Tuesday, April 19, 2011

My story so far.

Figured I should do this. Give a quick recap on who I am, and what's been going on up to this point in my TTC and Weight loss life.

My name is Lisa. I'm 31yo. DH is 32yo.
We've been together for 13 or 14 years, but only just got married at the end of October 2008.
We immedietly started trying. Of course through those 13 or so years though, we weren't always careful, but nothing ever happened.
I knew something was wrong with my body since I could go months without getting a period, but it was always on the back burner. I guess I was in a bit of denial.
When I first met DH, I weighed in at around 140-150lbs. I thought I was HUGE back in the day because I was the largest one of my group of friends. While they could eat whatever they wanted, and drop weight super quickly... my weight just always kept rising.
Over the years with DH, my weight just kept going up and up. I know this was mainly due to our poor diets. Lots and LOTS of bad fast food.
Fast forward to 2009. I started to bleed and bleed and bleed. It would stop for maybe a day, or just lighten up some, but then would start right back up. Before this, I noticed that the few periods that I did get were long and abnormally light and I would spot constantly.
I finally got so scared, that I made an appointment to get checked out in June.
I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and PCOS and I was at my highest weight of 250lbs. I know I was that for my wedding day as well. I should mention that my hypothyroidism really had an impact on my energy level and I had no idea. I could sleep ALL day, and still feel exhausted. I could get up in the morning (well afternoon back then), and still end up taking a 2hr nap about an hour later. I had zero energy.
I was started on synthroid for the thyroid issue, and metformin for the PCOS and was given provera.
The spotting pretty much stopped after I got AF from the provera. Thank frickin goodness!
I had been charting this entire time, and well, my charts looked awful. No ovulation at all. I finally told my obgyn after that first cycle, that I wanted to try clomid. She readily agreed and started me off on 50mg.
I had absolutely no response to it unless you count the headaches and hot flashes.
Next cycle, 100mg. Nope... nada then! Grrrr
She wanted to try me on femara next. Yay something different but holy crap is it expensive! She only wanted to try me on 2.5mg. Nope nothing then either. I wanted to try a higher dose, but she refused for some reason. She said we could try the 2.5mg again, or get referred to an RE.
I wanted the RE, but DH wasn't ready for it yet and wanted to try the femara again.
I should've put my foot down, but I didn't.
So, 2.5mg of femara again, and what do ya know... nothing happened!
I finally asked my ob for the referral and had the first appointment with my RE.
Oh I should mention that during this time with the ob, I was taking 1000mg of metformin. I had stopped eating late night snacks/meals. Seriously, I used to often fix myself an entire meal after DH went to bed. I started off just reducing what I ate to a cup of yogurt, applesauce, or pudding until I finally just stopped eating late night. I think that along with the metformin helped me lose about 20lbs by the time I did see my RE.
First RE appointment went as I'm sure most do. Went over medical history, what he wanted to do, what we wanted to do, etc etc.
He upped my dose of metformin to 1500mg a day and wanted to try me on clomid one more time.
I didn't want to, but whatever. I just went along with it. So he put me on 150mg.
As expected, absolutely NO response to it.
Ok... so lets try me on clomid + follistim. YAY! I finally get to injectables!
Welp, start on the 100mg of clomid, then start the follistim, and what do ya know... poor response and the cycle is cancelled. WTF?
I get completely frustrated and make sure to tell him that I don't care how long it takes... we're NOT cancelling the next cycle.
RE heard me loud and clear and we started the next cycle with just follistim and micro-HCG shots.
It took 15 looooong days to get my body to produce 1 egg. BFN that cycle. To make this a little shorter. After every injection cycle, I have large cysts so we're forced to take a break for a month.

