A Semi-Brief History of the Reproductively Challenged

This blog entry and the next 2-3 will likely be among the longest entries, as I have four years worth of history to get through. I will keep it as brief as possible, but it’s still going to be lengthy.

We enrolled in “Applied Biology 101” in September of 2003. I went off the pill, which I had faithfully taken for the past 5 years. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this, since my primary reason for being on the pill was not actually birth control: it was horrendously painful periods. Ugh. Oh well…I reasoned that I’d only have to deal with it temporarily, because I’d get pregnant eventually.

My mom had difficulty getting pregnant with my brother, and eventually resorted to Clomid, but she had had problems with her system prior to that anyway. Mine had functioned like clockwork…painful and miserable, but with no signs of problems. Well, ok, no signs of problems ASIDE from the pain and heaviness, but I’ll get to that later. So, I assumed that I wouldn’t have the same difficulties she had. I’d heard that it sometimes took 6 months to a year to regain fertility after going off the pill, so I wasn’t in any hurry.

I wouldn’t say we were actually “trying” at this point. More like not “not trying”. We were just going to let nature take its course. We weren’t in a hurry anyway.

Two months into this, we made a rather life-altering decision: We had originally planned for Eddie to get out of the military, and we would move from the Seattle area to Northwestern Oregon because of Seattle’s prohibitive cost of living. However, after looking at the job market in Oregon, and doing some thinking, we realized that the military was still the best bet for us. We also found out he’d been given some erroneous information about his re-enlistment status (ie., that he no longer had time to look at orders, that the window was closed, etc). At the last minute, we made the decision to stick with the military. On December 7, 2003, he re-enlisted for 4 more years in the Navy, and was reassigned to Norfolk, Virginia.

On December 26, 2003, we drove out of Washington and headed east.

In the midst of moving across the country, finding a place to live, looking for a job, and all of that chaos, my periods stopped. At first, I naturally assumed that it was stopping for the most obvious reason: I was pregnant, of course! I bought the first of what would be many, many home pregnancy tests. Looking back, we should’ve bought stock in EPT. 20/20 hindsight, right? The test was negative, as were the subsequent two. A couple of weeks went by. Then a month. Still nothing. I tested again. Negative.

At this point, though I still wasn’t in any kind of a rush to get pregnant, I started to worry. Something wasn’t right. I decided to go to Planned Parenthood and get a pregnancy test, just to be sure. That was also negative, so they recommended that I go see an OB. Fine, I thought. I needed to find a doctor in the area anyway.
I found a list of OB’s in my area that were covered by my insurance, and found a group practice not far from my apartment. I called, made an appointment, and went in the following week. This was the day I met Dr. Satan.

The concise version of what happened is that Dr. Satan came into the room, where I was lying on the table half-dressed, and immediately started telling me that my periods had stopped because I was fat. Bear in mind, I’m not thin, and I was heavier then than I am now, but I was by no means as fat as he made me out to be. He told me that if I stopped eating so much and started exercising once in a while, I’d lose the weight and my periods would come back. (Nevermind that the rather rapid weight gain I had experienced in the previous couple of months may have been a symptom of something else…) And, he added, once I DID get pregnant, I was only going to gain weight, so why start out like that?

The internal exam that followed can only be described as humiliating and painful. Let’s just say it involved a metal speculum – with a slightly sharper edge than the nice round edge of a plastic speculum – that wouldn’t go in, and Dr. Satan using his body weight to MAKE it go in. Wasn’t pretty.

I went home in tears, and fortunately Eddie was unable to drive at that point, so he wasn’t able to go back to Dr. Satan’s office and beat the crap out of him. I wound up at the ER a few days later because I was still bleeding a little and was in a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the only doctor available was a male, but he was an absolute saint about doing the exam. Still, I have never been comfortable getting examined by a male doctor since that time.

Eventually, my period returned. Then disappeared. Then returned. At one point, I went 6 months without a visit from Aunt Flo. Ladies, don’t envy me. It was miserable. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. PMS, it seems, snowballs from month to month. You know that crappy feeling you get right before it starts? Imagine if it DOESN’T start, and that feeling carries over to the next month….then gets worse…still doesn’t start…next month…etc. For 6 months. LAME.

