I've recently been thinking... and this gets me in trouble. When I think too much, I lose patience. Patience is that one area of my life that I seem to need to work on the most. I've found myself doing a lot of "bargaining" these last couple of months. I'll trade you this for that, and that is just no way to go through life.
I had a conversation with a friend that has known me since my grunge phase in middle school. She is someone who is married, has a lovely baby girl, gets to be a stay at home mom, but has found herself in some financial woes. We have another friend in common, college grad, went to LA to pursue a life in the arts, who recently had to come home because of illness and is living with her boyfriend (a common friend to us all from high school) without the "ring." Now we are all beautiful, smart, talented women with many things going well in life, but we all seem to be missing something the other has. So why can't we just be happy for each other and happy for ourselves? Who are we really competing against?
"Cap" and I have been trying to get pregnant since we got married back in 2008. When he deployed to Iraq for a year, and after six months had passed I got off birth control and magically gained 25 lbs. Now I've always been curvy, always at the top of the regular store sizes, but never this large. When he returned, we tried and tried, thinking every month I was pregnant because I wouldn't get my period for 6 to 8 weeks at a time. That's when I went to get some blood work done at my primary care clinic and found out that the reason I gained weight so easily, had a little hair on my chin, and unpredictable cycles was because of a little problem called Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). I was mortified. After the diagnosis in November, I got pregnant in January 2011, the following year. I had been exercising and trying to eat low carb, which is miserable, and just running myself ragged. I got to know I was pregnant for only one week because the following weekend, I miscarried. Yes it was absolutely devastating, yes I ate to cover my emotions, and yes I gained more weight. At my the height of my battle I was up at 248.6 lbs.
A year and a half after the first deployment, Cap had to leave again. We weren't sure if it was going to be for a year or less so I vowed that I would have it together by the time he got back. I got the nutrisystem diet for diabetics, thinking that would be the best thing the for my PCOS (as I'm supposed to monitor sugar and bread intake) and that was just plain disgusting. After a week I'd had enough of the cardboard food. Then I went crazy at the gym again and low carbed again, and yes I lost about 20 lbs. But then for the next 5 months, there were no changes. Yes I'd go up and down but I was killing myself and starving myself and nothing was happening. The updates to Cap overseas were getting more and more emotional as I was getting more and more frustrated in my attempts at getting myself together. After another fight over Skype, which I do not recommend because nothing gets solved, I decided to put an ad on craigslist for a female personal trainer with a background in understanding both hormonal imbalance from PCOS and nutrition. If I couldn't show Cap how hard I was trying on my own, I'd spend his money until he knew.
I met with a few girls and was fairly intimidated. One had me doing the army physical fitness test just to show me how awful and out of shape I was. And then I met Emily. We met over coffee one morning and talked about goals (babies for me, triathlons for her). She told me how she had struggled with her weight after having kids and knowing how depression and hormones can interfere with weight loss, and I decided that this supremely intimidating elfish woman was the one who could get me in shape. She made a three month plan of daily activities for me to do, all much more manageable than the hours I'd been torturing myself with. I was also eating more than I had, but more healthfully than I ever had in the past. When the pounds were coming off 2 or more at a time a week I was floored! I was down to a happy 209 lbs! Then Cap came home from overseas in December and we were ready to try again. I was happy to show off to him that I'd lost 40 lbs while he was away and he was mad at me for hiding such a cutie for so long. It seemed like it was all coming together. My periods were more frequent, coming down from 45 days to every 31-35 days. This January of 2012, I still have a hairy chin and my weight loss was stalling out but we decided to take my OB up on a prescription for Clomid to help jump start my ovulation. And in February on day five of my cycle, we began.
If you're unaware of some of the wonderful things to expect with Clomid, let me fill you in because they are nothing to joke about. First came the hot flashes. I was talking with menopausal women at a work function and sweating like a whore in church. Then there's the blurry vision, the dried up cervical mucus (which makes the mandatory "baby dancing" a joy), and my favorite side effect-- ANGRY MOOD SWINGS. I screamed at Cap for everything. If he didn't take out the trash, if I was unhappy he didn't get me the thing I wanted from the store, and if he didn't want to have sex. I mean who would want to turn ME down? I was a complete joy to be around! Well, as you can imagine with the amount of stress I put myself under, we failed to conceive that month. But I was very happy that the blood tests from the hospital came back with fabulous results from my day 23 tests. The doctor was looking for my progesterone level to be above 10ng and it was at 17ng! I OVULATED!! I was thrilled. So the next month I was excited to get another prescription and try it again. Unfortunately, my doctor went on vacation and I couldn't get in to see her to give her a negative pregnancy test on file so she didn't want to give me another prescription, but did tell me I could expect results from this past month to be the same for the next.
