Author: ashleymw88

I showed my husband all of the research I found and we prayed about it and then felt very much at peace and lead to do things holistically.

We had a peace that if God wanted us to get pregnant we would but right now the focus was getting me better so If I did conceive,  I would have a successful pregnancy.

I changed my diet completely! I cut way back on sweets (only had about 24 g of sugar per day), only drank water, ate gluten free meals or a clean eating diet (for more info check the PCOS Divas site that I had in my previous post), stayed within a certain amount of calories (the app Fitness Pal became my everyday go to guide, to help me stay on track) and joined a gym that offered classes that I knew would help me loose weight.

If you do your own research of PCOS, you will see that many women who have PCOS suffer from other symptoms other than just infertility. For me the main symptoms I had was the hormonal imbalance  and missed periods ( I once went 4 months straight with no menstrual cycle). I never knew this was attributed to PCOS until finding out about the infertility issue  and doing my own research. This is where actually finding WHAT I had became a blessing because now I could know HOW to treat it.

 

Literally a month in to me changing my eating regimen drastically and exercising more, I felt 100 % better in so many ways! And my menstrual cycle started to come back. Fast forward 7 months later since the PCOS diagnosis and I have lost 17pounds, been more hormonally balanced and have had full menstrual cycles each month. God is good!

 

I woke up with a “SEIZE THE DAY!” refocused type of attitude.

I had heard all of what the doctors but I said to myself, “There has to be other ways to handle this diagnosis without medication!”

This was one time I felt okay going against what the doctors were saying because it only made me feel hopeless and I knew with this situation I needed a community of people to help me get through this PCOS shananagenz.

I searched Youtube, google, etc . trying to get a good grasp on PCOS and how others have handled it. Guess what I found??….good resources that confirmed diet and exercise played a big factor in reversing PCOS.. But wait didn’t the fertility doctor say that my weight probably wasn’t an issue?? ( I wish you can see my face of sarcasm)

Here are some good sites to grasp a better look at PCOS:

http://www.hormone.org/diseases-and-conditions/womens-health/polycystic-ovary-syndrome ( an overview for those of you still wondering what PCOS is)

http://www.pcosdiva.com/what-is-pcos/    (THIS SITE HELPED ME ALOT!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lHBR-bzwY&feature=youtube_gdata_player ( This video helped me alot!)

I felt great gaining these tools ! It was now time to put into works all of the things I had learned about.

 

 

It was a week day and my appointment was probably around 5:30pm to meet the doctor. I didn’t have work that day but my husband did so we just decided to meet each other there.

The nurse took my height and weight ( I was scared to look at that scale ! )  and then she asked if I was waiting for anyone and I told her I was waiting for my husband.  So she said she would give only a few more minutes to wait for him to show up and if he wasn’t here by a certain time I would just need to see the doctor myself.

I said “okay” and went in the waiting room and prayed to God that he would get there soon, I knew he was trying his best to rush from work and get there. It was literally the last minute before I would have to go in to meet the doctor and here I see RUSHING in ..my handsome husband 🙂 I was so happy to see him!! He told me how he was rushing through the parking lot, etc, and then  I hear …”Ashley” .. the nurse was calling us in to meet the doctor.

He was nice.

He did a questionnaire and asked us to share about our relationship, etc. ( Use your imagination and think of what kind of questions can be asked when visiting a Fertility Doctor, LOL).

And then …. things got real. 

In a nut shell, this is pretty much what the Fertility Doctor said:

He couldn’t give a time frame on pregnancy because most people with PCOS only ovulate a couple of times per year, if ever. He didn’t want to risk saying a time frame either because he has seen people get pregnant that have PCOS  after trying for a while but there  were also people who have PCOS that never get pregnant. Sometimes it depends on how long your willing to try until you just give up.  He told me not to use any ovulation kits to track that because it’s a waste of money. He said my weight didn’t play that much of a key factor but they would run more tests just to make sure there was no diabetes. Once doing a diabetes check and sperm count then they would go from there. There are different medications I could take to help me get pregnant and other avenues that could be available to me to help with fertility but first lets do those tests.

Things got blurry towards the end. It was information overload coming to terms with something I never knew existed. I was doing my best not to cry.

And then the meeting was over. The doctor walked us out. We drove home. I walked in the bathroom and the flood of tears began to flow.

I finally came out of the bathroom. Hugged my husband. We had a good cry and then just tried to encourage each other and find faith that everything would eventually work out.

 

 

The Moment you know something is not functioning properly in your body and the day it’s confirmed…..

We had been trying to conceive for about 9 months and although I know the story that for many hold true..some people just take longer to get pregnant for some reason I had a feeling it was more than that for me… for us. Something was up.

I spoke to my husband about going to a doctor just to make sure everything was okay and he was right by my side the entire time. Thank God for his support.

I went and had some tests done and a few days went by and then the phone call:

Doctor: “Hey Ashley, the tests show that you have PCOS”

Me: “PCOS? What is that?”

Doctor: “It’s Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, its basically like if a women was to have anytype of infertility she would want it to be PCOS because it can be treated”

Me: “Oh Ok”

Doctor: “Yup so we will get you setup with a time to meet a fertility specialist and then come back and see me when your pregnant”.

Me: “K. Thanks”.

The most awkward  3 minutes ever. I didn’t know whether to be okay with her response and the way things were said, I didn’t know if I should feel happy because now I finally knew what was going on with me or what. My thoughts were  just all over the place yet I stayed calm. I knew no matter the process, I would come out victorious. I had to stay strong.

I told my husband the news and we agreed that we were happy to finally know what was going on and we would just wait to hear what the fertility doctor had to say and take our next steps from there.