Holding on to hope...
I have always had a abnormal cycle. It slowly changed until it reached a point when I was 19 where I would bleed for a month every other month. None of my family doctors cared when my Mum tried to explain something was wrong when I was younger. After I turned 16, they said I had to talk to them about it instead of my mother, so I did. Again, same treatment, no one cared enough to say 'hmm... that's a bit odd'.
Finally, at the age of 20 I put my foot down and demanded my doctor do something. He looked at me in shock as I explained that I bleed for a full month at a time, plus a few extra days of spotting both before and after my cycle. He finally asked how many days were 'heavy' bleeding and paled slightly when I said two, sometimes three weeks of heavy bleeding occurs. 'No wonder your iron levels get so low!' he exclaimed. Well, no shit Sherlock! Even I could have told you that! I was borderline anemic and he didn't question why until then.
So, for two years we went back and forth on my best options. Since my mother ended up having a very bad reaction to the pill, we didn't want to go that route right away without trying other methods. I even got my first ever ultrasound, to see if there were any signs of anything on my ovaries or uterus. In the end I was on the pill for close to two years.
I got married in 2008 to my wonderful husband and took my last pill a few days after our wedding. Things were ok for the first few months, but my Mum reminded me that the pill could affect me up to 6 months after, so we declared we'd officially start trying to get pregnant after 6 months. We waited, my cycles stayed somewhat regular for the first couple of months and then we started trying.
Nearly a year went by and nothing. We weren't too bothered by it, but knowing my past cycle history, we decided to investigate a little bit. We got referred to an RE in our area and began seeing him. I explained my cycles and how they'd always been irregular but no one would listen so I could get treatment earlier in life. He decided that although we didn't meet the 1 year wait time, we were close enough and my very erratic cycle warranted his attention. That's when the testing started. I had 7 vials of blood drawn in one go for a large number of blood tests, then I had my 2nd ultrasound to check for abnormalities.
Ultrasound looked good, but the blood tests showed I had some hormonal issues. So I have all the symptoms of PCOS, but no evidence of it. My RE refused to 'label' me as having PCOS without the evidence. By that time it had finally reached one year since we started trying. That's when he put me on progesterone to build up and 'force' a cycle and then Clomid to assist ovulation. The first cycle was not stellar, I barely had a cycle to begin with and didn't ovulate. Ok, so we upped the progesterone to 10mgs for 7 days and upped the Clomid dose too.
That was the worst period I'd ever had! I never knew that cramps could literally leave you crawling because the pain was so bad you couldn't stand. We weren't sure of the Clomid working or not, so on to round three. The progesterone was backed off to 5 days and the Clomid dose stayed the same. Still did not work, but now I was moving, so I needed a new RE. I was given a referral to the best infertility specialist in Southern Ontario (at least that's what I was told). Unfortunately the new RE's office only took faxed referrals and my old RE couldn't send it by fax due to technical errors.
So, I went to my family doctor, the one that had refused to treat me (see, I moved out of town before getting my first RE, but moved back to be close to my family as my Dad was ill) before but had been shocked when I finally confronted him and forced him to take notice. I handed him the referral from my RE for the new RE and my family doc started chuckling. Then asked if we were trying to get pregnant, said he only asked because the new RE was the best of the best at infertility treatments.
Finally I get to see the new RE. He requested some more blood tests, but not another ultrasound (since I'd had one within the year). I explained my lack of results with the 3 cycles of clomid and he decided it was time to go on to Letrozole. I started the cycle with the progesterone again and followed up with the Letrozole. No dice.
At this point, my Dad was getting really ill and was sent to a cancer specialist to get tested for cancer. Turns out he has Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a terminal cancer. Life seemed to screech to a halt, I now had to come to grips with the fact that my Dad may not live long enough to see me get pregnant. Depression took hold and before I knew it, it had been 2 years since the diagnosis and I couldn't remember when I'd last spoken to my RE's office. I called them up and had to go through the referral process again.
This time my RE decided to do an HSG and check the patency of my fallopian tubes. The results of that and another round of blood tests left me utterly devastated. My left tube is completely blocked and it seems that I don't ovulate. No PCOS (though they're treating me as if I have it), so the diagnosis is unexplained infertility. It's purely on my side, my husband checked out fine. We were worried about him as his father had low sperm counts and we worried it would carry down to him. Luckily it didn't.
So now I'm back on progesterone (5mg for 10 days), which still gives me bad cramps, and on my second round of Letrozole (5mg for 5 days). I have one more day of Letrozole pills and I'm hoping and praying this makes me ovulate. If it doesn't work, my RE is going to up the dose of Letrozole (he wants to try 6 cycles, but will give up if a high dose isn't working). After that it's up to 3 cycles of IUI, which he does in his office. If that doesn't work then I go for IVF in Ottawa as there are no clinics that do it here.
In order to do the IVF though, I have to have a BMI of under 35. Mine is currently a lot higher than that. It would have been lower if not for these pills (I put on 20 pounds over the 2 years of being on BCPs, another 40 from the Clomid and 10 from the first round of Letrozole). I've lost 10 pounds in the past year, but I still have a long way to go.
