Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Finally, after so many years of asking why – we have an answer.

Pete and I have been trying to conceive eversince we got married five years ago and it has been a difficult journey. I guess I have always felt immense guilt over not being able to conceive while friends and family seem to do it effortlessly.

There is a stigma that surrounds infertility, barren women often portrayed as empty vessels, failures. To be loathed and pitied by society and I fought very hard not to be labelled so. People look at us in pity when we say, no, we dont have children yet but we are trying. A dialogue that often goes like this -

‘have you tried traditional medicine, I swear it works.’

‘My sister in law was on this wonder drug and she is pregnant now.’

‘It’s your cats, people say that if you have cats, you will have problems having children.’

‘Oh thats a pity. because your children would have looked lovely..’

Well meaning words, I am sure but often to us, more like thorns grating away at an already vulnerable topic. It is not like we have not tried, we have tried every traditional and modern drug available, we have sought numerous ‘experts’ and no one has given us an answer to why. Yet, every single ‘expert’ we see continue to feed us hope, that it will happen soon.

Once, I even got attacked by a well meaning friend who confronted me in our quest to become parents, we have put our own life on hold and she was concerned that we were putting ourselves in danger of continually being conned. She asked ‘Would life be so bad without children?’

For me, the honest answer would be ‘yes’.

So while we are in the uk, we decided to look for help one last time. After being on the waiting list for several months, we finally had an appointment with a fertility clinic in March. They made us do numerous tests and scans for months afterwards and last week we finally had a result.

I have PCOS, basically cysts on my ovaries that refuse to turn to ovulating eggs. When the doctor rattled off the symptoms, I was astounded at how many I had! Difficulty sleeping, high thyroid levels, sudden weight gain, acne, thinning hair, the list went on and on and I was mentally ticking each one in my head.

So now it has a name – that monster hidden in the closet for so long is now named. We can take it on, we can hopefully defeat it. I am on medication and hormones now and there will be yet MORE tests to do before we can proceed. But yet again… the doctors are hopeful and so are we.

If you would like to know more about PCOS, click here

~ by Cupcake Queen on May 18, 2009.