But I think it was due to the pill and
my auta WAC hormones that caused that kind of thing.
And I'm sure if I had been aware that being
(13:01):
on the pill did other things to your body, which
of course it does, but I just wasn't thinking about
it because it's just what you do, right. I just
I would not have put two and two together that
that it was disrupting my body so terribly much. I
just kind of took it on faith that this is
what we do when we don't want to have kids
and we're married, right, So very interesting. But I ended
(13:22):
up meeting a Catholic friend who gave me some advice
and got me a book that was kind of charting
your cycle using At that time, it was you know,
in the Stone Ages, so it was like but you know,
using like a basal body thermometer and like hand charting
your at the same time every day what your temperature was.
But there's so many more things you can do now
(13:43):
which are pretty amazing. I actually I thought i'd bring
up to you. I got this. I think it's called
it's called Mirra. It's I'm like, on day seven, have
you heard of this? It's yes, What are your thoughts
on it? It's yeah, horma. It tracks your hormones. I
pian a stick every morning and it has confirmed what
I suspected in terms of what's going on day to
(14:04):
day at the moment, and I'm really hoping I haven't
had a migraine at the same time as I've been
using it. I had one the week before and I
was like, I've got a break down. I need to
know what's going on with my hormones on a daily basis.
I'm sure it's not one hundred percent accurate, but in
terms of the relative amounts and my FSH being pretty
high and just you know, all the rest being pretty low,
(14:25):
it's giving me some insights into what my body's doing.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, the mirror is wonderful mirror and you know, they
both kind of do the same thing. And I think
it's a wonderful tool in addition to use to help
figure out what's going on. I still I'm always a
proponent of tracking your cervical mucus and learning that from
a fertility awareness method because that's the most effective biomarker
(14:51):
we can have. But it's an awesome tool to add
in addition.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, well, and to clarify, I am very very irregular.
I'm late perimenopausal, so I'm you know, I've gone over
one hundred days at one point without having a period.
I have gone thirty days sometimes, but I'm definitely in
the waning phases of all of that, and this would
not be good to use as reliable birth control, just
(15:18):
for anyone listening, you know, don't use something like this
and assume it's going to be like you know exactly. So, yeah,
I just want to put that disclaimer out there and
always see a physician to kind of support some of
these decisions, or a fertility.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Aware physician very important, yeah, because they might just tell
you to stay on bird control, so right, exactly, Yeah right, Yeah, No,
that's a beautiful tool to use to kind of confirm.
Sometimes I'll use a tool like that to confirm what
I think my hormones are doing in addition to my tracking,
and it's really helpful to see. But yeah, it sounds
(15:52):
like your hormones are low and you need a little help.
Everything's kind of whining back down.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It is.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And I mean I actually went on HRT because when
you get your blood work done. Also for people to know,
when you go into the doctor, you get blood work ordered,
you go in and get the blood work done. It's
a snapshot in time. One time I got my blood
work done, my estrogen was like six hundred and something,
another time it was like twenty or you know, in
the same cycle, you're gonna fluctuate wildly. But I have
(16:21):
basically been in the kind of perimenopausal phase of thinking
that I might need extra estrogen. But at the same time,
when I went on it, my estrogen was up and
down so much that it made me sicker at first,
and then she kind of tapered it down to the
point where Anyway, long story short, I went off of
it to kind of reassess if I need it, but
(16:43):
I will be probably looking into it just to try
and give it a boost. But anyway, we'll talk later.
Sounds good, Yeah, I might be soliciting your services. But anyway,
let's bring this back around to kind of a biblical mindset.
So how I don't know, I don't even where to start.
(17:03):
I would say, what does it mean to you that
women reflect the image of God through all different seasons
of life? That's kind of what you wanted to come
back on to talk about, is this different seasons of life,
how we as women reflect the image of God.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Absolutely, well, you know, in the very beginning in Genesis
it says God created man in his own image, male
and female. He created them and the image of God
he created them. And so when we look at our
sweet husbands or brothers in Christ, like, oh yeah, they
totally reflect the image of God in the male way. Right,
(17:45):
So we get to see elements and you know, when
I think of I'll give it to you this way.
