My dream is to be a mom. I want children, I want to experience pregnancy. With this horrible disease the chances are lower. I felt like I was stabbed in the heart. I began to slowly sink into a depressive state. I felt worthless, felt like a failure, and I sure didn't feel womanly. I don't think my husband at the time knew how to support me. I didn't know how to even support myself. We were quiet about this. I didn't tell many people. We decided to go through fertility treatments. I was referred to the fertility department. After more tests I learned I had hyperplasia. Yay!! More horrible news. I had biopsies done and they were the worst thing on the planet. I rather have cysts rupture. I'm not kidding.
Hyperplasia is the uterine lining is thick and can lead to endometriosis. This was a set back. I had to take medication for about 6 months before we could even start. The provider I was referred to basically told me I needed to lose weight. He wasn't really nice about it. I told him I'm very aware and I have been doing everything I could. This is the provider who did my biopsies. The last one he did he did a "mini d n c" is what he called it. Where I was paralyzed in pain. I couldn't walk. I was so beyond mad. He shouldn't had done that with out asking first. Needless to say he doesn't work at the clinic anymore. I then transferred my cares to another provider. She was optimistic that I would be able to conceive on clomid.
By the way I never mentioned anything about insurance coverage. Did you know none of what I've gone through is covered by insurance companies. It's all optional. Hmmm. I didn't ask for this. It's funny how they cover something's and not others. Insurance is a whole other topic.
Now back to clomid. What this consisted of was taking a medication of cycle days 5-9. You would then go in and have a vaginal ultrasound, sometimes once and sometimes twice. It would also consist of blood tests. I did this for 6 cycles. Each and every time I was told it wasn't working. All this did for me was send me spiraling down. After 6 I told my husband I wanted to stop and just adopt since all we were doing is gambling money away. This is where my marriage started to fail. He didn't want to adopt. I'm not going to get into much about that just that we both added to the problem and I knew I would be better off apart. We ended our marriage after a year or so later.
I focused on weight loss and getting into better habits. At its time I gave up hope and thought adoption would be the way to go. I was good with that. I buried myself in work and living my life. I was put on metformin which helped with the insulin issue and norethindrone to help prevent hyperplasia. I buried my feelings of PCOS. Every time someone I knew became pregnant, I was honestly happy for them. But at the same time it was a stab to my heart. I would cry behind closed doors and begged god to let me have my chance.
I met the love of my life eventually and he knew about PCOS. He understood what it involved. He was all for adopting as well as trying to conceive. In 2009, I found out I was pregnant. I was so ungodly sick over the 4th of July and went in. They said I had a bug and ran a pregnancy test just for fun. I got a call the following business day to be told I was pregnant. I laughed. I thought she was joking. She told me to take prenatals and would refer me to obgyn. I went in and everything was going well I was about 5 weeks along. I was so happy. I couldn't believe that my dreams were coming true. I decided not to tell anyone. I even kept it from my boyfriend. I had to find a way to tell him. Of course once he found out he wanted to tell the world. I wasn't ready. I didn't want to tell anyone. We did end up telling immediate family.
About 3 weeks later, my dreams came smashing down. I miscarried. I'm to this day devastated. I decided to quit and not even try anymore. I was done. I was ok with that.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
The beginning
I wanted to find a way for me to help heal myself and educate others about this silent horrible disease, PCOS, polycystic ovarian disease. It Sounds horrific doesn't it? Here goes nothing. Mind you it is taking everything I have to open up about my journey. Please ask questions, I'm more than willing to tell you what you want to know.
I believe my journey started way back when I was 16. I knew something wasn't "right" with me. I mean I never had a period. I just kept thinking it would happen. My mom told me some girls start late. So I didn't panic yet. A couple years passed, and I took myself to the doctors to be put on birth control because I still hadn't had my wonderful period. They just put me on bc and sent me off.
I also had struggled with my weight as a kid. I was active but always putting weight on my midsection. I had acne crazy. Once I graduated high school and started college I was able to drop some weight but not nearly what I wanted. I t continued to be a struggle. I had the acne under control, as much as I could.
During this time I had not known anything about PCOS or it even existed. I had been going to college and met my boyfriend at the age of 19. We ended up getting married 18 months later. I had went off bc because we knew we wanted to start a family. Everything during this time was ok. I had my period but not regularly. After a year of trying I made an annual appointment with a resident dr. To this day I will never forget her name or how amazing she was. Dr. Martha Binn met with me and I told her all my issues and she said without skipping a beat that she wanted to run a couple tests and do a pelvic ultrasound. She had a strong feeling she knew what was wrong but wanted those tests.
