Hi ladies
Here’s the epic saga of my ovaries, this is a long one, so strap in! Apols for such a long post, but quite a lot has gone on….!
So, 5 years ago I came off the pill to go and get myself checked out, as I’d never had proper periods when not on the pill, so did wonder if something might not be quite working.
One nine-month long anovulatory cycle later, I have a private fertility workup where I’m diagnosed with PCOS, but everything else is looking dandy.
Dial forward 5 years and we’ve got married and want to start TTC. I’ll skip past the months of pre TTC planning cos of epilepsy and heavy duty pain meds for a spinal injury..
My gynae (private) had said we could start Clomid straight off the pill if we wanted, given that I’d basically never really had periods, so up to us if/when we wanted it.
In June I came off the pill just to have the summer to get one set of hormones out of my system before putting another lot in. Amazingly, I ovulated on my first month off the pill, and get a very light AF 2 weeks later. Which meant I could go and get my day 3 bloods done.
I saw my consultant last Monday for the results of my Day 3 bloods, and they were pretty much catastrophic.
When I’d last had bloods done, at the age of 28, my FSH was great (low), my AMH was good (high), my ovaries were polycystic but my antral follicle count was good and I had a cracking ovarian reserve. PCOS presents fertility issues, but it's usually very easily dealable-withable.
My blood tests last week indicated at 33 I had the ovaries of a premenopausal women in her late 40s. FSH ridiculously high (v bad), AMH practically non existent (very very bad). So bad that most clinics wouldn’t accept someone with those scores as the chances of getting any eggs out for IVF would be tiny. Seemingly crashing towards premature ovarian failure.
FUCK.
However the scan showed a different picture. There was def some activity going on in my ovaries, incl a dominant follicle, suggesting I was gearing up to ovulate this month. Whereas the blood tests suggested we’d see ovaries that were completely asleep.
In the consultant’s words ‘something doesn’t stack up’, as the tests are saying two completely different things, and all my meds over recent years might have sent my hormones haywire. So he starts me on low dose Clomid (50mg, 5 day course) to see if it has any effect at all on my ovaries - more as a diagnostic test than anything, as we obv didn’t expect anything to happen. So that’s why I had it from Day 8 - it was a bit of an unforeseen ‘oh shit let’s try and work out what’s going on’ decision, than a normal Clomid cycle.
The last week has been so so hard, as it was a lot to deal with. I’d gone from being polycystic with a good ovarian reserve at 28, to seemingly pre menopausal at 33.
I was coming to terms with the very real possibility I might never be able to conceive, and seriously thinking about the possibility of donor eggs. And very, very, very sad.
However.
Given the bloods, it looked like we’d need the sledgehammer approach to get any response, and the gentle nudge of low dose Clomid was likely to do bugger all.
Except it didn’t. I took it Mon-Fri last week, and on Tues the scan showed a nice ripe juicy 22mm follicle, and 2 other smaller ones that the Clomid had kicked into gear.
Fuck. Me.
Consultant said he absolutely didn’t expect to see this at ALL. He was flabbergasted looking at the ultrasound screen. It is v v v good news.
Holy crap, my ovaries responded to low dose Clomid. WTF?!
My lining was very thin, so even if we do manage to catch this egg, the chances of implantation this month are slim. And giving me medication to thicken the lining would throw everything else out, and he doesn’t want to bugger around with my messed up hormones even more.
Basically the lining hadn’t tracked with the follicles - and the Clomid also completely dried up my CM. And as he explained, there’s several parts to conceiving - getting an egg, getting it fertilised, and getting it implanted. Clomid’s helped with the first, but with hostile CM and a thin lining, that’s likely to make getting pregnant quite tricky.
Had a trigger shot on Weds, which means I should have ovulated today.
Which hopefully means I’ll have an actual cycle and even if I don’t get a proper period because the lining is so thin, my cycle will be reset so we can redo the Day 3 bloods.
Well, obv I hope I miraculously get a BFP in 2 weeks, but hey!
The Clomid response is v positive but the effect on the lining / CM isn’t great. He’d said in very lean women with low oestrogen anyway that can often be the case apparently 
And we still have the question of WTF is going on with my hormones. My bloods say one thing, my scans & ovaries say another.
My consultant is the lead clinician for reproductive medicine at Barts Hospital, so he knows his stuff. He said the bloods had him completely stumped and (his words) ‘I’m not usually stumped’.
So Christ knows what kind of medical freakshow marvel I am.
However, given I’ve miraculously responded to 50mg Clomid - which according to my blood tests shouldn’t have happened - then there is a v v v good chance that I should respond well to much stronger FSH stimulation for IVF
Head still spinning tbh!
PHEW
If you made it this far, have a 
from me and well earned 
and 
!