Some of you may know that two years ago, I graduated and then decided that it was important to get back to being healthier. Having had a sedentary job that I hated meant the double-whammy of emotional eating to deal with the hating of the job, as well the not moving around nearly enough because I was tethered to research all the time... also accompanied by seriously undersleeping and being constantly stressed out about work. These factors all resulted in a lot of weight gain when I started doing labwork. Thus, I figured that finally being rid of the whole research thing meant that I had no excuse not to take better care of myself again. I checked in with my OB GYN a few weeks in to check that it was a good idea to try to get down to a healthy weight before trying to conceive, to better the chances of having a healthy pregnancy (I had read that obesity is associated with increased neural tube defects and other problems with pregnancy).
The nurse practitioner said yes and approved my plan for the weight loss goal and how to do it... and of course, because I was eager to have a baby, I went about losing the weight very quickly and decidedly.
If I were to rewind to that day, I would emphatically say, "Uh, what the hell are you talking about?" to the nurse practitioner and overweight-me-of-two-years-ago, because it turned out that losing 80 lbs totally threw my cycles for a major loop. By this I really mean, they just stopped. When I went back with great concern about the total lack of periods (after over a decade of extreme regularity), I was told that I was running too much, but that my weight was just fine. This was gauged by BMI, ignoring my questions about percent body fat. I reported pelvic pain that I'd never had before and it was totally something they brushed off as being totally not relevant.
The not-having-menstrual cycles at all is obviously very sub-ideal for someone who is trying to have a baby. We tried on one cycle that I did ovulate, and the luteal phase was really short (8-9 days). After another couple of months of waiting for an ovulation event, to no avail, and being annoyed with the lack of active trying, and I met with a reproductive endocrinologist. I went on to have a totally anovulatory cycle on Letrazole... and still no period in sight.
After that, I asked Stephanie if she'd be willing to go first because there was just no way it was happening on my turf right then, and we were already several years past the point that I'd envisioned starting a family. I'm incredibly grateful for having that backup option that most women struggling with infertility do not. I am so excited to be a mom, and really, the order that we have the babies in doesn't matter at all. But, I would be lying if I said that the infertility thing hasn't been hard to deal with, especially since I've been seeing happily pregnant people ALL THE TIME, in part because I live with one.
Finally, after deliberately putting on 5 lbs and bringing my % body fat out of the teens, which was not psychologically easy for me to do since those extra 5 lbs make a really big difference in how I feel, my cycles have recently started coming back every 31-33 days.
I don't think anyone has ever been so happy to have a period. Really. I know for many people the period means "not pregnant" and is a sign for sadness, but in my case, it is a sign that at least something down there is working the way it's supposed to.
I went for another annual checkup with the New Real Faculty Health Insurance and lo, was offered a bunch of tests and an ultrasound to see what was up with the pelvic pain (which has not been debilitating, but mostly worried me because it might be a sign that things are not quite right in there). All the blood tests came back normal, but it turns out I have a complex ovarian cyst on my right ovary.
The Complex Cyst is about the size of my ovary, which is not tiny but not enormous, either. You don't get to see a picture because I didn't get to see it either - non-baby ultrasounds are conducted with a lot less fanfare and information sharing and photo-giving. (But yes, they still use the dildo-cam.) I will be rescreening in a month to see if it goes away, but basically, wait and see.
But, on the plus side, my periods are back. I fired up the fertility monitor and have had two ovulatory cycles, with normal luteal phases (12 days). This is all excellent. I'm hoping to avoid surgery on the cyst because ovary removal and scarring is definitely not great for the whole fertility thing, and complex cysts don't necessarily interfere with fertility. Some certainly do, but it's not possible to distinguish without doing the surgery and having a biopsy.
The horrible uncertainty of knowing that I don't know whether I'll be able to be pregnant and have a biological child is definitely hard to deal with, sometimes more than others, because it's something that I've wanted so hard for so long, and facing that it might just not work is rough. I think that I know too much about biology and how many things can go wrong, all makes it a bit harder.
My brother made a baby shower flag on Uncertainty as a value he wants my child to have:
It's hard for me to view uncertainty as a virtue right now. I often wish I could be one of the people "that trust others about things of which they are ignorant" respecting infertility, because many people can just trust a higher power that it will all work out according to plan and that they will be able to conceive, one way or another.
For the record, I know my family totally did not intend to make a baby room decoration that made me go on a bender of doubt about my body's ability to do what I want it to do most of all. They didn't know about the infertility issues at all, and the absurdity of their not knowing about such a huge issue in my life is what is finally prompting me to come out of the closet about the problems I've been having in that arena.
Ultimately, though, I don't have to be uncertain about everything. I do know that my body is capable of doing pretty awesome things that I ask of it, that other people can't, like running a marathon. I do know that we will have one child very soon. I do know that we will, in one way or another, be lucky enough to be able to give that child siblings. I know that I will be able to have a family, even if the making of that family won't necessarily go quite according to plan.
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>hug< :) it'll be ok. it sounds like you're on the right track now. have you thought about acupuncture? if you find the right practitioner, i believe it can be very helpful in balancing your body.
ReplyDeleteMore hugs. Obviously, this was and is pretty difficult to deal with, but as you say there are many things on the bright side: you are becoming a mom; you have two ovaries, and only one of them has a cyst (Ixyz had three kids with one ovary, including non-identical twins); even with a cyst the ovary can produce an egg; and your cycles seem to back in sync.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are two more flags on the way ☺.