So tubes of blood drawn and an invasive ultrasound was completed. I was scared, I didn't know what to expect or what the results would show. Little did I know that this was the start to being poked and tests being done all the time. When the doctor called me herself to make an appointment, I knew it wasn't good. My follow up appointment was nerve wrecking. I had PCOS. what is this? The doctor gave me some information and support group information. I left the clinic in tears. My life and dreams had officially changed.
Many of you may not know what what PCOS is. Polycystic ovarian disease is inherited but it's really unknown, researchers say. It doesn't matter what parent it came from to me. The easiest way for me to describe this to someone that doesn't know is that it screws your entire body up, your endocrine and hormone systems especially. PCOS also affects heart, blood vessels, and your appearance. Not every woman diagnosed has every symptom. I am a classic case with almost every symptom. My ovaries have tons of cysts. They are just fluid filled. They don't just go away. They can rupture and the pain brings me to my knees.
It also causes you to be insulin resistant. Which means your are not diabetic but your body doesn't use insulin like it should. It can lead to diabetes. I am also over weight not by a little but by a lot and most of it is around my midsection where women with PCOS carry their weight. It also makes your periods nonexistent or very irregular, which is me. I have the acne and oily skin that goes along with this. I also have hirsutism, increased hair growth on face, chest, abdomen, back, thumbs, and toes. I also have a lot of skin tags. I have depression and anxiety issues.
That's a shortened version of what PCOS is. So I did my own research. I learned that some of the women in my family had struggled with conceiving. No one in my family has been diagnosis except for me. So what does this all mean to me? This means if symptoms are left untreated it could lead to infertility, heart disease, and diabetes. So to most people I just look fat and don't know how to control my weight. Boy, they are so wrong. It's a huge struggle. This is just the beginning......
I believe my journey started way back when I was 16. I knew something wasn't "right" with me. I mean I never had a period. I just kept thinking it would happen. My mom told me some girls start late. So I didn't panic yet. A couple years passed, and I took myself to the doctors to be put on birth control because I still hadn't had my wonderful period. They just put me on bc and sent me off.
I also had struggled with my weight as a kid. I was active but always putting weight on my midsection. I had acne crazy. Once I graduated high school and started college I was able to drop some weight but not nearly what I wanted. I t continued to be a struggle. I had the acne under control, as much as I could.
During this time I had not known anything about PCOS or it even existed. I had been going to college and met my boyfriend at the age of 19. We ended up getting married 18 months later. I had went off bc because we knew we wanted to start a family. Everything during this time was ok. I had my period but not regularly. After a year of trying I made an annual appointment with a resident dr. To this day I will never forget her name or how amazing she was. Dr. Martha Binn met with me and I told her all my issues and she said without skipping a beat that she wanted to run a couple tests and do a pelvic ultrasound. She had a strong feeling she knew what was wrong but wanted those tests.
So tubes of blood drawn and an invasive ultrasound was completed. I was scared, I didn't know what to expect or what the results would show. Little did I know that this was the start to being poked and tests being done all the time. When the doctor called me herself to make an appointment, I knew it wasn't good. My follow up appointment was nerve wrecking. I had PCOS. what is this? The doctor gave me some information and support group information. I left the clinic in tears. My life and dreams had officially changed.
Many of you may not know what what PCOS is. Polycystic ovarian disease is inherited but it's really unknown, researchers say. It doesn't matter what parent it came from to me. The easiest way for me to describe this to someone that doesn't know is that it screws your entire body up, your endocrine and hormone systems especially. PCOS also affects heart, blood vessels, and your appearance. Not every woman diagnosed has every symptom. I am a classic case with almost every symptom. My ovaries have tons of cysts. They are just fluid filled. They don't just go away. They can rupture and the pain brings me to my knees.
It also causes you to be insulin resistant. Which means your are not diabetic but your body doesn't use insulin like it should. It can lead to diabetes. I am also over weight not by a little but by a lot and most of it is around my midsection where women with PCOS carry their weight. It also makes your periods nonexistent or very irregular, which is me. I have the acne and oily skin that goes along with this. I also have hirsutism, increased hair growth on face, chest, abdomen, back, thumbs, and toes. I also have a lot of skin tags. I have depression and anxiety issues.
That's a shortened version of what PCOS is. So I did my own research. I learned that some of the women in my family had struggled with conceiving. No one in my family has been diagnosis except for me. So what does this all mean to me? This means if symptoms are left untreated it could lead to infertility, heart disease, and diabetes. So to most people I just look fat and don't know how to control my weight. Boy, they are so wrong. It's a huge struggle. This is just the beginning......
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