Last fall we decided to embark upon becoming parents. We just bought a house in August and moved October 26th. I decided that October would be my last month taking birth control pills (Sprintec). Started taking a prenatal vitamin (gummies!). Now here's a fair warning, I may get into 'yucky' stuff, but I'd rather tell the truth without sugar coating.
Anyways, the last period I had then was early November. There's a technical name for the obligatory period after the pills, but I forget what it is. We tried to get pregnant in November (but we may have missed a couple crucial days) and waited until December to start testing. I took a test a couple days before the 'missed period'. Negative. Damn. Waited until it was 'missed.' Negative. Dammit. Still no period came. On Christmas Eve tried testing again. Still negative. Now WTF is going on???
At this point I was thoroughly confused. In the past when I had went off the pill I immediately resumed normal periods. I honestly thought that is what would happen this time, thus we could try to get pregnant right away. It took quite a while for me to accept the fact that I just plain wasn't cycling. I figured let's just wait it out.
Now it's January 2013 and still no period. Gave up on even trying testing because I sure had no pregnancy symptoms and resigned myself to the fact I wasn't cycling. I decided it was time to schedule an appointment with the doctor, because the one thing that most agreed with online is to see a doc if you haven't had a period in three months. The soonest I could be seen was February 18th.
More research revealed that likely my issue is I'm not ovulating. Ovulating dictates the period, not the other way around. Most pills these days work by making the body think you're pregnant, that way you won't ovulate. Well dammit, I want to now! Ugh... I started seeing people talking about not having a period for almost a year and other health problems so I figured time to get the heck off the boards before I scare myself.
Fast forward to today, February 18th. Still no period. Went in to see an OB/GYN MD. Told her my history and that this is somewhat weird. Right now I'd say she doesn't seem too concerned. She pulled out the good ole chart showing what the ovary, hormones, and uterine lining are doing over the course of the cycle. She is assuming I'm stuck in the first stages (right after a period). I'm not having the FSH and LH surges to cause ovulation. After ovulation the estrogen and progesterone switch levels. Click here to see a picture of a similar chart. She would like to put me on progesterone for 10 days to trigger a period. Our hope is this will kickstart my body back into what it should be doing. Sounds good to me. Went over to Target to pick up the script (<$4, awesome). Shouldn't see side effects, should be similar to taking birth control pills. She also wanted to rule out any hormonal issues so we are also running labs to check my thyroid (TSH) and my pituitary (prolactin). We also were doing a pregnancy test to just double check. On physical exam everything looked good.
So I'll be starting the progesterone pills tonight and hoping I get a period in 11-12 days. We're hoping this will trigger an ovulation ~14 days after the start of the period. If I don't have another period in about 40 days and I'm not pregnant, then I will have to go back in and try a different course (one that starts off with estrogen). She picked the progesterone course also because it would be safer in case I did just conceive (but not detectable on tests yet). Cross fingers this works!
No comments:
Post a Comment