My PCOS Became My Blessing
The silver lining I never knew existed with my chronic endocrine disorder
When I was 19, I was diagnosed with PCOS.
I found out in a way that no one hopes to find out about their condition, in a fit of crisis that landed me in the emergency room. Sometimes I wonder how my journey would have been different if I had had the news broken to me by a trusted family doctor and not multiple doctors scratching their heads and shoving speculum after speculum up into my pelvis to try to figure out why I looked the shade green that the Chicago River was that day. After a full day of observation, I was told that after round after round of testing they would be diagnosed with PCOS, even though I don’t “look the part”.
Never in my life had I had a normal period. Not even when I was a teenager. Growing up, I never felt comfortable opening up to anyone about my cycle. Not only was there very little information provided, high school health class being the joke that it was, but talking about menstruation was too close to talking about sex to be a topic that I could easily bring up with anyone. It could be easy to tie that in to multiple different factors, whether it be family dynamics, growing up Roman Catholic, or the most likely, I was horribly socially anxious and just didn’t know how.
Since I had always been a highly active kid, and a slender one, no one batted an eye if it ever came up. It was relatively common in dance circles to have a mercurial relationship with one’s cycle - and even a messed up badge of honor if you didn’t get it at all. Years later, I shake my head in disgust at the socially bolstered belief that ignoring your 5th vital sign as a woman meant that you were one degree closer to meaningless acceptance. Year after year, I waited for things to even out, but they never did.
Some strides have been made as far as treatment options for PCOS, but at the time, all they could do was put me on birth control and tell me that I would have a very low chance of having children on my own. The news was pretty upsetting, but in a way, I mentally took that information and shoved it off for future Megan to worry about. At the time, I was with a man who made it very clear that he wasn’t ready for children, and I knew in my heart of hearts that he wasn’t the man I wanted to be their father. I did however take that so close to heart that it was one of the first things I brought up when I realized I was falling for my now husband.
Since then, like many others, I’ve struggled with random weight fluctuations, hormonal disfunction, blood sugar management issues, cortisol management issues, more cyst ruptures, hair loss, and the constant messaging from doctors that if I kept doing what I was doing I was going to get diabetes and/or fatty liver and die early. But, with the same breath tell me that they had no solutions for me other than lose the weight I was already struggling with losing, and don’t even ask for advice on trying to get pregnant because the only answer they have is to put me on birth control.
Fast forward just shy of 7 years later. I was 25. My husband and I had finally decided to start trying for kids. Something we both want more than anything. I knew the moment I met him that he was my person and that he would not only make an amazing husband, but an amazing father. I also always knew, and feared, that the shadow that loomed over me my whole life would be the reason that building our family would not be easy. Feeling the cloud of uncertainty finally fly above and ahead of me instead of behind me filled me with dread.
I wish I could hold that version of me. Go back and just give her one really long, firm hug. The one who would sob on the bathroom floor in frustration, confusion, and fear that her body wouldn’t be enough to provide us with the life that we desperately wanted. The one that underwent 13 rounds of letrozole and dealt with all of the side effects that came with micro-dosing chemotherapy for the chance at having a baby.
Just for a moment.
Just so that she could see me here at 18 weeks pregnant.
See the baby bump that we never allowed ourselves to picture in the mirror and hear that I’m considered low risk by my doctors, with all testing coming back not only normal, but with flying colors.
Now here’s one thing that came to me as a bit of an epiphany a few days ago that I voiced to my husband tonight.
”All of the years of not knowing what was going on with my body has prepared me mentally for pregnancy in a way I didn’t anticipate.”
The moment that that came out of my mouth I realized how true it was.
Personally, I can’t imagine what this first pregnancy would be like if my cycle was 28 days on the dot, with symptoms I could predict for all of my life. I know that there are and will be women that have that experience, and for them I wish all possible joy and happiness in life. I hope they have clear skin and when they get pregnant I hope they have zero complications and their babies come out perfectly healthy.
I just know that there’s a certain amount of rubber cement you end up emulating after year after year of having little to no answers about the root cause of your symptoms. To wake up day after day not knowing what your body is going to throw at you and you having to be okay with it because that’s just the way it is.
But there has been something absolutely heartwarming about pregnancy because not only am I where I only hoped in my wildest dreams I would be, growing my baby, but for once my symptoms not only make sense but are shared by the larger community of women across the span of time and region. That’s a feeling of broader community that I never felt included in.
So when I say that pregnancy has been easy for me so far, I mean it. I may be dealing with the same symptoms everyone else does, but there’s nothing that can shake my spirits.
When I say that my PCOS has been a blessing, I may say it through gritted teeth, but mean it all the same.
And if I have a daughter, and she begins to show symptoms of this thing that I’ve dealt with nearly on my own my entire young adult and adult life, I trust that I have more knowledge and awareness of how to support her in all the ways I didn’t have.