For now, all I can do is hope that my blood test on the 18th show that I ovulated!
Finally, at the age of 20 I put my foot down and demanded my doctor do something. He looked at me in shock as I explained that I bleed for a full month at a time, plus a few extra days of spotting both before and after my cycle. He finally asked how many days were 'heavy' bleeding and paled slightly when I said two, sometimes three weeks of heavy bleeding occurs. 'No wonder your iron levels get so low!' he exclaimed. Well, no shit Sherlock! Even I could have told you that! I was borderline anemic and he didn't question why until then.
So, for two years we went back and forth on my best options. Since my mother ended up having a very bad reaction to the pill, we didn't want to go that route right away without trying other methods. I even got my first ever ultrasound, to see if there were any signs of anything on my ovaries or uterus. In the end I was on the pill for close to two years.
I got married in 2008 to my wonderful husband and took my last pill a few days after our wedding. Things were ok for the first few months, but my Mum reminded me that the pill could affect me up to 6 months after, so we declared we'd officially start trying to get pregnant after 6 months. We waited, my cycles stayed somewhat regular for the first couple of months and then we started trying.
Nearly a year went by and nothing. We weren't too bothered by it, but knowing my past cycle history, we decided to investigate a little bit. We got referred to an RE in our area and began seeing him. I explained my cycles and how they'd always been irregular but no one would listen so I could get treatment earlier in life. He decided that although we didn't meet the 1 year wait time, we were close enough and my very erratic cycle warranted his attention. That's when the testing started. I had 7 vials of blood drawn in one go for a large number of blood tests, then I had my 2nd ultrasound to check for abnormalities.
Ultrasound looked good, but the blood tests showed I had some hormonal issues. So I have all the symptoms of PCOS, but no evidence of it. My RE refused to 'label' me as having PCOS without the evidence. By that time it had finally reached one year since we started trying. That's when he put me on progesterone to build up and 'force' a cycle and then Clomid to assist ovulation. The first cycle was not stellar, I barely had a cycle to begin with and didn't ovulate. Ok, so we upped the progesterone to 10mgs for 7 days and upped the Clomid dose too.
That was the worst period I'd ever had! I never knew that cramps could literally leave you crawling because the pain was so bad you couldn't stand. We weren't sure of the Clomid working or not, so on to round three. The progesterone was backed off to 5 days and the Clomid dose stayed the same. Still did not work, but now I was moving, so I needed a new RE. I was given a referral to the best infertility specialist in Southern Ontario (at least that's what I was told). Unfortunately the new RE's office only took faxed referrals and my old RE couldn't send it by fax due to technical errors.
So, I went to my family doctor, the one that had refused to treat me (see, I moved out of town before getting my first RE, but moved back to be close to my family as my Dad was ill) before but had been shocked when I finally confronted him and forced him to take notice. I handed him the referral from my RE for the new RE and my family doc started chuckling. Then asked if we were trying to get pregnant, said he only asked because the new RE was the best of the best at infertility treatments.
Finally I get to see the new RE. He requested some more blood tests, but not another ultrasound (since I'd had one within the year). I explained my lack of results with the 3 cycles of clomid and he decided it was time to go on to Letrozole. I started the cycle with the progesterone again and followed up with the Letrozole. No dice.
At this point, my Dad was getting really ill and was sent to a cancer specialist to get tested for cancer. Turns out he has Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a terminal cancer. Life seemed to screech to a halt, I now had to come to grips with the fact that my Dad may not live long enough to see me get pregnant. Depression took hold and before I knew it, it had been 2 years since the diagnosis and I couldn't remember when I'd last spoken to my RE's office. I called them up and had to go through the referral process again.
This time my RE decided to do an HSG and check the patency of my fallopian tubes. The results of that and another round of blood tests left me utterly devastated. My left tube is completely blocked and it seems that I don't ovulate. No PCOS (though they're treating me as if I have it), so the diagnosis is unexplained infertility. It's purely on my side, my husband checked out fine. We were worried about him as his father had low sperm counts and we worried it would carry down to him. Luckily it didn't.
So now I'm back on progesterone (5mg for 10 days), which still gives me bad cramps, and on my second round of Letrozole (5mg for 5 days). I have one more day of Letrozole pills and I'm hoping and praying this makes me ovulate. If it doesn't work, my RE is going to up the dose of Letrozole (he wants to try 6 cycles, but will give up if a high dose isn't working). After that it's up to 3 cycles of IUI, which he does in his office. If that doesn't work then I go for IVF in Ottawa as there are no clinics that do it here.
In order to do the IVF though, I have to have a BMI of under 35. Mine is currently a lot higher than that. It would have been lower if not for these pills (I put on 20 pounds over the 2 years of being on BCPs, another 40 from the Clomid and 10 from the first round of Letrozole). I've lost 10 pounds in the past year, but I still have a long way to go.
For now, all I can do is hope that my blood test on the 18th show that I ovulated!
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