The Journey So Far
The journey we have been on so far has already been 2 years and at this point, the end is not in sight-yet. For two years we have been trying to start our family. I decided to begin blogging about it because it has helped me to see I am not the only one struggling so I am hoping to be that inspiration to someone else.
My husband and I met in 2011, got engaged in 2012 and got married in 2013. We decided to wait a year to start "trying" to have a baby so I stayed on birth control for the first year we were married. I had been on birth control since I was 19 years old because of menstrual migraines. I took the one that you only had a period every three months and gave you a low dose of hormones on you period week to prevent your hormones from bottoming out and causing the migraines. I had no reason to fret over not having a period every month so I enjoyed the freedom of taking the pill every morning and only having to deal with the "monster" every three months. Never thought about how the years of taking these hormones would affect me later on.
Now here I am 10 years later just wanting to see two lines on a pregnancy test and dreaming about getting as big as a side of barn. The doctors have assured us that other than me having polysystic ovarian syndrome, there is no reason that I shouldn't be able to have a healthy pregnancy. We left the doctor office after discussing with him about deciding it was time to start trying at my yearly appointment in high hopes. He told us not to worry about it not happening right away after all the medications I had been on for other health issues (high cholesterol and ADHD).He explained it would take time for that to get out of my system fully and that once that had happened, I would get pregnant. That was February of 2014.
I would occasionally have a period a few days later and get a glimmer of hope but that would quickly fade when my period would come or test after test would be negative. I would see people with children at the store yelling at the and would wish I could be them (the parents that seemed to want to disown the child)just so I could get to have that feeling of while the child may be having a melt down over captain crunch, at least I would have a child.
With all the disappointment of negative test and the comfort of being with someone I love so completely for 3 years now, I will admit to weight gain. Way too much weight gain. Which made the PCOS worse. I knew I needed to lose weight but in my job you eat what you can when you can because you never know if the next call you go on could keep you out for hours or not. You speed through the drive thru because it's all you have time for and eating something is better than passing out while you're out on a call. I had tried to lose weight, even joined a gym. But between the food and the stress, the weight wasn't going anywhere.
In 2015, we decided to talk to the doctor about hormones to help with pregnancy. He agreed this was ok and put me on Femera. Side note here- don't ever look up drugs or read the patient information, trust that the numerous years that you doctor has spent in school and the years of experience has guided him to make the best decisions for you; if you don't feel this way, switch doctors- I read the patient information and scared myself to pieces! I freaked out when I saw they also give that medication to woman going through cancer treatments! He chose that medication because it had less of a risk of cause multiple births and since I was likely to have enough to risk during pregnancy on my own, there was no need to add a multiple birth to that if possible.
So I went in monthly for ultra sounds and got my medications and got sent home to make a baby. We would attempt to make a baby as directed by the doctor and every month, the same thing. Either the period came or the negative test. This went on for several months until the money ran out and the stress was over whelming. For my health and well being of our marriage, it was time for a break. I was determined on fixing me and making my work environment as healthy as possible as well as my home life. I switched from a position of investigating child abuse and neglect, going out in the field and seeing families and children that needed help to taking the reports and putting them into our computer program and that was the end of my involvement with the family. Much less stressful and hopefully help me to not bring my work home everyday.
I began diet plans and work out regiments. But nothing seemed to help. This was around August 2015. I also gave into the fact that I was getting closer to 30 and decided at my next appointment with my doctor, I was going to talk to him not about hormones but treatment of my PCOS. I researched the medicine and found the most common was Metformin. From working at a doctors office for 5 years I knew the side effects included the most awful stomach craps and diarrhea you could imagine. (comparable to what my family calls "the death bug" AKA Noro virus because you feel like you are going to die from the horrible cramps, vomiting and diarrhea happening all at the same time.) I had given into the fact that this was what the doctor would want me to take so I made an early appointment so I could do the fasting labs that would be necessary. Got in the room, my husband nervously trying to ease my nerves by making jokes about the uterus' every where in the room either on posters or in plastic models. Then the knock. The doctor came in. We talk about how we are doing and how things are going with us personally and then he asks "the question". "So why did we take a break from the hormones?" I explained the continued disappointments had become more than I wanted to deal with we knew that the best thing for me and the health or our eventual baby would be for me to lose weight so that I could have as healthy of a pregnancy as possible. The doctor was proud of us and our decision, delayed gratification, the mature and responsible thing to do. He gave me a prescription for a weight loss medication that I again knew from my previous job experience but it was not the medication I expected. No Metformin and its hateful side effects. This one scared me a little bit but he assured me that he would be monitoring all my health issues to insure my health would come first. I was given a strict diet regiment on top of the medication I was to take. With all this, once the weight was gone, the PCOS would go away because the insulin would level off and we would easily get pregnant. (the theory being that my weight was causing my insulin to not be stable and therefore causing my hormones to go on a roller coaster ride along with the insulin.)
So that is where we are now. Believe it or not, that is the short version of the journey so far. I will fill in some other details through out the blog entries of boring weight checks with the doctor every month. Hopefully throw a little humor out there so this isn't a sad reminder of the struggle my husband and I are going through, but rather an inspiration. This is a pity free blog! We know we are on the path we are on because the good Lord has a plan bigger than anything we could imagine. We have faith and trust in his plan and pray daily that we stay in his will so we won't get in his way.
The grammar and spelling are most likely going to drive English majors and teachers who read this crazy. This blog is about helping others not about putting commas where they belong or spelling everything correctly.
