PCOS - Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome

If someone would have told me while I was in high school
that I would struggle through the trial of infertility,
I wouldn’t have been shocked. I had some unique experiences
that helped me prepare for this particular struggle in my
life, which I am now very grateful for. My body has never
really functioned in a “normal” fashion. I have ALWAYS
had very irregular monthly cycles. My first year of college,
I went an entire year without a period. That’s when I knew
things were just not right. I was advised to go on birth
control at the time just so that I would have regular cycles
for my own health and benefit.
After I got married, I really felt like I shouldn’t waste time
before trying to start a family. My husband, of course,
thought I was crazy. We were young and were in no hurry
to have children but I told him that I just felt like it was
something that was going to take awhile, and that we needed
to start thinking about it sooner than later. To this day, I am
grateful for a husband who supported me and stood behind
me…even though it was a little crazy and scary. After four
years of “trying” we were blessed with twins!
I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome,
or PCOS in the very beginning. I’ve since learned that
PCOS is a very broad diagnosis. I feel like it’s kind of
a blanket-diagnosis for any kind of infertility. It is
manifested in so many different ways and women tend
to experience such a wide range of symptoms. For me, it
meant that my eggs never matured enough to “drop”
which in-turns causes ovulation and eventually a period.
I started with the standard clomid treatment. We didn’t
get very far with this. We found that my body required
a large amount of medication to produce “mature” follicles.
We went down the road of artificial insemination and tried
that 4 or 5 times, I can’t quite remember. Nothing. I
remember talking about the option of In Vitro Fertilization,
or IVF with my doctors. For some reason, I never thought it
would have to come down to that…too expensive and a last
resort for sure. Little did I know that I was a perfect candidate
for this procedure.
When I was working with the fertility specialist, it was
determined that this was going to be my best option. Like
I said before, it took a lot of medication to get mature follicles
and my problem was that I would either get no eggs or too
many. The medication would stimulate ALL of the tiny
follicles, like up to 20 eggs rather than two or three! YIKES!!!
We decided to go ahead with IVF. This gave us so much more
control and I was all for that. We were able to harvest 50 eggs,
which apparently is a record number. The doctor felt that other
than my PCOS, I was healthy enough and young enough
that I shouldn’t need to implant more than two eggs. We went
ahead with two and both of them took! We couldn’t have been
more thrilled. We experienced success at our first attempt with
IVF which doesn’t always happen. I am so, so grateful.
Our twin boys are now almost 10 months old. I love being a
mother. All of the waiting and longing was SO worth it. It is
so hard at the time, but you just have to push through it. I’m
especially grateful that I listened to that little voice inside of
my head telling me to think about starting a family early.
I know that little things like that are not mere coincidences.
I’m not sure what the future holds for me and my family but
I know that things always work out. It may not always be
what you originally had in mind, but things work out all the
same. To all those who may be struggling in this area, hang
in there. I wish you the very best. It’s nice to have support
from people who have been there. Good luck!