So there was a picture one time when I was
sitting in a coffee shop that I just sat and
I just looked at it and.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I thought, Ah, this is what it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Means for God to reflect himself in creation. It was
this beautiful picture of it was in the mountains of
this waterfall and the waterfall with the way that the
photographer captured it. I have a little bit of photography background,
so like it was like a slow type shot, so
the water just looked like it was glistening and streaming,
like this smooth, fluid, beautiful breadth of water just flowing down,
(18:26):
and then all around it were these like let's hear,
how would I describe it? It's so hard, It's a
picture's worth a thousand words, right, so bear with me.
But like really strong, hard crisp rocks and boulders that
had like lots of like dibbots, and I don't know,
they're rustic and they're they're big, and they're heavy and
(18:47):
they're strong, and they're like holding up this beautiful, like weightless,
free flowing fluid water. And I just look at this picture,
and of course there's like trees and all of this,
and I'm like, ah, this is God like reflecting himself
in this masculine and feminine design. And we see it
(19:09):
not just I think in you know, in boys and girls,
in men and women. We also can see it in
his creation. In his creation, we see like strong, hefty,
like rock solid, incredible things in creation, and then we
see like absolute, pristine, soft fluid beauty, you know, like
(19:31):
the soft, delicate flower. I'm not saying all women are
like delicate flowers, right, but we certainly, you know, promote
some kind of essence like that. And then there's essences
of men as well that are different. We are just different,
and so I want to I just want to acknowledge
our men because they're wonderful and they're incredible, and anytime
we talk about some of the feminine stuff, I don't
(19:52):
want them to feel like, well, well I'm not cool, Like, no,
you are so cool, you know, in the way that
you reflect God. And then I someone to talk about
how we as women and girls reflect the image of
God in such a much different way than men. So
when we think about women and how God created us,
I think in each of our different seasons and stages
(20:14):
of life, we are reflecting God in a different way,
which is really cool because it's so different from men.
Men from the time they become fertile when they're teenagers
and their sperm is you know, and testosterone are rock
and and rolling. They're fertile till they die, and it's
just pretty straightforward. They get a daily cycle of testosterone
and cortisol, and it's high in the morning and it
(20:36):
goes lower throughout the day, and it can be boosted
by certain events like being around other guys, watching in
an action movie, seeing a gun, you know, like that's
the guy. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward, you know, pretty awesome.
But then we have the woman who is so complicated
and different and complex, and not only does she rhythmically
(20:58):
cycle through hormones on more like a monthly basis, she
also rhythmically cycles through her hormonal patterns throughout her throughout
her life. From the time that she reaches menarchy, which
is when she has her first period, her hormones are
doing a lot of interesting things, and then you know,
(21:21):
she kind of transitions from having these irregular cycles to
eventually becoming more regular over you know, maybe a year
or two or maybe three. It takes three or four
years for them to get regular, and then she reaches
this stage of being in her reproductive years. So the
reproductive years are pretty straightforward. You typically would have regular
cycles somewhat predictable, but there's still if you don't understand
(21:45):
what's going on within that cycle, it can be confusing.
And then her fertility clock starts winding down, and she
starts entering into perimenopause, where she's still fertile, but the
fertility is slowing down. And then she enters into menopause,
where the fertility cycle is quiet and silence. But now
she's in these wisdom bearing years. And so when we
(22:07):
think about the image of God in each of these pays,
is menarchy, the reproductive years, perimenopause, and menopause. In menarchy,
I see the image of God of this awakening of fertility.
And when we think of God, he is the creator
of life. He's the creator of all life. And when
(22:28):
a girl goes from being a girl to starting to
turn and transform into a woman who can, who is
physically capable of having life created in her, it's this
beautiful start to reflecting God in his creator capacity. So
(22:48):
it's a really cool and exciting time. And I want
that language to be received by mothers and their young
teenage daughters of not fear and terror. But oh, this
is so cool because she is awakening into a woman,
a fertile woman who is reflecting God in this creative capacity.
(23:10):
And then in our reproductive years, there's lots of beauty.
Maybe we're choosing to be reproductive, or maybe we're not,
maybe we're not married yet, But no matter what, I
could talk a lot about the hormones in these phases
and how they reflect God's image, but I want to
focus a little bit on the fertility aspect of it.
