CBEFM and PCOS

My best friend gave me her CBEFM today. I'm very excited to have saved that money, especially as I'm not sure it will work for me. I am taking Clomid and Metformin this cycle, and from what I've read the Clomid can affect the readings. So I'll try it out, and I'm not out anything but the test strips. Which were pricey in and of themselves, but much less than the strips and the monitor.

AF is here. Finally. Though I don't love it - when did I start cramping like this? I used to think that girls who complained of cramps were exaggerating. Now, I feel almost crippled by the pain sometimes. I need drugs, hot tea, and a heating pad to get through a bad day. There's a company that makes those temporary heating pads that stick to your body, like for a pulled shoulder or back. They make them for cramps, too - they heat up and stay warm for about 8 hours, and you just stick them in the front of your underpants on the side that's hurting. I need to get me a few more of those. Maybe I'll make it through work tomorrow.

My friend also gave me four different books on PCOS. I'm not much of a non-fiction reader. Give me an 800-page fantasy, and I'll rip through it in a day or two. But a 100-page non-fiction book will take me weeks. I'm very interested in what I didn't know about PCOS, though, so I'm thinking I'll get through these fairly quickly. I'm already making connections to things I never thought would be tied to my infertility - overweight, facial hair, depression, acne... All the lovely things I've tried to treat separately are actually all linked together. My migraines fit in, as does my high blood pressure.

It's amazing, really, how interconnected our bodies are. Who would have ever guessed that my high blood pressure would be a symptom of the PCOS that is causing fertility issues? That the fact that I need to wax my chin, and have adult acne, is part of the same syndrome that contributes to my headaches, depression, and anxiety? It's crazy.

I'm switching docs next month. I found one I'm familiar with, who takes a more holistic approach to medicine. As she's been through fertility issues herself, I'm hoping I can go to here with my prescription bottles and say "help me fix this." I know she's the right one to work with me and my gyn to get us pregnant.

Someone on the message boards I frequent just announced she's pregnant. I'm so totally excited for her - she's been trying for 23 months. And yet, I can't help but feel jealous. Do I have to wait 23 months myself? Will I be one of the women who's been on the boards for five years? I cry a lot more lately, since I started the Clomid last cycle. I cried while I typed her a congratulations message. I mean the congratulations with all of my heart. And I'm sure she'd understand the tears. And, it hurts less to hear it from someone who's been trying for as long and longer as I have, than from a "newbie" who just popped in last month to say she was going to start trying, and then announced a BFP right away.

I have to remember that a baby is neither a punishment nor a reward. We don't get pregnant on the merit system. This journey has taught me and my husband just how much we want a child of our own. We entered TTC with a little bit of trepidation - now our will is solidified. We will be parents, whatever it takes. Hopefully we will be parents to a little version of us, born of us. But if that's not in the cards for us, and we've exhausted every other option, we will adopt, and love another's child as deeply as if he or she were born of us. We are resolved, we are determined, and we will be parents one day, however that looks.