The 90/10 Rule

Reading Chez Miscarriage and following her links has led me into the infertile blogging world. Wow. The memories that brings back.

Did you know that 90% of all sexually active women will get pregnant within a year unless they are taking precautions against it? Of the remaining 10% another percentage (I don't know the exact number) will get pregnant on their own within the next year. And then you have the rest of us.

I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I didn't know for years. I knew something was wrong, and I went to doctors about it, but I kept getting the same answers from all of them.

"It's normal for some women to have irregular menstrual cycles." Um, no, it isn't. It's normal for teenagers to be irregular. It is NOT normal for a woman in her late twenties to regularly go three and four months without a cycle. And neither is it normal for a 19 year old to go a full 12 months without menstruating. Of course, I didn't know that at the time, so I just listened to the doctors.

"You just need to lose some weight." Actually, I didn't gain the weight until after I started having some really weird things happen to my cycle, and then I gained 30 pounds in a month without having changed my diet in any way. Found out later that weight gain is one of the symptoms of PCOS. It stinks, because the extra weight aggravates your condition, which leads to greater weight gain, which aggravates the condition ... It's not how much I eat, it's what I eat. I have to eat like a diabetic and exercise like a fiend, or I'll blow up to the size of a parade balloon.

"Well, let's look at those thyroid results. Nope, those are within the normal range." PCOS can look a lot like an underactive thyroid. I have to give kudos to those doctors that paid enough attention to me to suspect thyroid; it would have been nice, however, if even one of them had looked further once my tests came back in the normal range. Everyone of them sent me off with a pat on the head, promising that I was, "Fine, just fine." Then why is my hair falling out in handfuls?

"What you describe is impossible. You can't possibly be feeling that way." That one was memorable. I'd been put on birth control pills to control the heavy bleeding I'd suddenly started experiencing. My ovaries blew up like basketballs. I could feel them when I pressed my fingers slightly into my abdomen. Not that I tried that more than once. It hurt even worse than the cramping that month, which had me doubled over from the pain. I immediately stopped taking the pill and made an appointment. Of course, by the time I got in I was just fine again, hence my doctor's scorn. Who would have thought going to the doctor was like taking your car in to the mechanic? She did consent to give me a different type of birth control, though she made it clear she thought I was more than a little crazy. I still don't know just what the heck happened that month.

I wasn't diagnosed until I went in to the doctor because I couldn't get pregnant. He listened to me, asked a few questions, and immediately diagnosed me. I thought it was the end. It was only beginning.