Renee's PCOS and Fertility Story
By Renee Owens
My peroids had always been irregular, right after the very first one they were few and far between.
When I say I always knew I would struggle to conceive, I mean I literally just knew it wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t anything that stood out to me in particular as I didn’t know much (if at all) about PCOS or even the fact that irregular periods aren’t normal, but it was just something that I felt like I would always need to go through.
August 2016 marked the first "official" month of trying for a baby PROPERLY - we had never tried nor prevented.
In October 2016 I was able to get an appointment with one of our top gynaecologists here in Hawkes Bay. He did an internal ultrasound and was able to tell me I had PCOS. I had irregular periods - like maybe 3 a year, i didn't have weight gain, in fact i struggled to put on weight most of my life, I had oily skin and acne, and i would have huge blind pimples, as well as very painful periods that on a few occasions made me vomit.
He began me on clomid with which I had great success on, but still no positive pregnancy test. We tried this on the lowest dose for 3 months and we would re-visit and change the game plan if necessary. January 2017 rolled around and the Dr suggestsed we have my husband do a semen analysis to rule that out and if that was clear then I would go into another 3 month cycle of a higher dose of clomiphene.
I can’t quite remember how look it took to get the results back from the semen analysis but we later learnt that it was in fact PCOS AND low sperm count that we were working with. At this point he then referred us to Fertility Associates in Wellington.
23rd June 2017 was our first appointment with the Fertility Specialist (FS). We qualified for public funding so we officially joined the hundreds of other people on the wait list the following month with an expected time frame of 12-18months.
7months later we received the letter in the mailbox announcing we were near the top of the list and the clinic would be in touch with us closer to the time. We went in for our drug induction where the nurse explains about the drugs, what the process looks like, showed us how to administer the injections, and what a "textbook" cycle could look like.
April 1st 2018 was the very first injection of follicle stimulating hormone. This went on for roughly about 5 days, then we added in Orgalutran - which blocks the hormone that would normally stimulate the release of the eggs. 6th April was a blood test and internal ultrasound to check the follicles and hormone levels. Trigger must've been around the 10th April and then the egg collection took place on the 12th. They collected 33 eggs, 31 mature, 19 fertilised overnight, and then by day 5 we had 11 embryos. I was at risk of OHSS (short answer my oestrogen was too high) so I had to wait until a next period before we could do ahead with an embryo transfer. Well this turned into me losing patience waiting for a period that I knew would never arrive, so I asked if I could take Provera - so luckily they prescribed that to me so I was able to get into a cycle.
Embryo transfer happened July 4th, and we now have a (nearly) 2 year old!
Trying for the second has proven a bit more challenging. same ordeal- start provera to bring on a period, then on day 1 start the Progynova and Utrogestan in the lead up to the expected transfer date. We had a transfer on 21st August 2020, my first BHcG was 452, then 5 days later it came back 6999 - then the following morning i had passed that baby. - talk about blindsided!!! To go from what were such high numbers on both occasions which had us feeling really confident, to then suddenly all your hopes and dreams literally shedding leaving your body and flushed away.
We decided to have a break and revisit this in after Christmas/NY.
Christmas day I was blessed with an unexpected and painful period, so I started on the Progynova in preparation for another transfer.
We had our second transfer early this year, and this time it was a very slow progression, first BHcG was 93, a week later it was 563, another week later it was 4215. I thought we were right on track now but same thing again, very next day it was all over.
So we aren’t sure where this leaves us at the moment. I have an appointment with the FS at the end of the month so I’m hoping he can do further investigations. I’m hoping if he does that it all comes back clear and we just happened to strike two not-so-great embryo's in a row. Maybe the PCOS has more to play in this than we know, I guess we will find out.
A fertility journey can be so challenging, at times heartbreaking, but I want you to know that you’re not alone. You’ve got this, we’ve got this - one step at a time.