5.17.2011

Patiently Carrying On Somberly


Patiently   Carrying  On   Somberly

Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. It does not define me. It is not me. I can beat this.
 
It is not quite that easy though. It has now been about 3 years since I was first diagnosed with this ugly disease. All of the research that I have done with it, made it seem so complex, so different for everyone. I had most of the symptoms, but they all seemed to come at different times. For instance, the crazy periods, I had those forever. The weight gain though was only recent. I blamed my weight gain on marriage, and not being as athletic as I was in my teens. Little did I know that those were factors, but there was an much worse underlying factor that was not helping. I also had not been told at this point that I had any ovarian cysts. However, after talking with Dr. Servy he agreed on the diagnosis, and even proved that I did in fact have cysts.

So, it was confirmed. I have PCOS. Everyday I wake up, and I still have it. I have heard of people reversing the effects of the disease with diet and exercise, but it has been so absolutely hard for me to lose any weight. That's the kicker. PCOS makes it very, very difficult to do so. But at this point in my life that I am in, I am about to my wits end with dealing with all of this, and really some days want to give up. Of course, I think the want of a baby, keeps me from doing so.  I have decided recently though that if I really want this, then I have to fight. And fight hard. It is just so unbelievably difficult to wake up every single day and have to fight. I occasionally start feeling sorry for myself, why me? What did I do to deserve this? I may never know why I, and many other women, have been chosen to lead this difficult path. For whatever reason though, I believe that God has a plan. It is really hard to except though that his plan may be that I never get pregnant, or never am a mother. For me, this would be devastating. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but ever since I was really young, I have wanted nothing more than to be a mother. Growing up I could never really pinpoint that one thing I wanted to be. Except a mother. I never wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or anything like that. Just a mom. That's all. Anything after that I would just except. Was that too much to ask? At this point I question this daily.


Contest Details!!!

Alright guys, here are the rules for my very first contest! The person that can refer the most people to my blog will win a fantastic prize!

Now for the referrals, you just have to get them to either follow my blog, or leave a comment on any posting. Now the most important part.... Make sure to email me who you refer so I can keep track! My email is heathergcsu@yahoo.com.

The contest will end May 31, 2011. And I will announce the winner and let them choose their prize on June 1, 2011....

Thanks again for reading! Any questions????


5.16.2011

Thank You!

Thank to everyone for the support so far for my blog. It has taken me years to get the confidence to put it all out there.... I plan to post throughout this week, to catch everyone up to where we are today... So, please hang in there, I promise I will keep up with this! I know I am writing what seems like books right now, but I also promise that I will not continue to write such long posts!!!!

I am really excited so far from the response I have received, and would like to ask anyone that has been able to read my posts, please pass my blog along to anyone that you think would benefit from it. My story only helps if the right people hear it! I think that anyone, struggling with infertility or not can benefit. People who are  not struggling with it should know how "we" feel....

Also, I have a contest to offer. I really could care less of how many people follow, as much as I care how many people I am able to reach, and potentially help. So, for the person that can "refer" the most people to follow me, I will give you a special gift. As some of you may know I absolutely love crafts! So I am going to make something special for the winner! Check back tomorrow for more details on the contest!!!

Anyway, thanks again!!!!

Frustration, Frustration, and Even more Frustration

Now, for a year I took birth control and never thought twice about the what ifs.... A little over a year after my very first doctor's appointment, I met and fell in love with the best man in the world. And we were married a year later. I would say almost immediately kids were on our minds. His brother and mom actually had a bet that we would have a child within our first year of marriage. Oh how I wish that they would have won that bet... We pretty much didn't think much into it the first two years, though, after nothing had happened. I guess in a way we looked at it as a blessing, because we had a really rough second year of marriage. By the third year though, things had evened out and we decided to start seriously trying to have a baby. I had never seen a gynecologist, so I had no idea where to start. So I went to my Primary care physician and asked for him to refer me to someone. He referred me over to an excellent doctor, Dr. Klemann. We had our first visit with her September 24, 2007. She did some routine testing and then sat down with Joey and I and explained exactly what was ahead of us. Nervous as we were she made it seem not so terrible, and that everything would be fine. She suggested that we have an ultrasound, and so we waited a few weeks and then called back a month or so to have a ultrasound done. well, to my surprise, when I called to make the appointment they informed me that she was no longer practicing, and that I would have to be seen by a different doctor. I was a little disappointed, but was just happy to be moving forward in determining what the issue was. So they assigned me to Dr. Waxman.

At first, I didn't mind her. I had my ultrasound, and she looked at it and mentioned nothing abnormal. No cysts, no scar tissue, no hard to find ovary..... Which knowing what I know now, really makes me question her. So she put me on clomid for the first time, and instructed me to come back in a month to see the results. I returned to Dr. waxman a month later, she rushed in, asked me about my last period, and then told me she was going to give me some medication that was basically a chemical D & C, which I read is given to many women going through a miscarriage. Now I can understand why she would have prescribed this to me, with all of my abnormal bleeding, however, she never even checked to see if I was pregnant. I had just told her it had been over a month since my last period, and she was jumping straight to giving me a medication that potentially could have killed a baby had I been pregnant..... I questioned her, and then she suddenly called a nurse in to get a pregnancy test... This really left a bad feeling though. And after a few months after this visit, I decided that I wanted to see a different doctor. I tried to stay within the same doctor's office, but they told me that I was not allowed to be seen by a different doctor. So then that really pissed me off, and I just found a whole new doctor, and practice. I just looked through all of the doctor's that are covered through my insurance, and just picked one. I can't say it was the best idea, but I was about fed up with doctors.

