The Beginning of Baby Makin'

Our journey of dealing with my PCOS, TTC (trying to conceive) and our fight for a baby began at the beginning of September 2012. After skipping my period for 3 months for what seemed like no reason (7 pregnancy tests proved I wasn't pregnant,) I decided to contact a local OB/GYN and ask him what was going on. I hadn't done so after the first skipped period because I was busy trying to plan our wedding and I had to wait to get married so I could be added to Keegan's (my husband) insurance. I didn't want to be denied for having a previous condition.

I saw Dr. B on September 4, 2012 and talked through what had been going on. After about 2 hours of questions and my first "well woman" exam, Dr. B per-diagnosed me with PCOS and metabolic syndrome.

I had heard of PCOS before, but I never even considered it a possibility because I haven't had problems with painful cysts, but after talking to Dr. B, I have a lot of the symptoms. Unusual hair growth (Hyperandrogenism), excessive weight gain (I thought that just happened because I stopped swimming competitively,) and skipped periods (I had never had a problem with this before, but we think its because I was on birth control which forced my body to cycle each month.)

I went Wednesday, September 5 to get some blood tests done which measured my insulin levels and confirmed a diagnoses of PCOS and metabolic syndrome.  In simple terms, metabolic syndrome means that my body is producing insulin, but my tissues are not absorbing it. The PCOS is my ovaries' reaction to not getting the insulin. These two diseases combined cause weight gain, unusual hair grown, and infertility. Dr. B put me on a 12 day medication that forced my body to cycle because he wants me to have a cycle at least once every three months.

I'm not going to lie, the diagnosis of PCOS came as quite a shock to me. The biggest shock of all was that PCOS causes infertility. I've always wanted to be a mom and now the idea of not being able to (or at least struggling to) is scary.  With the diagnosis of PCOS and metabolic syndrome will came a huge lifestyle change which I'll post about later.

The current game plan is to work on better eating and weight loss for about a year. Keegan and I decided that we wanted to start trying for a family about this time next year, so I have about a year to get my weight under control. The weight loss, coupled with the medications I'm on ( I'm currently on Metformin (for the insulin resistance,) Azurette Tablets 28s (birth control) and a once-a-day woman's vitamin,) should at the very least get the PCOS under better control. Dr. B said that if I stick with this diet and with him for the next year, we have a greater chance of conceiving naturally. His practice allows couples to try to conceive naturally for a year before they step in with medical interventions. Those will start at hormone medications and will progress up to IVF if needed.

So that's where we stand now. Exactly a month after our wedding, we found out that our hope of being parents will be a bit more difficult than what we thought. It'll be a journey, one that we will do together, and hopefully if everything goes as planned, we'll have a miracle at the end.