I’ll never forget the day when I was 15 years old and I went to my First Lady checkup, only to hear the words PCOS for the first of many times in the years to come.
Ever since my first period at 13 years old, I had only gotten 1 or 2 more, and according to the doctor, this was because I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which means that your ovaries look like you have a bunch of tiny cysts, and symptoms are not getting a period, excess hair, acne, and a bunch of other fun stuff.
Since I was only 15 back then and not in the “taking care of my health” mood back then, I simply did what the doctor said, which in my opinion today, was the easy way out. He said I had to take birth control in order to regulate my hormones and that maybe in some years my body would fix itself…….
To my opinion today, this was a mistake (more on that story here) because instead of attacking the root of the problem, I just took a pill every night (which took years to get used to; caused extreme weight gain, boob growth, hunger like crazy, and I’ve just never been a fan of getting so many chemicals inside you) and got my period every month as if there was no problem at all.
Fast forward 7 years later, in 2018 I was 22, and almost 2 years married.
I thought it was time to get my situation in order because I’ve always wanted to be a mom, and being on birth control was not going to get me there.
I’d also heard that because of being on the pill for so many years, it was going to take time for my body to readjust, and even girls with “clockwork” periods, would take 4-6 months without a period, just because their body was getting used to no birth control pills. Even though we didn’t want to have a baby right then, we did know it was in our next few years plan and the first step was getting off the pill to (hopefully) find out if my periods had regulated themselves.
It was no surprise when 6 months later, I had dropped 3 bra sizes, 5 kilos, appetite had disappeared and yes, still had no periods.
I went to get blood tests and my LH/FSH hormone ratio was the exact description of what PCOS is like. In simple words, my FSH (follicular stimulating hormone) was not in sync with the luteinizing hormone, and that caused me to not mature follicles in order to ovulate and have a complete cycle. Instead, they all stayed small and that’s why my ovary was full of cysts.
By then, my husband and I were in baby mood, and we kind of panicked because we understand what that meant; if I don’t ovulate I can’t get pregnant. We asked if there was anything we could do as a first approach and they recommended (of course) another pill called Clomid.
What does clomid do? This FORCES your body to ovulate and even gives you chances of twins.
We decided to try it and the first month I was super crazy measuring if I was ovulating with OPK pee sticks and obsessing over everything. I did ovulate and I swear I took like 20 pregnancy tests waiting to see the results when it was way too early to measure anything. LOL.
2 weeks later I got a blood test and I WAS pregnant, but with an extremely low number and a few days later, my period came. Turns out it was a chemical pregnancy and it happens to a lot of women every month, it’s just that since nobody is obsessing like I was, they don’t find out. We honestly were a bit disappointed – but didn’t feel a “loss” or as if it were a “miscarriage” because we never got excited in the first place, we just felt positive about the pill working and decided to try again next month.
To make the story short, we tried 3 more months with Clomid, increasing the dosage every month and I DID NOT ovulate even once after that chemical pregnancy. I was so confused as to why it worked the first time and not on the rest….
I was also becoming overwhelmed with the whole pregnancy subject, so my husband and I decided to forget about the baby chapter for at least 1 year and agreed that when we felt was the right time, we would look more into IVF or a stronger treatment. It felt like a good decision and since I was only 24, I also felt like I had time to enjoy other things we were living. We traveled, I started my own business, we went out to concerts, drank (a lot) of wine, and I was just focused on being healthy with the best-case scenario being that I would be getting my period – at least once!
I’ve always been a super healthy eater, and my husband and I also own supplement company, so I was supplementing with Omega 3, Matcha, Vitex and a bunch of stuff that supposedly gets your hormones in order (none of the ones mentioned are made by our company nor am I sponsored by them).
Again, this was with the objective to get my acne and hormones in order, but hoping that maybe in the best-case scenario, I would get a natural period without forcing it with chemicals (I honestly did not have much faith in it). Months passed, and I read and learned so much about a supplement called INOSITOL, which is natural, and I noticed women giving magical reviews about how it helped get their periods back, so I decided to try it out. To be honest, I felt that if strong chemicals from Clomid had not worked, a supplement was not going get the job done either, but I tried it anyway.
It was summer in Barcelona, and my husband and I had our mind OFF pregnancy. We went out to eat every day, drank more wine than we can count, ate pizza like crazy, and had our minds on anything but pregnancy. It wasn’t until one day I noticed that my nipples were hurting (and they NEVER hurt) that I got suspicious.
I remembered that this would always happen before a period and I was SO excited because my first thought was that the inositol had worked and I was about to get my very first period. I waited and waited and waited and when nothing happened, I just rolled my eyes and cursed on the supplement for getting my hopes up.
When the pain did not go away (I couldn’t even get under the shower because the pain was so strong) I did the math and looked for a pregnancy test in my bathroom drawer (remember, from the thousands I had bought during the chemical pregnancy when I was obsessed, LOL) but of course, I had run out. All I had were ovulating sticks so I just peed on that and it was SUPER positive.
Never had I gotten such a positive ovulation stick because I did NOT ovulate. With shaky hands, I turned to google, who told me that a positive pregnancy shows up as a VERY positive ovulation test. I ran out to buy a test and yes, I was pregnant. It was such a shock to see that double line I had so much wanted before and now was not expecting that I just shook all the way home to tell my husband.
Since it was just a shock, and I such as keeping secrets, there was no time for cute announcements for him. My mind was just thinking HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. When I finally told him, He was just as shocked I was, but since being parents had always been our dream, we could not have been happier (after the shock subsided).
So yes, that’s how inositol (and a few other supplements) got me pregnant in 2 months. I hope this story helps anyone that is living a similar situation since I know how frustrating the process can be. Best of luck to you all, and any questions message me on Instagram/send me an email/ comment below.