When a woman does physically conceive, she is literally like
(23:32):
a walking, breathing image of how God has created all
of us, of how God is creator. She is a
testimony to that. And when she delivers and goes into
labor for this child, she is reflecting God in another
way for how God. You know, I think a lot
there's a lot of Old Testament imagery, and there's still
(23:53):
also a lot of in the New Testament. But when
we think of God and his pursuit of the Israelites
and his love for the Israelites, I think it's in
Isaiah forty six he says, I have carried you. So
I think of a mother carrying her child like I
have carried you. You know, when you think of a
mom carrying her child and pregnancy, you're like, Wow, that
(24:13):
woman has so much love, she has so much capacity
and strength to be doing what she's doing, and she's
reflecting how God does that for us. He carries us.
He has so much love and capacity and strength for us.
And then in Isaiah forty six says, I have carried you,
I will bear you, I will deliver you. And so
(24:34):
you know, as a woman goes through labor pains, these
are the pains that God experienced when the Israelites turned
away from him. Of like, this woman still loves her baby.
She has an unconditional love for this baby. But it's
going through pain and suffering and sorrow and this experience.
And that's a whole other conversation as well, for like
why we experience it in that way. But that is
(24:55):
what God experienced for us in pursuing us. He experienced
a lot of sorrow and suffering and us turning away
from him, and the Israelites turning away from him and
worshiping other gods after all that he had done for them.
And you know, a woman actually giving birth, that is
what God has done for us. He has given us
new life in Jesus Christ. And I mean, man, I
(25:19):
also I'm a birth do love and I'm like, there
is nothing like a new life coming into the world
to represent the power and majesty of God and Jesus
Christ then a baby being born. It is the most awesome,
incredible thing and it totally makes me think of like, whoa,
(25:39):
this is what Jesus does for us. You know, we
were buried in our sins, we were dead in our sins,
and then He delivered us and he gave us our
first breath and he gave us new life. And so
as a woman does this in this physical world, we
get to see that spiritual aspect of God. You know,
(26:00):
I could keep talking about breastfeeding in postpartum and how
that reflects God's image of how he nourishes us and
he sees us and he hears us, and he takes
care of us, and he hears our every whimper, our
every cryer, every need. And the mother who is nursing
her child and taking care of her child is reflecting
God in that way.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And it's so cool.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
There's a lot of tenderness in God. There's a lot
of tenderness that I think we just don't think about.
But if you've been a mother, or if you've watched
a mother with her child, or you've been with your child,
and the tenderness and the sweetness and the oh, like,
I love you so much That's how God feels for us.
And it's kind of crazy to think about, but it's
very very special and tender and sacred. And the woman
(26:45):
is reflecting that and representing that now as she moves
on into and I do want to hit a note
of what if I have not been able to have children,
or what if I won't be able to have children,
what if I don't have children? We reflect the Lord, Like, yes,
being pregnant and having children physically is one representation of,
you know, bearing the image of God. But every single
(27:08):
one of us as woman, whether we have children or not,
we have maternal capacities to serve everyone that the Lord
has put within our reach, our friends, our mothers, our sisters,
you know, volunteering in high school ministry, middle school ministry,
you know, you know, for kids in foster care or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Like.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
We have maternal capacity and that is so reflected in
our hormones. And so one does not need to experience
pregnancy and birth and having their own child to feel
like she's fulfilling God's image. She should be doing that
since before you have children, I remember, you know, I
was in my college years and I remember just being
(27:48):
burdened and crying of like I don't know if I'm
going to be able to have kids, and feeling how
sad that was. But looking back and on that time,
I was serving so hardcore in such a maternal motherly way,
like they always call me Mama Beck even when I
was in high school, because I was just always like
I don't know, taking care of everyone and making sure
everyone was you know, that fighting taken care of and
(28:09):
you know, just we have this instinct, we have nurturing
maternal instincts, and that should be implemented one hundred percent
of the time, whether we have kids or not. It
doesn't have to be our own physical kids. I would
a million percent stand by that God wants us to
take care of the orphans, and there are plenty out there,
whether they are physically orphaned or they're spiritually orphaned, or
(28:31):
they're needing that maternal care that God has given in
all of us. So I just wanted to hit on
that because we're because God's not leaving any of us out.
We are reflecting His image in all of these different ways.
As we move into perimenopause, it's a really cool season.
I know there's lots of like, oh my gosh, this sucks,
like what is happening, But let's talk about the beauty
(28:53):
in it. Because if we're looking at our fertility as
this clock like for men are key, it's like the
clock just started kind of ticking and it was just
kind of getting used to things. And then in the
reproductive years it's going, it's rocking, it's rolling, and then
in perimenopause we start imagining this clock starts to TikTok
more slowly. So we are still in these fertility bearing,
(29:18):
maternal nurturing years, and we have more years that we
have lived, we have more wisdom, we have more experience.
