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Claire's story
Hey, my name is Claire! I’m 29 and married to Greg who is 33, we have been together for 11 years.
As far back as I can remember I have always had irregular periods but PCOS wasn’t diagnosed until I went for routine blood tests at 19. It was a shock to the system as the one thing I took away from that appointment is “I may not be able to have kids”. I was young and not ready to start a family but the thought of it not being able to happen later on was scary.
One bonus of having PCOS is that I may only get 1 period a year, but when you are trying to get pregnant this is a nightmare. We haven’t been using any contraception for roughly 7 years - even though we weren’t actively trying, we weren’t trying to prevent it either.
After we got engaged in 2011, I made an appointment to see an Endocrinologist who was recommended to me by a family friend. I went along and PCOS was again confirmed. Anna started me on Provera to induce a period and then I could start my first cycle on Clomiphene. It was exciting as I was starting to get control of my cycle and have a ‘chance’ of getting pregnant! This carried on for a few more months, I would go for blood tests and wait for the results to arrive in the post to confirm if I had ovulated or not. It didn’t seem to follow any pattern and it certainly didn’t happen every month. By September 2012 I had more of an idea of what my cycle was doing and we managed to conceive – we got married in October and I knew that if I didn’t get my period while on our honeymoon I was pregnant! The first symptom I had was sore breasts but didn’t think anything of it as its normal for me to have this before a period. The second symptom was the feeling of a UTI on our wedding day – not ideal! Didn’t think anything of it and went away to Thailand thinking my period was going to arrive and that all the symptoms were related to PMS, not pregnancy as I would have imagined. How wrong I was!
Sadly, this pregnancy ended in a natural miscarriage. We started clomiphene again and fell pregnant again in October 2013. My HCG levels were rising although not in the normal range and as quickly as they should have been. A few scans to check on the pregnancy revealed that this pregnancy was ectopic. I was gutted, I was admitted to Christchurch Women’s hospital that day and scheduled for a Laparoscopy the following day. It was a long wait in the hospital with check-ups from the nurses, surgeon and the anaesthetist, there was an option of having some medication to flush the pregnancy and save my tube. I opted for tube removal as I had already been through a miscarriage and this medication would be 10 times worse. I now have less of a change conceiving naturally, but I didn’t have high hopes on that happening anyway. It was rough, and a slow recovery. I had 2 weeks off work and I’m glad I took that time to heal properly.
Fast forward to January 2014 and we are paying for our first private round of IVF at a fertility clinic. The injections weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. I was given Puregon for a few weeks and then Orgalutron and then a trigger. Egg collection day came and we got 9 eggs. Overnight, 7 fertilised on their own and 4 days later it was transfer day. One 5 day blastocyst was transferred back into my uterus and the Two Week Wait began! We were lucky enough to have 4 embryos frozen, which could be used in the future. I looked on google to find a timeline for IVF pregnancies and this was great. I actually felt the time the embryo implanted so that was cool. I took a home test on Valentine’s Day (6dp5dt) and it was positive. However, slow rising HCG levels occurred again and the pregnancy was confirmed non-viable at around 8 weeks. After this, I opted for a D&C. Again, I didn’t want to go through a miscarriage – the thought of it going on and on really puts me off and it’s exhausting knowing what is happening when you want it to be successful.
I have found this whole journey incredibly stressful. I’ve been depressed, struggled with anxiety, shut myself away from the real world basically. I have lost touch with most of my friends and some family as I don’t think they understand what it’s like to go through fertility issues. Even after 3 years it’s hard to deal with, so I try to protect myself and only put myself into situations where I’m in control – don’t spring a lunch date with a pregnant friend on me when I’m not mentally prepared!
After our third loss we decided to take a break and booked a holiday to Canada and America for July 2015, something for us to look forward to.
I still take clomiphene on the odd chance it might work. If we aren’t successful this month we will book in for a frozen embryo transfer when we return in August. I’m not ready to give up yet!