So this month we tried unaided. I made a point to make sex enjoyable for both of us and put myself in to a state of meditative bliss. I gave up alcohol for lent and swore to eat at least 5 fruits and veggies a day (something Emily had been asking me to do for 2 months) and I lost another 8 lbs! I held my tongue whenever Cap did something that was annoying and started training for a 5k. I could now run for 2 miles without stopping, though at a snail's pace. On day 13 of my cycle my temperature dropped and my LH level came up positive on my ovulation predictor kits and that weekend we baby danced til we couldn't baby dance no more. I knew we had done it at the right time. My temperature went up and stayed up for about a week, but then suddenly dropped. If you've ever charted your basal body temperature (BBT) then you'll know that's not a good sign. Luckily I had another doctor's appointment on day 24 of my cycle and could get another blood test done to see how we'd done this month. I sneakily asked the doctor to put in a request for HCG levels to see if there were the stirrings of anything there, but she said no too early. I left that day assured I'd ovulated, at my lowest weight (200 lbs!) since college. An hour after getting home from work and right before a workout with Emily, the doctor called to tell me I had not ovulated, in fact my progesterone level was down to 3ng. She told me I was one smart cookie and that she'd prescribe me three months of Clomid this time and to think about starting with a half dose if I was afraid of the craziness taking over again.
I was mortified. I was angry at God and let all my Facebook family know it. I cursed him and all the 16 and pregnant moms on television. Cap told me that I was being counterproductive, my grandfather told me I was a miracle and to keep praying, my aunt told me to scream at God and then wait in silence for his answer. I walked with Emily that afternoon in tears, wondering what I was doing wrong. We talked about adoption and praying. At home, I sat in a bathtub full of salty tears and then picked up my prescription.
I'm five days past all that drama now. I've calmed down, I've talked with God and we are at a better understanding. He's showing me patience and love and I'm becoming more accepting of both. I'm on day 29 of my cycle waiting for Auntie Flow to get here so I can start my charting and drugs all over again. Cap and I decided to do a full dose this month, with the understanding on his part that I'll be crazy but it's craziness for a reason. If nothing happens this month but we ovulate, I'll try the half dose next month. You can only do Clomid for six months consecutively because doctors are afraid of ovarian cysts bursting from over stimulation and if it doesn't work in that time, you're obviously in worse condition than they thought, and the dreaded IVF has to be considered. We are also going to get Cap's swimmers tested again this week (has to be done once a year and his were excellent last time but who knows what could have happened to them in the desert) and on Monday (haha the day after April fools) we are going to start to eat like a caveman. Yes the paleo diet. All my research has come to show me that a diet without sugar and grains, with lots of fruits and veggies and protein, has been the most helpful in balancing my hormones.
So tomorrow I'm eating pasta and ice cream for the last time in a long time; at least until I'm well in to my second trimester of my "miracle" future pregnancy. I hope to show you guys what I'm making each day and linking to some recipes if its something you'd like to try as well. I also hope to give weekly updates of my charting my BBT and Clomid side affects so you can enjoy them with me. Why?? Why would a sane 30 year old college graduate woman want to share these intimate details with you? Well, I know I'm not alone. One in eight women has PCOS. More than that have hormonal imbalances that only diet and exercise can change. I'll try to be colorful and funny; I'm sure I'll also be horribly depressing at times as well, but we'll be in it together! I'll also give you guys my workout updates and some awesome Emily advice. At my weigh in yesterday, I was at a fighting weight of 198.8 lbs. See? Positive thinking is already working.
Hope you enjoy the ride with me!
Here's some links in case some of the stuff I've described makes absolutely no sense to you...
What is PCOS?
What is the Paleo Diet?
What is Clomid?
What is BBT charting?
www.fertilityfriend.com/p/163/index30.html?gclid=CKixmO7Ukq8CFUZgTAodewjBzg