So with all that, here we go on our journey and we hope you enjoy the ride along with us.
My husband and I met in 2011, got engaged in 2012 and got married in 2013. We decided to wait a year to start "trying" to have a baby so I stayed on birth control for the first year we were married. I had been on birth control since I was 19 years old because of menstrual migraines. I took the one that you only had a period every three months and gave you a low dose of hormones on you period week to prevent your hormones from bottoming out and causing the migraines. I had no reason to fret over not having a period every month so I enjoyed the freedom of taking the pill every morning and only having to deal with the "monster" every three months. Never thought about how the years of taking these hormones would affect me later on.
Now here I am 10 years later just wanting to see two lines on a pregnancy test and dreaming about getting as big as a side of barn. The doctors have assured us that other than me having polysystic ovarian syndrome, there is no reason that I shouldn't be able to have a healthy pregnancy. We left the doctor office after discussing with him about deciding it was time to start trying at my yearly appointment in high hopes. He told us not to worry about it not happening right away after all the medications I had been on for other health issues (high cholesterol and ADHD).He explained it would take time for that to get out of my system fully and that once that had happened, I would get pregnant. That was February of 2014.
I would occasionally have a period a few days later and get a glimmer of hope but that would quickly fade when my period would come or test after test would be negative. I would see people with children at the store yelling at the and would wish I could be them (the parents that seemed to want to disown the child)just so I could get to have that feeling of while the child may be having a melt down over captain crunch, at least I would have a child.
With all the disappointment of negative test and the comfort of being with someone I love so completely for 3 years now, I will admit to weight gain. Way too much weight gain. Which made the PCOS worse. I knew I needed to lose weight but in my job you eat what you can when you can because you never know if the next call you go on could keep you out for hours or not. You speed through the drive thru because it's all you have time for and eating something is better than passing out while you're out on a call. I had tried to lose weight, even joined a gym. But between the food and the stress, the weight wasn't going anywhere.
In 2015, we decided to talk to the doctor about hormones to help with pregnancy. He agreed this was ok and put me on Femera. Side note here- don't ever look up drugs or read the patient information, trust that the numerous years that you doctor has spent in school and the years of experience has guided him to make the best decisions for you; if you don't feel this way, switch doctors- I read the patient information and scared myself to pieces! I freaked out when I saw they also give that medication to woman going through cancer treatments! He chose that medication because it had less of a risk of cause multiple births and since I was likely to have enough to risk during pregnancy on my own, there was no need to add a multiple birth to that if possible.
So I went in monthly for ultra sounds and got my medications and got sent home to make a baby. We would attempt to make a baby as directed by the doctor and every month, the same thing. Either the period came or the negative test. This went on for several months until the money ran out and the stress was over whelming. For my health and well being of our marriage, it was time for a break. I was determined on fixing me and making my work environment as healthy as possible as well as my home life. I switched from a position of investigating child abuse and neglect, going out in the field and seeing families and children that needed help to taking the reports and putting them into our computer program and that was the end of my involvement with the family. Much less stressful and hopefully help me to not bring my work home everyday.
I began diet plans and work out regiments. But nothing seemed to help. This was around August 2015. I also gave into the fact that I was getting closer to 30 and decided at my next appointment with my doctor, I was going to talk to him not about hormones but treatment of my PCOS. I researched the medicine and found the most common was Metformin. From working at a doctors office for 5 years I knew the side effects included the most awful stomach craps and diarrhea you could imagine. (comparable to what my family calls "the death bug" AKA Noro virus because you feel like you are going to die from the horrible cramps, vomiting and diarrhea happening all at the same time.) I had given into the fact that this was what the doctor would want me to take so I made an early appointment so I could do the fasting labs that would be necessary. Got in the room, my husband nervously trying to ease my nerves by making jokes about the uterus' every where in the room either on posters or in plastic models. Then the knock. The doctor came in. We talk about how we are doing and how things are going with us personally and then he asks "the question". "So why did we take a break from the hormones?" I explained the continued disappointments had become more than I wanted to deal with we knew that the best thing for me and the health or our eventual baby would be for me to lose weight so that I could have as healthy of a pregnancy as possible. The doctor was proud of us and our decision, delayed gratification, the mature and responsible thing to do. He gave me a prescription for a weight loss medication that I again knew from my previous job experience but it was not the medication I expected. No Metformin and its hateful side effects. This one scared me a little bit but he assured me that he would be monitoring all my health issues to insure my health would come first. I was given a strict diet regiment on top of the medication I was to take. With all this, once the weight was gone, the PCOS would go away because the insulin would level off and we would easily get pregnant. (the theory being that my weight was causing my insulin to not be stable and therefore causing my hormones to go on a roller coaster ride along with the insulin.)
So that is where we are now. Believe it or not, that is the short version of the journey so far. I will fill in some other details through out the blog entries of boring weight checks with the doctor every month. Hopefully throw a little humor out there so this isn't a sad reminder of the struggle my husband and I are going through, but rather an inspiration. This is a pity free blog! We know we are on the path we are on because the good Lord has a plan bigger than anything we could imagine. We have faith and trust in his plan and pray daily that we stay in his will so we won't get in his way.
The grammar and spelling are most likely going to drive English majors and teachers who read this crazy. This blog is about helping others not about putting commas where they belong or spelling everything correctly.
So with all that, here we go on our journey and we hope you enjoy the ride along with us.
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