That whiny, infertile woman makes an appearance.

It has been a long time in between posts. In a lot of ways that is due to my own laziness, but secondarily I don't want to feel like I'm repeating myself. But then again, 22 months of trying to conceive can be kinda monotonous.
To get my dear blog up to speed, we lost another baby in July, shortly after our daughters second birthday. Feeling very heartbroken, we decided it was time to go see a fertility specialist. While this may sound like an obvious option to most, it was actually really hard to make that appointment, and even harder to walk through those doors. It was the final act of really admitting that my body is not working, and that I need help. Anyone that knows me well knows that asking for help is really hard for me to do, I don't like doing it at all. But I did.
We saw our specialist in September for the first time. His name is Alex Eskander and he works out of North Park private. The guy is brilliant, very no nonsense and never overloads us with information. We're very happy that my GP pointed us in his direction.
So now I'm on a cocktail of fertility drugs. Clomid, Ovidrel, and progesterone pessaries. Whoa Mama, let me tell you, the mood swings are great. Just so much fun. I go from happy to bitch in under six seconds. I'm also bloated, sore and very, very tired. Basically I'm pregnant without actually growing a baby (and isn't that a lovely head fuck, especially when you're looking for pregnancy signs at the end of your cycle).
The good news is that I'm responding well to the Clomid and everything on my husbands end of the deal is looking great.
And yet, here we are. 22 months in, three of those assisted, and nothing.
I have my days where I look at my daughter and think, "That's enough, I'm happy, I should just stop." But the fact of the matter is, there is a hole in my family. Ellie would love a sibling, we would love another baby, we have enormous amounts of love to give.
I'm very fortunate to have such a good relationship with my husband, I can see how this tears couples apart. From the outside it seems like such a simple thing, you just have sex, you wait til the end of the month, if nothing, you try again. When you're in the middle of it though it's an emotional roller coaster, it's exhausting and it's cruel. And then you get to the end of the month and it's heartbreaking, and at the point I'm at now it's kind of heartbreaking, but in the most mind numbing way. I'm hurt, but  I don't even feel it properly anymore. I know how sad I am, but I can't even react because I have reacted so often and felt the deepest of sorrow for it. How many times can you cry over something before you just feel that it's a part of your monthly routine?
But we keep going. How can't we? My husband put it a beautiful way during a very hard discussion with some dear friends who are expecting a baby - it's like the colour has been drained from our world. We do see glimpses of colour (especially in our daughter who is growing so fast and we are just so in awe of her) but for the most part, things are grey, faded and worn.
And I am very tired.

Who I am and why I'm invading your internet

So most blogs start out having a point, a general reason as to why someone started using it. My story is this:

I'm Lauren, I'm a 29 year old Mama of one beautiful girl, happily married to a wonderful man and living in Melbourne Australia.

Us with our Ellie Jade on her 1st birthday

My aim in creating this blog is partly for my own outlet, and partly to try to make the readers more aware of PCOS and how it can affect lives, and also to hopefully meet some others in my position that need support and someone to chat to about their issues too. I also want to share my journey in trying to get pregnant with PCOS. While I realise that it's early days for us yet, being only six months in, it can also be very lonely. I get met with a lot of "You have to give it some time" and "Don't be so dramatic about this!", when sometimes I just need to hear a "That sucks! Fuck PCOS!". Ideally followed by offers of wine and Chocolate.
Selfishly, it's hard seeing other people fall pregnant at the drop of a hat, and seemingly not appreciating how lucky they are. While it isn't my place to judge some situations, or as horrible as it may be for me to be jealous, I just sometimes am. And sometimes I get bitter. Yup.
As far as other vents go; I have struggled with the symptoms of PCOS even before I knew I had it, most specifically with my weight and body image. It's hard to get your head around eating right, exercising and getting nowhere with weight loss. I can't actually remember a time I looked in the mirror and was happy with what I saw. But then again that seems to be another disease that most women have, so I guess I'm not alone on that one!

