July 27, 2009
Hi everyone! Thank you for taking the time to read my journey. First of all, let me say that no I am not new to site I first joined September of 2008. The people I have met on Fertilityties have really been supportive with me throughout my struggles with conception, my body, and my life and I really enjoy being a member of such a wonderful online community.
For those of you who don’t know my story, here it is: I got my first AF in the 6th grade and from then on it was VERY heavy and long cycles. Sometimes it would skip a month and once my freshman year of high school I bled for 2 weeks. I also had very bad cramps and my AF lasted a week. I felt really alone because my mother has 3 day AF’s and no cramps and regular bleeding so she was really unhelpful.
When I was 18 years old I started taking Ortho Tri Cyclen birth control pills. Although my cramps were worse, I was relieved to know exactly which day I would get AF and that I would get it every month. I got off of birth control pills in May of 2008, when I got married. From May-July my cycles were about 32-33 days long. After that, my cycles became chaos ranging from 19-50+ days long. I first started seeking help in September, when AF lasted 15 days and wasn’t stopping. This was the first time I began to use Provera. My husband is military and the doctors on base were not helpful, so I started to see an ob-gyn in town. Although the ob-gyn was a little better, I was still not fully happy with the attention I was receiving. I felt as though I wasn’t being taken seriously as a 19 year old trying to conceive, even though I was married and had a home and stable income. I switched to another ob-gyn who first prescribed to me Clomid. The devil drug. He was a little bit closer to helping, although he refused to test me for PCOS claiming I wasn’t overweight so I didn’t have it.
Then my husband got restationed and instead of fussing with base doctors and ob-gyns, I went straight to a RE, who finally in one doctor visit diagnosed me with PCOS after doing an ultrasound and seeing how many follicles I had in each ovary (I knew I had multicystic ovaries then but later lab tests confirmed PCOS). As I was still TTC, I started taking metformin and changed my diet for all about two weeks before practically losing my mind.
Finally, after deciding my husband was not supportive enough to endure the pain, suffering, mood swings, and many side effects of metformin and clomid, I decided to stop TTC. My cycles are pretty much nonexistent now, as I won’t get AF at all without Provera. My last cycle went on for almost three months before finally I took Provera to induce AF. I am now back on birth control pills because I don’t want to cause any long term damage that might make TTC in the future 100% impossible. So TTC is out of the question right now for that reason, in addition to the fact that my marriage is also in the process of ending.
I remain a member of this site, however, because I have learned a lot over the past year about cycles and trying to conceive, etc, and I would love to help others who have questions I can answer or just need someone to listen to their struggles. I know it’s hard to go out all the time and think everyone woman you pass on the street is pregnant, or hear people talking about oops they forgot a condom one day and here they are preggo. For me, it\’s just been hard feeling crummy ALL the time. And always having stomach problems. And not having as much energy as most people my age. And feeling like a reproductive failure. And the hormone imbalance caused mood swings. But it’s good to know I can come here and actually be understood instead of pitied. I wish everyone on this site the best of luck and I hope everyone gets their little miracle!
For those of you who don’t know my story, here it is: I got my first AF in the 6th grade and from then on it was VERY heavy and long cycles. Sometimes it would skip a month and once my freshman year of high school I bled for 2 weeks. I also had very bad cramps and my AF lasted a week. I felt really alone because my mother has 3 day AF’s and no cramps and regular bleeding so she was really unhelpful.
When I was 18 years old I started taking Ortho Tri Cyclen birth control pills. Although my cramps were worse, I was relieved to know exactly which day I would get AF and that I would get it every month. I got off of birth control pills in May of 2008, when I got married. From May-July my cycles were about 32-33 days long. After that, my cycles became chaos ranging from 19-50+ days long. I first started seeking help in September, when AF lasted 15 days and wasn’t stopping. This was the first time I began to use Provera. My husband is military and the doctors on base were not helpful, so I started to see an ob-gyn in town. Although the ob-gyn was a little better, I was still not fully happy with the attention I was receiving. I felt as though I wasn’t being taken seriously as a 19 year old trying to conceive, even though I was married and had a home and stable income. I switched to another ob-gyn who first prescribed to me Clomid. The devil drug. He was a little bit closer to helping, although he refused to test me for PCOS claiming I wasn’t overweight so I didn’t have it.
Then my husband got restationed and instead of fussing with base doctors and ob-gyns, I went straight to a RE, who finally in one doctor visit diagnosed me with PCOS after doing an ultrasound and seeing how many follicles I had in each ovary (I knew I had multicystic ovaries then but later lab tests confirmed PCOS). As I was still TTC, I started taking metformin and changed my diet for all about two weeks before practically losing my mind.
Finally, after deciding my husband was not supportive enough to endure the pain, suffering, mood swings, and many side effects of metformin and clomid, I decided to stop TTC. My cycles are pretty much nonexistent now, as I won’t get AF at all without Provera. My last cycle went on for almost three months before finally I took Provera to induce AF. I am now back on birth control pills because I don’t want to cause any long term damage that might make TTC in the future 100% impossible. So TTC is out of the question right now for that reason, in addition to the fact that my marriage is also in the process of ending.
I remain a member of this site, however, because I have learned a lot over the past year about cycles and trying to conceive, etc, and I would love to help others who have questions I can answer or just need someone to listen to their struggles. I know it’s hard to go out all the time and think everyone woman you pass on the street is pregnant, or hear people talking about oops they forgot a condom one day and here they are preggo. For me, it\’s just been hard feeling crummy ALL the time. And always having stomach problems. And not having as much energy as most people my age. And feeling like a reproductive failure. And the hormone imbalance caused mood swings. But it’s good to know I can come here and actually be understood instead of pitied. I wish everyone on this site the best of luck and I hope everyone gets their little miracle!
October 01, 2009