So it's like we have one of our feet is
in the fertility reproductive bearing years because we are still
fertile at times and just not as frequently, and we
have another foot in our wisdom bearing years. And so
(29:41):
we kind of get to play this both and role
of I am both mother, you know, whether that's to
physical or spiritual children, and I am acting in that way,
and I'm becoming even more of a spiritual mother in
the wisdom that God has given me from my years
and years of experience of being a wife or a
mother or a spiritual mind and then as we move
(30:02):
into menopause, then it's like we are fully living in
our wisdom, bearing and giving years.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Our reproductive crazy.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And beauty stops. Everything is quiet, just like it was
before menarchy. Everything was quiet then, and it's quiet now,
so that now we can serve, and now we can
look outward and just give all of this incredible wisdom
to our community, to our families around us. So that
I hope that answers your question. That's kind of my
(30:33):
little spiel that I really wanted to be able to
share at some point on this podcast because I was
just hoping that people would get a lot of encouragement,
a lot of spiritual encouragement from how God made them.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, No, that's so much, and that's so good. Beca.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I love this idea of reframing each of these phases
into looking at it from God's perspective. And I was
reading I think it's so I think there's a series.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I might get it wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's like the menopause brain and the pregnancy Brain. Have
you heard of those books? I think there's one called
the menopause Brain. But somewhere I have read a book
and it talks about the way our brain is actually
transformed through these hormonal changes that we go through and
(31:35):
how it equips us and so like in one of
the books that I read, it said something the effect
of we joke about, oh, I've got.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Pregnancy brain, and we use it in a negative way.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But it went through all of the ways it prepares
us to be an effective nurturing mother, from a survival perspective,
from an emotional and nurturing perspective. And then again as
you go into menopause, you have this other transformation of
different areas of your brain being benefited and pruned, and
(32:05):
it's a good thing and it prepares us for what's next,
which is, you know, maybe being a grandparent, maybe being
you know, I think it brought in this idea of
storytelling and wisdom imparting through what we have and the
parts of our brains that are fortified are the parts
(32:26):
of our brains that allow us to connect with people
in that way in imparting wisdom. And I'm paraphrasing and
probably getting it way wrong, but that's kind of the
gist and it falls in line with that exactly what
you're saying of let's view this.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Not as oh, well, I'm done for now, I'm.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Just you know, God has designed us with this timeline
that allows us to like have all these different roles
as women, and they're all equally beautiful. So I wanted
to ask you just to take a second and address
the woman who has been betrayed by her hormones or
(33:05):
perceives that she's been betrayed by her hormones, whether it's infertility,
whether it's extremely difficult PMS, or whether it's you know,
maybe she went into menopause very early, any of those things.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Where it's like, did God really do this? Like what
would you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Say to that person questioning absolutely and harboring a lot
of anger and resentment toward her own body and maybe
even toward God for creating women this way.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, So I think we need to first of all,
remember and recognize the beauty of the original design and
the original intent of that design. And then we need
to recognize the second fold of looking at all of
this arc of beauty and then being like, up, and
we are in a fallen and broken world, and there
(33:56):
is going to be different types of challenges and suffering
and sorrow within each of these different parts of this arc. Right,
So we could talk about the difficulties and the challenges
that are in each of these different phases, and ultimately
(34:17):
we have to recognize that there is spiritual warfare and
specific enmity from Satan towards the woman. And we see
that in our fertility, we really do. And Satan he's
not stupid, he's very like straightforward, he's not crafty, but
(34:38):
he recognizes this woman is the one who will bring
in Jesus Christ, and who has brought in Jesus Christ.
And this woman is the one who will allow the
kingdom to continue to grow unless I tear it down.
And so of course he's attacking our fertility. Of course
he's making us wanting to like hate our b bodies
(35:01):
and be so frustrated and fed up and go through
really hard stuff, go through heart stuff, to going through
trauma and trying to break this relationship that was supposed
to be good and is supposed to be good that
we have with our bodies and our fertility in God himself.