More about me:

Currently I'm a stay at home Mum. Before my daughter I worked as an Animal Attendant at a vet clinic. I love animals and I'm very passionate about animal welfare issues. I'm particularly fond of rabbits, and we share our house with three completely litter trained house rabbits, as well as two cats, a Newfoundland and some fish.

I am rather geeky. I love video games, science and math humor and reading, although I rarely get the time for any of the above these days. I'm also weirdly fond of all things zombie.

I come equipped with a pretty broad sense of humor and I'm very fluent in sarcasm. I'm grateful for my sense of humor, it gets me by a lot of the time. 

As much as I may complain here, I do have a wonderful support network in my awesome husband and a very loved group of friends and family, who I would do anything for. I'm not a gushy sort of person, but I do try to let them know how loved and appreciated they are as often as I feel comfortable doing so. I guess I can be a bit reserved in that way.

The rest of me is a pretty open book though, as I'm sure you will find out if you follow this blog. I swear entirely too much, I love to bake, I'm generally weird, I laugh a lot.

And I think that's about it.

I do hope you enjoy reading my ramblings.

What is PCOS

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. It's one of those fun multifaceted conditions with a whole bunch of symptoms, no explanation as to what REALLY causes them, and no real treatment. It's one of the most common hormonal disorders in women, and around 5-10% of women of reproductive age have symptoms.
Some of those fun symptoms include:

• Infertility (not able to get pregnant) because of not ovulating. In fact, PCOS is the most common cause of female infertility.

• Infrequent, absent, and/or irregular menstrual periods
• Hirsutism (HER-suh-tiz-um) — increased hair growth on the face, chest, stomach, back, thumbs, or toes
• Cysts on the ovaries
• Acne, oily skin, or dandruff
• Weight gain or obesity, usually with extra weight around the waist
• Male-pattern baldness or thinning hair
• Patches of skin on the neck, arms, breasts, or thighs that are thick and dark brown or black
• Skin tags — excess flaps of skin in the armpits or neck area
• Pelvic pain
• Anxiety or depression
• Sleep apnea — when breathing stops for short periods of time while asleep

Yep. Great stuff.

So what does PCOS mean for me personally? 

To be honest, I have had symptoms for a very long time, generally overweight, a little hairy, dry scalp, anxious. Probably going back to when I first hit puberty. My period was generally regular as far as I can remember, but I was on the pill from 17 onward. 
As many of you know I already have a wonderful daughter, Ellie, who has recently turned 1. While pregnant with her they discovered a large cyst on my right ovary, which was of no concern at the time, but they wanted me to come back and be checked after she was born. I did that in February, which is when they discovered that I had tiny cysts all over both my ovaries, around 30 in total. I was then sent back to my doctor to have blood tests and all other wonderful proddy, pokey examinations. My bloods came back fantastic in general, but yes, my androgen's were up. And I still had most of the other symptoms, the extra weight that is impossible to shift, especially considering I eat healthily and exercise regularly. Oh, and the fact that I was going around 80 days between periods. 

What am I doing to help me in my quest to give our daughter a sibling?

In my case, it seems pregnancy has made my PCOS worse and now I'm experiencing what is known as secondary infertility. We started actively trying for a baby in February when we got the results that pointed to PCOS, knowing that it could take us awhile. In May my doctor prescribed me with Metformin. Which is actually a drug that is used to treat people with diabetes and it's use is somewhat experimental in treating PCOS, but a lot of people have fantastic results with it. It helps to lower insulin levels in the blood, which can benefit all the aspects of the condition. I'm also currently taking Evening Primrose, a pre-natal and pregnancy multi-vitamin, CoQ10 and Milk Thistle, and very recently have cut carbs such as bread, pasta, rice (which is hard when you have a Chinese husband) and potatoes out of my diet. I'm actually feeling a lot better since starting the low carb diet, so I think I'm on the right track.


Some links, should you wish to learn more:
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Association of Australia
Soul Cysters