My Journey with PCOS (Part 2)

So I left off last post with getting married, and not particularly trying to avoid or conceive.  The irregular cycles that are part of my PCOS became maddening.  So many negative pregnancy tests :(.  As the months went by we moved more and more from neutral to hoping for a positive.

In late 2011, after some googling around, I bought a book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility (TCOYF), a thermometer, some ovulation prediction kits (OPKs), and downloaded a sympto-thermal charting app and got started. I noticed right off the bat that my temps were low and erratic, and was never able to confirm an ovulation.  Similarly, I was never able to identify an ovulation with OPKs.  This had me a bit worried.

Our anniversary rolled around but still no positive, confirming that we technically fit the definition of infertile.  I was upset, but not quite ready to get medical assistance to conceive.  At that point, I was at my heaviest weight ever, and I wanted to lose weight before getting treatment to give myself the best chance possible.  So in October 2012 I started weight watchers.  I decided that I wouldn't seek help conceiving until the earlier of hitting my goal weight or my next birthday.

Around January 2013, the Hubs and I found a new primary care doctor.  I told the doctor about some pain I had been having and that it'd been years since the first ultrasound I had confirming PCOS, so he had me get another.  The result of the ultrasound was unexpected, they didn't even see one cyst.  I believe the exact phrasing was that the ultrasound was an "unremarkable ultrasound of the female reproductive system."  So.... I have PCOS without the polycystic ovaries?  The primary care doctor sent me along to an endocrinologist to see if any more treatments could be done to control my symptoms.  The endocronologist upped my dose of metformin and then insisted that the only other available treatment was birth control.  Again, I politely refused, upset that my new doctor, a supposed specialist in hormones, knew less than I did about PCOS.

By May 2013 I had lost 60 lbs, but I kinda fell off the weight watches bandwagon after that and my weight started climbing again.  In August 2013, around our second anniversary, I got impatient and looked into booking an appointment with a Napro.  Unfortunately, a great job change for the hubs meant we had to wait a while for our insurance coverage to kick back in.  Finally, we set our appointment... for less than a week before my birthday, hah!