I’d been on BCP since I was age 18 as a means to control my acne and regulate my periods. After getting married in 2003, I came off the pill, and at first my cycles were still relatively regular. I noticed they progressively got longer and longer… 28 days, 32 days, 37 days, etc. After a few months of trying to get pregnant, I must have begun my anovulatory cycles, but didn’t know what that was or anything about it. I just figured, clearly my period was late, so I must have been pregnant, only to get negative pregnancy tests over and over.
I’d go to my OB, who would have me the pee on a stick – pregnancy test- (aka POAS) at her office, and with the continued negative tests that was it. I wasn’t pregnant. No blood work would be ordered. I was having really heavy flows by then and I was close to 300 lbs, so they chalked it up to I weighed too much.
I learned about temping/bbt from her and started doing it manually on photocopied charts. Then I joined FF (http://www.fertilityfriend.com) in 2004 and kept the data online. I started to notice strange patterns… true anovulatory patterns.
When I went for so long without a period, I was frustrated. The cycle after chart 3 here was a 3 month cycle of continuous bleeding. Can you imagine having period bleeding every day for 90 days??? I did. That freaked me out. After 1 month of my marathon bleeding, I went to see my first RE.
At that point it was clear to her that I had PCOS. She had me do the glucose test, and I failed horribly.
So we discussed “housecleaning” options. We decided to take a year off, go back on BCP to regulate my cycles and hopefully get me to stop bleeding. I had to begin the metformin (ended up at the full dose too – eventually) and I had to lose weight. She sent me to a dietician, and I began my journey to housecleaning.
I was 1 day away from having to have a D&C (scraping of my lining) to force my bleeding to stop. I stopped after 2 BC packs taken double the dose. Hormone hell! Talk about being scared straight.
I stopped temping, because with being on BCP and the housecleaning, I didn’t need too.
Fast forward to 2006. I had lost 70 pounds, and was in the best shape of my life. I had ABS! (sigh, I miss those). My RE and I decided I should come off BCP and see if my cycles had regulated themselves.
If they were still irregular after a 6 month timeframe, we’d go on Clomid.
I stayed on the metformin, but reduced the amount by ½. 2 weeks after my period, I noticed EW cm, and for giggles, I took a temp.
It was pretty low, so WTH, let’s practice right? That night resulted in my daughter.
Here’s that cycle (you’ll notice it’s vastly different):
So my RE was shocked, I was shocked, Craig was NOT prepared, as he was convinced I had 6 months of getting the BCP out of my system, and then we’d begin TTC. So much for planning, right?
I can’t remember what “symptoms” were going back so many years, but I can say that it was quite a journey. Oh, and after I got pregnant with my daughter, the pregnancy pretty much cured the whole PCOS/IR issue.
I’ve been regular to the day ever since.
I do know that 2ww symptoms and pre-pregnancy symptoms are VERY similar, so they tell you nothing. Sore breasts are a result of the progesterone surge in the 2ww that also causes elevated temps.
I finally gave up trying to tell if I was having 2ww or PG symptoms. I just chalked them all up to 2ww symptoms now.
