Knowing Me – Knowing You

I am currently 3 years into my infertility journey of treatment however, I have known that I have “issues” for around 7/8 years, I just didn’t know at that stage exactly what was going on or how it would affect me. Like many people I sometimes indulge in trashy magazines filled mainly with nonsense and over exaggerations. Every now and again these magazines will include articles intended to teach us something new or raise awareness of issues we should know more about – I won’t lie, I used to skip over these articles to get to the juicy celebrity stories, shocking real life confessions or to par-take in quizzes advising me on what kind of human being I was or wasn’t. However on one occasion I came across an article interviewing 10 different women with something called PCOS – where each of them discussed their symptoms, how they found out they had it and how it has affected them. I felt instantly connected to over half of the women’s stories and knew that each of these symptoms on their own hadn’t particularly stood out to me as a concern but to see them displayed before my eyes collectively, connected to a fertility condition made my heart jump into my throat and it hit me “I think I have this!”

PCOS – stands for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. The term polycystic ovaries describes ovaries that contain many small cysts (about twice as many as in normal ovaries), usually no bigger than 8 millimetres each, located just below the surface of the ovaries. These cysts are egg-containing follicles that have not developed properly due to a number of hormonal abnormalities. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is also very common, affecting 5–10% of women. (http://www.verity-pcos.org.uk/guide_to_pcos/what_is_pcos).

That’s the fancy definition out the way – however it displayed itself to me in the following ways: no periods, darker hair growth all of a sudden, hard lumps almost acne like under my jaw area, weight gain in a short space of time that was extremely difficult to get off again, struggling with getting to sleep and skin tags – all extremely attractive things to happen to you, I’m sure you will agree! As mentioned before, each of these things on their own could be something or nothing but seeing this all mentioned together in the magazine article as symptoms, I thought – I need to go and get this checked out. I was known by my family to be a bit of a hypochondriac when I was younger causing much amusement when shows such as Casualty or E.R were on the TV. I would begin to display all of the symptoms of some unusual tropical disease and convince my parents I was dying because I too had a cough like the lady on the telly – so part of me was worried that I was reverting back to my 7 year old, over dramatic self but I decided to make an appointment anyways.

I asked to see a female doctor as my usual doctor (a man) was also the doctor who actually delivered me as a baby and had known me my whole life and for some reason it mortified me to talk about lady things with him! When I attended the appointment and told the doctor about my concerns there were two factors that seemed to really frustrate her – 1) You read this in a magazine???? 2) You’re not trying for a baby but you want tested for PCOS???? At that stage in my life I was a little less confident about my patient/doctor relationship dynamic – you know, the one where some doctors need reminded that they actually work for you!!! Anyways, I felt a little silly answering yes to both of her questions but surely that’s the whole point in these articles, to raise awareness and am I not allowed to know if there is a problem with my body before wanting a family? She huffed and puffed a little and then seemed to decide that she would humour me even though I was clearly wasting her time. She asked me to jump up on the bed and pushed around the bottom of my tummy – surely she can’t feel my ovaries through my tummy??? Then she took some blood, told me to phone back in a week for my results and sent me on my way. I was left thinking – what just happened there? Can they tell if you have cysts on your ovaries with a blood test? I phoned back in a week and got told, “Your blood tests show us that there are some hormone differences in your blood and the doctor has referred you to the hospital for an ultrasound in 4 weeks’ time.”

On advice I drank about 4 pints of water before my scan so that my full bladder would make my womb more visible and spent the whole journey there almost giving myself a UTI – I began to have hallucinations about peeing at the side of the road and when I arrived at the appointment and she moved the ultrasound over the bottom of my tummy I actually thought I was going to have an accident! As soon as she was done she said, “right grab the back of your nightgown and run to the toilet – I can see for myself that you bladder is ready for bursting!” This amused all the other patients waiting outside other rooms as I ran by in my nightie pants and socks. Advice – only drink the recommended amount don’t try to be an over achiever and impress them with your ability to be a camel – you are not a camel!

The results showed that I did in fact have PCOS and that was why I was no longer having periods as the slight hormone imbalance and cysts were causing me to no longer ovulate. This really upset me as I thought this meant I would never be able to me mummy, no one really seemed to explain what this meant in real terms but I tried not to show I was upset in case I made myself look like immature and over emotional – I wanted to seem grown up, like I understood what was going on – like when your friends first start talking about sex and relationships and you pretend you know everything because that makes you wise and mature for your age! They decided to try me on a one month course of a drug called Clomid to see if it would make me ovulate. My results a few weeks later showed that I did in fact ovulate and that Clomid would probably be the simple solution to my problem when I was ready to start a family. A huge relief – That was a close one – for a minute there I almost thought I was going to have infertility problems!!!!!!!!!!

Fast forward – 5 years later when I was ready to start a family – re scanned – Severe Polycystic Ovaries – low Estrogen – high Testosterone – non- existent Progesterone (so basically hormonally I am almost a man!) and I am now labelled as Infertile. I knew it!!!! – I knew deep down there would be more to this but I just trusted that they knew what they were talking about and it was ok just to leave it until the time was right. I don’t know if they could have done anything to stop it becoming severe or to stop my hormone imbalances causing me so many other issues over the years, but I suppose the moral of the story is – if you know yourself the way I knew me and the way I felt deep down inside, then don’t be scared to say something, ask for help, insist on being checked and ask better questions about how this is going to be monitored or controlled.

And so my fully diagnosed infertility journey began……..