A flashback to the early days

This morning I came across a lone post sitting in my drafts folder - talk about a blast from the past. I'm not sure why I never posted it back in July of last year; probably because I was in the process of recapping our wedding, and never got around to it? Maybe because things were too raw, and I wasn't really being as 'out there' about our TTC struggles? I really can't tell you.

In the spirit of ICLW week, I thought I'd share it here.. I'm sure many people can relate to the frustrations involved with TTC, wanting so desperately to have a baby, and being blocked at what feels like every step of the way.

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July 2011

This whole baby thing is hard work. And we don't even have a baby.

I knew it would be a struggle to fall pregnant. I've known for a while. I've read the books. I've researched. I've watched the documentaries. I know that my body is screwed up, and I've known about it for a while now. But even though I've had this awareness of the difficulties in conceiving, I'm really feeling it now. We've been trying for a little while, but it's different now. It's like... now that we're married and have been in the right frame of mind to seriously want to be parents now, everything is continuing to go against us. All those fears and worries are suddenly more real now - because we've gone from 'struggling in the future' to 'struggling in the here and now.'

I saw a doctor today, six months after my last check up. After the scans and the bloodwork and the lectures about PCOS and high insulin and weight gain, after the Metformin was upped, after the diet was discussed... it's pretty obvious that things aren't going to just 'happen' for us. I've been charting my ridiculous cycles for a few months now, after monitoring them for almost two years. I'm not ovulating. I have no 'average' cycle. I've been monitoring ovulation by temp, cervix, mucus and strips ... nothing is happening. My doctor told me I was silly for even trying those methods, and said that considering my high insulin levels, if I'm ovulating naturally it's a miracle.

I asked if I could go on Clomid, or another medication to help me to ovulate. That was shot down, due to my ovarian cysts. Apparently, I'm not ovulating consistently or fully - the eggs aren't releasing properly, if at all, and when they do, they are half-expelled and result in cysts. If I take any drugs to hyper-stimulate ovulation, all that's likely to happen is for me to accumulate even MORE ovarian cysts, which could hinder the process all over again.

This is where infertility sucks - everyone is so different. It's one thing to be ovulating regularly and having a regular cycle - at least then you know you're trying each month at your fertile time and nothing is working. But for me and my long and erratic cycles, I'm not even getting twelve shots at falling pregnant each year. In fact, going by my average of 55 days,we will only get 6 tries each years. SIX. When you break it down into numbers like that, adding in all of the normal 'odds' of getting knocked up, it's no bloody wonder things won't be happening anytime soon.

I've been given another time-frame, another six months to wait. I've been told to 'relax' and to eat well and to take my Metformin 3x per day. It's the same information I've heard before. As if it were easy to just drop the weight and keep it off, despite struggling with it for years now. As if I'm not trying. As if six months is no time at all. But six months we'll wait. And you know what? I'm going to continue charting. I'm going to continue peeing on sticks. Because even if it IS a miracle to be ovulating, I want to know about what my body is doing. Come December/January, I'll be putting my big girl pants on and demanding to see someone else.