Infertility - The First Year

I was never someone who dreamed of being a mother. The idea still scares the heck out of me, honestly. Even a few years ago, it wasn't something I wanted. I'm not really sure when exactly it changed. Rob and I had been married about a year, and he was getting ready to turn 30, when we looked at each other and started the discussions. I think close friends having a truly awesome baby (quickly followed by another awesome baby) had a lot to do with it.

So we found ourselves ready to throw out the ol' birth control pills right around my birthday that year - October 2008. I turned 29.

Now, birth control pills at that point were part of my life. I had been on them since I was 15. Not for their originally intended purpose back then, I swear! Rather, to help with some of the issues I was having at that time: bad skin, weird periods, and recurrent (painful!) ovarian cysts. The Pill was my BFF for almost 15 years. It wasn't until I went off of it that I realized how "normal" it made me feel. Because - whoa, did it hit the fan when I went off!

I blew up like Violet Beauregard. Seriously. I haven't been a skinny girl in year and years, but I gained weight at an amazing pace. But in a different way than before - I was always very pear-shaped, but I started gaining a gut. My face broke out. Not in that way girls with not bad skin whine about - it REALLY broke out. Worse than even when I was a teenager. I started finding weird black hairs...one on my upper lip, on my chin, on my boob, on my "happy trail." And I started losing the hair on my head at an alarming rate.

And then there was the one non-appearance related issue, but it was a biggie: I didn't have a period. For months. I went to the gynecologist for a routine appointment a few months later, and when they asked "When was your last menstrual period?" And it was four months prior.

It didn't take long for the diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome - or PCOS - to come. I was a classic case. It's one of those things that's hard to explain, but it seems to be related to the way my body handles glucose. The insulin I produce doesn't do it's job, causing the excess glucose to be stored as fat. This stimulates the ovaries to produce excess male hormones (androgens) and luteinizing hormone. These combine to cause the less-than-pleasant physical impacts as well as the annovulation. And you get fatter. And the cycle juts keeps going.

My doctor recommended trying fertility medication. But I wasn't ready. So we spent the rest of that year trying different herbs and supplements that were supposed to help, and trying on our own.

A year later, we decided to take the next step...