Ugly Disease

I have PCOS. I have probably had PCOS since I was 11 and started menarche. I most definitely had PCOS when I was 18 and bled for a solid month and a half but my doctor just told me I was obese and needed to lose weight. That was 80 pounds ago. Then I was diagnosed and treated for hypothyroidism (low thyroid) and told I'd be on medication for that the rest of my life. It stopped 4 years later. I was finally diagnosed with PCOS when I was 26. It was a fluke. My doctor thought I had something wrong with my pituitary gland because I had high prolactin but wasn't lactating so she sent me in for a head MRI and then to an endocrinologist (doctor for gland disorders). He ignored the films even though they showed a pituitary microadenoma (small tumor) and instead just wanted to talk. He actually honestly listened to me about how my body had acted for the previous 15 years.

Gil and I have been trying to conceive for 4 1/2 years now so we knew going in we'd have problems. Given that, we didn't think we'd still be childless after all the doctor's visits, charting, pills, ultrasounds, blood tests, ovulation predictor tests, and surgery that have happened since.

But we are.

Childless.

We're essentially starting from scratch next month, almost as though we've wasted all those years. In August, I will go back to the endocrinologist who first diagnosed me. I will also go to an REI (reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist), the first one in our region. Hopefully a new and more aggressive plan of attack will be made and carried out. And hopefully I can be given a different medication that doesn't make me have to hover around a bathroom all day. That seriously impacts a person's desire to have a social life.