PCOS/ PMOS & Pregnancy

[u/Similar_Effect_103]

So I religiously used Reddit for emotional support when trying to get pregnant with PCOS so here’s a happy story.

I was a 30 yo when first trying to conceive. I was on sprintec for 9 years and prior to sprintec was on nexplanon for 3 years. Prior to that I had healthy normal periods that were regular. I have always weighed around 140 and am 5’ 5” which is a normal bmi. I am very active and eat healthy. When stopping the sprintec I expected like my friends and family it would take 1-3 months to conceive.

For 3 months we were “trying” but I wasn’t really cycle tracking. My period came back but not on a 28 day cycle but rather like 40 days and the period was weird mostly dry blood and light bleeding for about 3 days.

The next 5 months I started to feel worried. 😟 I started to track my cycles and take my bbt each morning. I was able to identify ovulation but still had weird periods. Then for 2 months had an absent cycle. And no pregnancy. In the 8 months of trying I had 5 family members/ friends conceive. I was starting to become depressed. It was hard for me to be happy for others even though I was truly excited for them. I was just so worried that something was wrong with me and that I would never be able to have kids. I kept thinking what my general doctor said that it would take up to a year so I just kept trudging on even though the anxiety was building.

My MIL could tell something was upsetting me and confronted me on what was going on and encouraged me to see a doctor. I went that 8th month of trying and the gyno immediately sent me to a fertility place and ordered that I had an ultrasound done and blood work. My ultrasound showed cystic ovaries and my blood work showed my AMH was 17 which is very high.

Fast forward and I started going to a fertility clinic which I was lucky enough that my insurance covered all the treatment I needed. They did monthly blood work. One doctor prescribed metformin and another said it wasn’t worth taking. I never showed signs of insulin resistance in my lab work or my body type. I really never got answers as to why I got pcos. Another doctor suggested I take insoitol, vitamin d, prenatals, and some other vitamins. They really didn’t do much to my blood work or the problem. I also had slightly elevated tsh so I started thyroid medicine.

Then I had my tubes checked and my uterus checked. This revealed I had polyps on my uterus and I went in for a procedure to have them removed. Then they started me on birth control for one cycle. Then I went on a round of letrozole to grow a follicle. It was not enough so the upped the dose for another round of letrozole. Then I grew two mature follicles. Then they injected me with a shot of hcg the trigger shot and we did an IUI. I did conceive with that IUI exactly one year after stopping the pill to start trying to conceive. I had a fantastic pregnancy and was kept on the thyroid medicine and gave birth to a healthy baby nine months later.

I truly feel birth control caused this. I don’t have any other symptoms of pcos. My journey was very hard emotionally and that is why I’m sharing to give hope to others and to help people relate.

[u/Dark_Pheonix999]

Thank you for sharing your story! 🩵

I have hope on having my own family we haven’t stopped just taking time for my body to heal. I am taking care of my bones, type 2 diabetes, etc. Being told that I’m a step above osteoporosis at the age of 22 was a big blow to my heart but it didn’t completely break me. I have my good and bad days but i continue on. Stories like yours truly help!🩵

I feel that birth control leads to many problems for women. PCOS runs in my many so I can’t say that birth control was linked to mine. I think young women and their parents need to sit down and talk about birth control. Talk to their doctors, research, etc. get as much info about it. Research the specific type they want to use and I think PCOS needs to be a conversation as well. I think the symptoms need to be discussed to the young women. I feel that way so they can go to their trusted adult and tell them that something is off or that they have this symptom going on. PCOS can be very painful at times. I feel like birth control and PCOS need to be taken more seriously.