Monday, April 28, 2008

My Story

Sigh...So it begins....

I've always had abnormal or irregular menses since I can remember. I was a competitive dancer for 12 years of my life, and in high school was in color guard which kept me busy. I graduated highschool weighing 135 pounds at 5'6" but never having normal periods. My parents divorced my senior year of highschool and it was at thatpoint I turned to food. I remember the first time that a boyfriend pointed out that my neck looked "dirty" and I remember scrubbing it over and over to the point that it would be red but still "dirty". At one point in college I had been on my period for about 40 days and I was sleeping all the time. I finally was sick of it and called my mom. We went to my OB/GYN on a Tuesday and after she did my bloodwork (and found my HgB was 6.3) she scheduled me for a laparoscopy, D&C and hysteroscopy for two days later. After that I was feeling great and working out three days a week in my gym class at college. I had actually gotten down to 170 pounds! I was on birth control at that point as well as iron supplements 3 times a day. After leaving college ( a year and a half later) I got a job that had internet access that I would use between my customers. Bored one day I typed "dirty neck" into Google and low and behold...IR came up as well as PCOS. I felt as if I was on an episode of Mystery Diagnosis and solved my own mystery. There it was, weight gain around the belly area, male pattern hair growth, irregular or no menses...the list went on and on and in my head I was filling out a check list of my entire life. The most horrible news, however, was infertility as all I ever wanted was a large family. Enter my husband. When we met and became serious (after he expressed his wanting to have 8 kids!) I had to break the news about PCOS and explain to him from beginning to end how this could affect our lives together.

So, now I am 27 and married for exactly 6 months today. Both Isaiah and I need to lose weight but we just can't seem to get motivated. Believe it or not, I am a medical assistant for an OB/GYN office, so my doctors are always getting on me about being able to have children. At this point if I'm not on birth control, I have no period. Currently I'm taking LoEstrin24 FE for about 4more months in hopes of losing weight. I was on Metformin for a while but it seemed not to do anything but give me diarrhea. I had lost about 20 pounds prior to our wedding and had gotten down to 203 but now I'm up to 236.

It is so difficult because I'm not understanding why I'm not motivated. I want children so badly but then I eat carbs like they may disappear! I HAVE to stop eating so many bad things. Why don't I want children bad enough to stop? It is so difficult to work where I work because I will have a 20 year old in our office on her 3rd pregnancy, or girls who use abortion as a form of birth control and all you can do is keep your mouth shut and wonder why God has chosen ME to have PCOS and all these people that abuse and hurt children to be able to have no infertility problems at all. But then I think did I do this to myself? I mean losing weight is a HUGE help with PCOS, so why don't I get my butt off this couch and walk? ARG. Well, I'm signing off for now.

3 comments:

Bernadette said...

Hey Emily =)

I haven't really done much with the other blogs yet but I sure hope to! You're welcome to poke around, though.

We have a thread on SC for IR Diet support. You should poke your head in and say hi if you want!

ELO said...

Thanks Bernadette! I hate feeling like I'm going through this alone, but I can't seem to give up my carbs just yet, ya know?

Em

Sarah said...

Hi, Em!! I'm happy to have another blog to read. I understand the difficulty in trying to get motivated to lose weight - even if you have great reasons to do so. I'm sort of in the same boat myself at the moment. Hang in there and just take it a day at a time. Love you! Sarah