And of course he's wanting to disrupt that. So the
first thing that I, you know, want to share is like,
(35:23):
let's just call this what it is. This isn't about
you being angry with God. This is about we are
in a broken, fallen, sinful world and this is a
spiritual battle. This is spiritual warfare. So our hearts have
to be aligned first with God and recognizing what this is.
And once our hearts are aligned first, then it becomes
easier to see clearly what should our next steps be.
(35:46):
We're not supposed to be silent partners and not do
anything and be doormats and just be like, oh, well,
this is just my cross to bear. My fertility is
just going to suck. Like, No, we should be active partners.
We are a royal priesthood a whole, and we got
things we got to do, and we want to be
able to be active participants of this royal priesthood. And
(36:08):
we can't just sit by the wayside and let Satan
have a heyday with our hormones, with our fertility, with
our periods, with our pregnancies, with our birth, with our postpartum.
Now we have to fight back. We have to call
this for what it is and we have to fight back.
We can't do this alone. We cannot do this alone.
Like my mantra is, it takes sometimes it takes a
(36:28):
village to get a baby, to get pregnant and we
have all heard like sometimes it takes a village to
support the pregnancy, takes the village to raise a child,
It takes a village. We have to have good community,
We have to have good support, We have to have
Christ centered practitioners and coaches to support us fully in mind, body,
(36:51):
and spirit. We can't just be focusing on the physical
and expecting that and just like not connecting the dots
that the physical is connected to the spiritual. They are connected,
and so we want to be surrounding ourselves with people
who get that and support that and are praying and
fighting for us.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
In that way.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Oh that is so good, and it's a perfect segue
into can you just tell us a little bit about
what you do and where our listeners can find You
can find your podcast online absolutely media.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, so virtually globally, I serve women in their fertility
and supporting them and learning about how did God sign you,
what are your cycles? What is it telling you, and
how do we support them naturally within God's design and
doing a lot of advocacy work within that. So I
do that within my program called Fertility Framework. You learn
(37:41):
one of the fertility awareness methods you learn the incredible
hormone coaching skills and tools, and you learn how do
I do this with God at the center, as we
like do a Bible study throughout this program, so we
are balancing the spiritual, physical, and emotional elements. And if
you're local in the Front Range of Colorado, I'm also doula,
So I love it when I get to serve people
(38:02):
and it's the most rewarding thing that I've been able
to help a few people get pregnant and be at
their berths locally, and that's that's incredible as well.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
My podcast is.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Called for the Love of Hormones, where we dive deep
into this every week, and my website is Becca yan
dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, some of us get to experience childbirth a handful
of times, even maybe if that, and it must be
pretty incredible to be able to experience it so many times,
and especially with someone that you've walked spiritually, emotionally, physically
through the process of even conceiving all the way.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
To that endpoint. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Well, thank you, Becca, I'm so excited to get your
information out to our listeners. This has been so good
and how can we pray for you I'm going to
close us in prayer.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
How can we pray for you today?
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Thank you just continued encouragement for the work that I'm in.
It's been several years and so just continued encourage that
would be great.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
All righty, well, thank you so much for being here.
And you know, who knows, we might maybe we'll have
you on again in another year. Thank you, Jamie for sure. Right,
let's pray God. We just thank you so much for Becca.
Thank you for the experiences that you've just allowed her
to use to teach and help and give hope to
(39:24):
other women. We just thank you so much for the
fact that she puts Christ at the.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Center of what she's doing.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And just pray that you would continue to bless her ministries,
bless her body, mind and spirit to just have the
energy and the just ability to wear all the hats
to be a mom, a wife, to do ministry and
work and all of the other things.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
That she has in her life.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
We just pray that you would provide for her in
every single way, and that you would just continue to
guide her and direct her and sustain her in what
she's doing, that she would just be under the complete
protection of your absolute best that she would just have
that knowledge and confidence and feeling of riding the wave
(40:14):
of what you have for her, that absolute best that
she would be in a complete alignment with your purposes
for her. And we just pray for anyone listening who
has experienced pain or trauma in regards to fertility or
their hormones. And we just pray for healing, for support,
(40:39):
for love, for restoration.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
In Jesus name, and we just pray that you.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Would just allow this podcast to get out to anyone
who needs to hear it. Just bring Becca to anyone
who could benefit from her services, and just break down
any barriers between these women who need help and getting
to her.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
In Jesus' name, Amen man, we'd like.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
To take just a quick second to thank the team
at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find
dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've
got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more.
That's lifeaudio dot com.
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