This is a post about my ovaries, so I’ll understand if you don’t feel like reading any further. I know many women deal with this disease, so I figured I’d offer my story as a hope for those suffering with infertility.

PCOS is a demon I’ve battled with for going on 7 years now. I’ve likely had it since puberty, but I didn’t discover it until a year into my marriage.

A quick definition from Wikipedia:

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common female endocrine disorders. PCOS is a complex, heterogeneous disorder of uncertain etiology, but there is strong evidence that it can to a large degree be classified as a genetic disease.

PCOS produces symptoms in approximately 5% to 10% of women of reproductive age (12–45 years old). It is thought to be one of the leading causes of female subfertility and the most frequent endocrine problem in women of reproductive age.

The principal features are anovulation, resulting in irregular menstruation, amenorrhea, ovulation-related infertility, and polycystic ovaries; excessive amounts or effects of androgenic hormones, resulting in acne and hirsutism; and insulin resistance, often associated with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol levels. The symptoms and severity of the syndrome vary greatly among affected women.

It ain’t pretty, people. Thank God, there are a lot of symptoms that I don’t have. Hirsutism is the big one I suffer from, but thankfully, I’m the palest of pale white, very Western European, so for me, it manifests no worse than someone of a more Eastern European decent. It can be bad in some women though, baaaad. Most likely, the bearded lady at the fair suffered from PCOS. I’ve seen a few women approaching that level. For me, nothing a bit of plucking and waxing can’t fix.

However, when unmedicated, I do deal with a hell of a hormone imbalance. At my worst, I had twice as much testosterone running through my blood as an average woman. I don’t appear to be insulin resistant, although I did end up with gestational diabetes during both my pregnancies (well controlled with diet a little tiny pill).

The symptom that tipped me off was the lack of a cycle. My mother took me to the GYN to get birth control pills soon after my periods started, because they were so irregular and heavy. Instead of, oh I don’t know, investigating the cause of such things, the doctor simply said “Yup, pills” and handed over the prescription. I didn’t think anything more of it until I got married.

A year after our wedding was about the time when things started going downhill. Our World of Warcraft addictions were in full-swing, we were both in super-problem-avoidance mode, and Mr. RedPill was heavily betaized. We had just converted to Catholicism, so I already wanted to look into getting off birth control pills, but my libido was also starting to take a nosedive, so I was doubly interested. I cut them out, and my period started. And never ended. For 6 months.

It was rather ridiculous that I didn’t go to the doctor before then, but I think I was kind of using as it an excuse not to have sex (sorry dear), and I hated going to the doctor. We were still in college, and the best healthcare we had was the campus clinic, which is a bit more effective than using Dr. Google and getting a prescription for whatever you want from an online pharmacy.

I’m the type that researches EVERYTHING, so I already had an idea of what was going on. I went to the campus clinic, talked to the doctor, and after having him look at me stumped, I pulled out a printout about PCOS. He looked at it, said “Yeah, that sounds about right”, and ordered some blood tests (I’m telling you, Dr. Google). After confirming my hormones were FUBAR, they did an ultrasound and confirmed that my ovaries were lumpy and full of cysts. Because we didn’t really have the money to deal with it, and they charged full price for the sonogram, I sat on it for a while. I can’t remember, but I think I started taking the birth control pills again just to get a break. I could be wrong on that timeline though, I have the memory of a goldfish.

Sometime after Mr. RedPill got a real job and proper insurance, I chose a doctor that specialized in infertility. She immediately started me on Metformin, an insulin resistance drug that has been a successful treatment for some PCOS women. It did seem to work a little for a few months, but even after upping the dosage, the results were unpredictable at best. I was temping just to see if I was having a real cycle, and never really got the peaks and dips of success.

Once we decided to start having children, the good doc started me on Clomid, which had an immediate effect, but was rather pricey. Totally normal cycles, yay! We had crazy awesome ovulation sex for a few months, which was great for Mr. RedPill, compared to the zero sex that he had been receiving before.

After K was born, I breastfed for 15 months, so never really had a cycle. I didn’t have another one until we started fiddling with medication again, and never a proper cycle until we started Clomid again for the 2nd pregnancy.

So there’s my reason for using hormonal birth control. My options are superfertility and a huge drug bill, or 6 month long periods, neither of which I can really handle. A combo pill with estrogen helps most of the symptoms stay away, but it makes me a little moodier, so there’s a bit of a tradeoff. I really wish I didn’t have to use this crutch. My hope is that once I lose another 10-15 pounds, I can stop taking it and see where I am, since weight loss will often times kick-start hormones into working correctly.

edit: I seem to be getting a lot of google hits for this post, particularly from women looking for answers about their hormonal imbalances. A great resource that has really helped me is the Soul Cysters website and forum. It’s a great community with lots of good info. If you have any questions you’d like to ask me privately, feel free to email me.