Cycle day 2

Today is Cycle Day 2.  I hardly slept last night.  I think a lot of my sleeplessness is coming from the excitement I have about getting started back on treatments.  I feel like I’m one step closer to holding my baby, I guess. 

I’m also not eating much.  A bowl of cereal for breakfast, about 8 bites of Mexican lasagna at lunch and one small brownie.  Normally, I eat a good amount.  Such it is with a lot of us with PCOS.  You crave carbs.  There are days where I feel like if I don’t get a piece of bread or some cake that I will murder someone!  This is one of the cruelties of PCOS.  You crave carbs to the point you feel ill if you don’t get them, but then once you’ve eaten them, your waistline pays.  One of the aspects of PCOS is insulin intolerance.  A quick lesson in insulin intolerance or resistance.  When you eat sugars (carbs) your pancreas produces insulin to break down the glucose in your blood.  When you are intolerant or resistant, your body doesn’t produce the right amount of insulin or it just flat out doesn’t know what to do with it.  This is also how diabetes works….  I am essentially pre-diabetic, however its not going to matter if I fully develop full blown diabetes in the future because my body still won’t know how to process insulin, natural or through treatment.  The chances are, I won’t die from diabetes complications, but I’m going to feel pretty miserable!  Now for the best part of all, because my body doesn’t break the carbs down, it stores them as fat!  In order to lose weight, I would have to cut out carbs, completely.  This means ZERO carbs.  No ketchup, no BBQ sauce, no bread, no cake, no ice cream, NOTHING with a carb in it.  Or, I could try this medicine called Metformin.  This lovely horse pill has been used for the treatment of diabetes since the 1920s.  The medicine has a full history, but I won’t go into that.  What I will share is how this medicine is used to help PCOS ladies lose weight and possibly help to regulate your cycles.

When you eat anything with carbs, it is usually broken down higher up in your system.  The glucose is then absorbed into your bloodstream, and in PCOS ladies, stored in your belly fat.  Metformin, however, prevents the breakdown of carbs into glucose until they have reached your lower digestive tract.  Your intestines can’t break down the carbs very well, allowing for less absorption and ‘storage’ of these evil particles.  This should in turn, allow you to lose weight since you are not taking in the carbs from your food that you normally would.  There is one not so nice effect of the medicine though… if you do eat a carb laden meal, you will feel miserable and in the potty for a bit.

Seems like a miracle drug, right?  Well, for some it is.  However you have a 50/50 chance of this doing anything for you for weight loss and guess which category I fall into!  That’s right, the category of no help.  I’m on a high dosage, 1000mg twice a day.  I feel better taking it than I do not taking it.  I just wish I could lose some of this flab.  The beauty in losing weight is that your cycles can become regular, which in turn means a higher chance of getting pregnant.

Ok, enough of the medicine talk.

I had my appointment at 9:45 this morning.  I love my doctor.  She is a reproductive endocrinologist, or what some people would call a fertility specialist.  On top of helping people achieve their dream of parenthood, she can help patients who are not trying to get pregnant have a more normal life.  Endocrine disorders, especially the ones that effect the reproductive areas of your body, can be a hassle to deal with on a daily basis (excessive hair growth, painful cysts, etc) and she can help a person manage them.  But more than a doctor, my doctor, Dr. James is a wonderful person.  She has answered so many questions, explained so many things.  When we lost our babies, she held my hand and cried with me in the operating room while I waited for the anesthetic to take effect so she could perform the D&Cs.  She has become such a huge part of my life, and my husband’s as well. 

We had taken a few months off, ok, so we had taken almost 6 months off, of treatments.  Today was my first visit back with her.  We talked a little about why we had chosen to take some time off.  Mostly it was to get through the holidays and it allowed me to transition into my new position at work (no more travel which means I’m better able to focus on getting pregnant).  She did my ultrasound. 

This is the ultrasound machine.  The long phallic shaped object is the ultrasound wand that they use for a transvaginal ultrasound.  If you’ve ever had an ultrasound early in a pregnancy, you are familiar with this thing….

Everything looked clear.  This is a photo of the measurements of my uterus and ovaries.  Thrilling isn’t it?

My uterus had a healthy lining and my ovaries are cyst free.  We discussed my dosage of Follistim.  I’ll start out at 100 tomorrow and return for another ultrasound and blood work on Monday.  Four days at 100 means I should have several follicles grow.  Previously we have done alternating dosages of 100 and 75 to make sure we don’t get too many.  I meant to ask her what her thoughts are about stimulating more follicles this round….  In the past she has been worried about multiple births, but with the chances of that so low on just injectables, I’d be willing to risk it if it gives us a higher chance as conceiving a healthy child.  Anywho, I’m rambling.

My prescriptions were called into the pharmacy.  3 vials of Follistim, 1 dose of HCG, and progesterone vaginal suppositories.  Yes, I said vaginal suppositories….  Those will come into play after my shot of HCG in the next 10-14 days.

Tomorrow, I'll fill you in the injectables.  The what, how, and why.

Tomorrow, the Ides of March.  Tomorrow, the one year anniversary of losing our most recent baby.  Technically, its their birthday isn’t it?  I leave you with one final image: