Nurse practitioner Laura Ducote of the Guiding Star Project joins the Catholic Morning Show to talk about a topic that carries real heartache: infertility, recurrent miscarriage, and the loneliness many women feel when they're told their labs are fine. Laura explains restorative reproductive medicine, why so many women want answers instead of a fast referral to IVF, and how the Guiding Star Project's four core services support women from adolescence through perimenopause. She also previews the organization's new virtual care program, bringing wholistic women's healthcare to women who live far from a center.
Laura Ducote, FNP-C, a nurse practitioner with the Guiding Star Project, joins Deacon Mark Campbell to talk about the full arc of women's health — from a young girl learning to understand her cycle as a gift rather than a burden, through infertility and recurrent miscarriage, to the perimenopausal years many women say they'd never even heard named until recently.
Laura describes what drew her to this work: a nurse practitioner school roommate charting her cycles for PCOS, and the realization that faith and science were not competing but complementary. She explains why so many of the women she sees are frustrated by a "bypassing" culture that sends them straight to IUI or IVF without ever investigating an underlying cause, and why restorative reproductive medicine starts instead with a real diagnosis and with restoring the design God gave the female body.
She walks through the Guiding Star Project's four core services — natural fertility and family planning, pregnancy and birth services, breastfeeding and postpartum care, and motherhood and family life — including new virtual lactation consults from founder Leah Jacobson for mothers who need support without leaving home. Guiding Star's telehealth program is rolling out first in Minnesota, its founding state, with the goal of expanding to other states and complementing the strong network of restorative reproductive medicine providers already practicing in Iowa.
For any woman carrying this cross, Laura's encouragement is simple: lean into the Lord, who walks alongside you and wants to bring healing, hope, and peace into that place. Learn more, book virtual care, or find a Guiding Star center at guidingstarproject.com and Find Care Near Me.
Heard on the Catholic Morning Show, weekdays at 7 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio. More at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
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