I picked Dr. Bongu. Only because she has an office in Evans, close to home and work, and she was available for a quick appointment. After a few visits with her, I knew that this was yet another frustration. She just prescribed me clomid after clomid. She did at least have me come in after every cycle to test my blood to see if there was any increase in my hormone levels. She never did any ultrasounds, but yet she did diagnose me with PCOS (poly cystic ovary syndrome). Deep down, I knew this was going to be what was wrong with me. Because a few years earlier, my mom had told about an article she read in a magazine about this syndrome. She said that all of my symptoms matched what this was describing. Of course, immediately I googled it... BAD idea. Long story short, I was in tears after reading a few different sites. Of course I jumped to all the bad stuff and looked at it as terrible to have. But Joey came in and reassured me that I may not have it. He made a joke of it and even stated that he had most of the symptoms too. He took my mind off of it temporarily, but once the doctor told me that was what I had, all those emotions came back to me, and I got really scared. well, after I don't know how many cycles of clomid, Dr. Bongu told me that she was going to do one more round of clomid, and if I didn't respond to it then she would have to send me to a specialist. At this point, I really just wanted to be seen by a specialist. So, I worked the system, in a way, I guess. I didn't take the clomid again. So when I went in for my test, I knew that I was going to show no increase, no response. And I didn't. So like she said, she referred me to a specialist. Dr. Servy... My first appointment with Dr. Servy was set for August 26, 2010. I was so nervous, but excited for taking the next step forward.

5.15.2011

The Beginning of My Story......

This is my first time writing a blog about something so personal, so I am not sure how well I will do with this, but I feel it is something that I need to do. Just to give you a little background information, I have been married for six years to a wonderful guy. After a year or so of marriage, we decided that we were ready to start a family. However God has had his own plan and that dream still hasn't come true for us.

Ulitmately, we tried to concieve, by just not doing anything to prevent it. After a few years of nothing happening, we decided that it was time to go to a doctor. Now just a bit of history of myself, I knew since I was a teen that this was going to be an issue. I was a very mature 11 year old, and the summer after my 5th grade year I got the not so pleasant gift of my menstrual period. I felt at the time almost a sense of accomplishment, since so many of my older friends had not quite "matured". However I soon lost that sense of accomplishment and began to hate becoming a woman. I had the absolute worst periods ever. They were unbelievably heavy, and last for months. But I also would go months without having one at all. So it was good and bad. My body had somehow gotten on a schedule so that I never had one during the summer. To me that was perfect, and I never thought twice about it. I only went to the doctor once in my early teens for this issue. My parent's weren't able to have insurance on my sister and I, so we only went when it was really really necessary. So I was having one of those awful periods, and my mom decided I should see a doctor. The doctor just bsically said that it would stop soon, and I wasn't anemic. That's all. No tests, nothing. I sometimes wonder if we would have insurance, if they would have looked more into it, and possibly found a way to correct the issue then.

So, years went on, and nothing ever changed. At times I didn't go to school because I would have to use the bathroom every hour or sooner. I had pretty much no pain associated with it. No cramps or anything, which is still odd to me. Then when I was 19, I was living with my grandparents in Virginia for a few months, and I got anemic from one of my infamous long periods. She demanded that I go to the doctor. Once again, no insurance, but I knew that I needed to go. I went and the doctor just talked to me about my history and then decided that I needed to go have an ultrasound done. I went and had them done, and during the procedure the technician had a hard time locating one of my ovaries. Ultimately I freaked out thinking do I not have an ovary??? So she suggested that we do a transvaginal ultrasound. After doing this she found the ovary. Since she was only a technician, she wasn't able to tell me anything. So I went a few weeks waiting to hear from the doctor. Finally a call came and I was told they found nothing wrong, and that they suggested I get on the pill to straighten my cycles out. Well this was perfectly fine for me. I didn't think I was anywhere close to needing to worry about having children. I was defininitely wrong, but I will tell you all about that later....

However, the birth control helped with straigten my cycles out, and everything was fine. Or so I thought....

5.14.2011

A Fresh Start

It has been at least two years since I have written a blog. I have had plenty to blog about, but I guess I have just had absolutely no motivation to do it. Well, I think its time. I reinvented my blog and plan to try my best to keep up with it better this time. I am going to devote this blog to mostly my daily struggle with my infertility, but I want to incorporate anything else that is going on with my life, and things that I want to share with others in hopes of giving them encouragement!

I will be getting together my ideas for this blog today, and hopefully will have my next post ready soon.