So next injection cycle, we do the same thing, but this time, it takes 19 days of stimming! But this time, I produced 3 mature follicles and guess what. I got my first ever BFP that cycle! OMG!
I was so excited. I thought that this was it. We were finally going to start our family. And then.... my tests didn't get darker.
I was constantly reassured that that didn't mean anything. NM all of the progression posts that were on the forums that I went to or anything. NM the women who got their BFPs WAY earlier in their TWW who had much MUCH darker lines.
I had a beta done finally, and my beta only came back at 27. I was already having sinking feelings b/c of my tests and that 27 didn't help, but I still hoped. My RE's office tests beta every 4 days. And on that forth day... it had dropped to 5. I had already started to bleed by then.
That m/c was awful. Severe lower back pain and awful cramping. And the emotional side... just being crushed like that. It was awful. But I saw the glimmer of hope. Well, hell, this means I can get pregnant right?

We did one my injection cycle for 2010. We started it in Oct. Did the same meds, stimmed for 13 days, produced one egg... AND... BFN... SIGH!
It was a VERY long wait for January. Thankfully with all of the holidays crammed in to those few months, it made it go by somewhat faster, but still, I was anxious to start again!

January 2011 rolls around, and we start injections once again! Again, it's 15 days of stimming. BLEH body!
But, I had 2 matured follicles by the time of trigger. So WOO!
And.... BFP this cycle too! YAY right? WRONG. The first m/c was always on my mind and it completely sucked any kind of celebrating from this one.
It didn't help that I started to spot on 10dpo and it didn't stop.
My tests did look like they were getting darker for a little bit. Even darker than the first BFP from last year, but then, they started to fade.
Once again, I was told not to worry about it, but how could I not? This was exactly the same thing that happened before!
I had my beta done... and it only came back at 12. I was devastated. I kept testing, and they eventually just turned in to BFNs and I m/c 5 days later.
I was actually feeling ok. Hurt and devasted obviously, but ok. That is until a week later.

DH comes home and asks me if his mother called me. I'm thinking to myself.. WTF would she call me for?
That's when he breaks the news that his younger sister is pregnant.
My world came crashing down around me. All of those negative depressed emotions that I had been trying to keep at bay just hit me all at once and I got seriously depressed for a while.
I'll spare you the awful things his SiL said once I could actually look at her again, but things didn't get better.
Why? Because I learned that her due date is exactly when I would've been due if this 2nd pregnancy had stuck. Also doesn't help that it's only a few days after DH's birthday and gawd... I SO wanted to give him the best birthday present ever lol. Sigh.

So yeah fast forward to now and here I am... another failed cycle. Seems to be the pattern though. One cycle, nothing, next cycle, BFP and m/c! SIGH. Well lets just hope the next one is BFP and sticky bean!

As for the weight loss. Since being with my RE... I lost about another 15lbs and then things stalled. My weight would go up, or down a little, but always stayed at around 215lbs.
That is until what..6, 7 weeks ago when I decided to try us out on the Paleo/Primal eating style. I read about it and it just made sense to me. Paleo man didn't eat grains (or at least not a lot of them if they did have access), and I'm sure mother nature didn't design our bodies to consume it and be able to break it down as it should, so why the hell are we eating so much of it now? It just made sense to me.
So on to the paleo path we went and well.. we haven't looked back since and I don't plan to ever again.


I know I probably skipped a good bit in there, and I am NOT a writer so I'm sorry if some things don't make sense or feels jumbled together.

3 comments:

DJ said...

Sorry you've had such a rough time of it. Hang in there and know another TTC fatty is sending good vibes your way!

Sandy said...

Oh Lisa I'm so sorry. I have had a lot of failed cycles and a miscarriage last year so I know how tough this can be. I just found out recently that I also have a thyroid problem (hypo) and my RE believes that may have been the cause of my first maiscarriage. We have been diagnoised with "unexplained infertility" which is crappy but I'm sure our ages don't help. I will be 38 and my DH is in his 40's. Does your RE know why you have had two miscarriages? Hoping you can find some peace during these difficult times and I hope your next cycle is successful!

LisaL said...

Nope, no idea why for the 2 m/c. He seems to think that there was probably just some kind of chromasomal problem w/ the eggs so that's why they didn't implant.
I think there may be something more than that, but whatever.