By the latter part of 2004, it was getting old. I went to another OB on the recommendation of a friend. I was terrified of going, which pissed me off to no end…I’d never had a problem with getting annual exams, but ever since Dr. Satan, I was way freaked out. The exam did go well, and she recommended an ultrasound to check for cysts.

Because it was an internal ultrasound, my Dr. Satan-inspired fear kept me from getting it done right away.

In January of 2005, we were in the midst of moving into our new house when Aunt Flo made a visit. Or so I thought. The pain and the bleeding were exceptionally bad. I called in sick to work. Without going into detail, it became clear that this was not a period. I was miscarrying.

Fortunately, I had been unaware that I was pregnant, and evidently it was pretty early. Still, it was an emotional blow.

In August of that same year, nearly 2 years into this epic, I started getting a really obnoxious pain in my lower right side. It was consistent with symptoms of appendicitis, so we went to the ER. They found nothing, and recommended I go see my OB. Joy. I figured now was as good a time as any to get that ultrasound done, since I’d put it off for the better part of a year.

I saw my OB again, and was promptly read the riot act for not coming to see her when I miscarried. I’m not sure what she thought she could do – I knew the signs to watch for as far as infection and hemorrhaging, so it wasn’t necessary. But, anyway, it was in the past. She couldn’t explain the pain in my side (which had not subsided), but thought it might be ovarian cysts. She was certain I had poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

I came in for the ultrasound. It was clean. No cysts. In our discussion afterward, she said that “sometimes women don’t ovulate, and we don’t know why.” As far as she was concerned, the best plan of attack at this point was Provera.

This is where things really went south. I asked her point blank about side effects of Provera, especially in comparison to Clomid. Mood swings? No. Excessive cramping/bleeding? No. Headaches? No. Sleeping problems? No. She said that I might experience some bloating, but otherwise, the side effects were minimal. She wrote out the prescription, and sent me on my way.

I filled the prescription that night. The insert listed all the horrific side effects it could have, but the inserts always list everything from bleeding cuticles to having your ruptured spleen come out your nose, so that the pharmaceutical companies don’t get sued…so I didn’t think anything of it. After all, my doctor told me the side effects were minimal.

She was wrong. I’d go so far as to say she lied to me. It was HELL. Joint pain, nightmares, insomnia, massive headaches, inability to concentrate, and the mood swings…dear lord, the mood swings. I knew something was wrong when I had a complete and total emotional breakdown on the interstate. Something was very, very wrong. Then the depression kicked in. Terrible, terrible depression.

I did some reading online. As it turns out, the symptoms I was experiencing are not only associated with Provera, they are COMMON. Further, there is a blatant warning that Provera is counterindicated for patients with a family or personal history of depression (I have both), and that patients with a history of depression MUST be monitored VERY closely by their doctor while taking Provera.

I called and asked to speak to her. She didn’t return my calls. There were no appointments available. Finally, I reached the end of my prescription (I was afraid to abruptly stop taking them), and Aunt Flo showed up with a vengeance. I called in sick to work for 2 days, which is very, very unlike me. During that time, I left half a dozen messages telling her I needed to talk to her ASAP. I needed to know what to do, because I was completely losing it, and I was NOT going to take another round of Provera…but I needed to know if there would be more problems if I didn’t continue taking it. She never returned my calls.

Eventually, I got in touch with my doctor back in Seattle, and she assured me that discontinuing the Provera would not be a problem, and recommended I avoid hormones (well, DUH…).

I was done. No more doctors. It was time to seek alternative treatments. I had long been open to alternative treatments – my osteopath had worked wonders on my back pain and such, etc – but hadn’t really considered them for this. A friend had told me that acupuncture was used to treat infertility, but my phobia of needles kept me from looking into it. After the Provera, my rational mind said: Look, the worst that can happen is “that needle hurts…take it out.”

A friend recommended me to a midwife. My midwife then recommended a local acupuncturist.

This is where things start looking up. Stay tuned…